Dow, DuPont may shed units to ease big deal

Dow Chemical and DuPont are reportedly looking for buyers of businesses where the two companies have areas of overlap, apparently to appease antitrust regulators evaluating their planned merger. According to reports from Bloomberg, Dow is shopping its ethylene-acrylic acid copolymers unit and DuPont is looking for a buyer for an herbicide business. “We do not comment on rumor or speculation,” a DuPont spokesperson says. Dow didn’t reply to a C&EN request for comment. In August, the European Commission launched an in-depth antitrust review because the two companies have similar business in agricultural chemicals, including herbicides, and packaging resins such as ethylene-acrylic acid copolymers, which are used to bind metals to polymers in packaging. Dow has a business in the copolymers under the Primacor name; DuPont markets a similar material called Nucrel. Both companies also have businesses in other packaging resins, including ethylene-vinyl acetate.