Syngenta, the Swiss agriculture company, has announced plans to divest its global vegetable seeds business – which is a high margin business with a significant global footprint and a wide array of best-in-class varieties. The company expects to attract significant third-party interest.
The company also announced today its intention to return significant levels of capital to shareholders through a share repurchase program. The initial program of more than $2 billion will commence in the coming weeks. This will be in addition to the progressive dividend policy which the company has followed for several years.
Michel Demare, chairman, Syngenta, said, “The board and management are determined to accelerate shareholder value creation and our actions today underpin our commitment to do so. Our commitment is also shown by the significant capital return program that we announced today.”
Mike Mack, chief executive officer, Syngenta, added, “By demonstrating and unlocking the inherent worth of our leading global seeds portfolio we can create significant additional value. We continue to make excellent progress with our AOL program which, together with our clear intent to drive margin improvement across the business, underpins our confidence in our 2018 margin target of 24-26 percent. For 2015, we reiterate the full year guidance that we outlined in July.”
