The merger had previously been approved by Brazilian antitrust watchdog CADE.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) approved the acquisition of 100 per cent share capital of the agriculture company Viterra by Bunge, the commission said in a statement.
After the move, Bunge will acquire all issued and outstanding shares of Viterra. The primary shareholders of Viterra, such as Glencore PLC, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), and the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), will receive the shares of Bunge.
✔️ Bunge is mainly active in the sale of oilseed meals and vegetable oils. The company also sells grains and milled products, as well as unprocessed oilseeds and other products like sugar. In India, Bunge had sales of refined vegetable oils (groundnut oil, mustard oil, palm oil, rapeseed oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, sesame oil, oil blends, and other oils), crude vegetable oils (soybean oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil, sunflower oil), soybean meal, glycerine, margarine, lecithin, vanaspati, shortenings, yeast, and free fatty acids.
✔️ Viterra is a global agriculture network that connects producers and consumers to supply sustainable, traceable, and quality-controlled agricultural products to end users around the world. Its business, headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, covers the whole global supply chain, from the farm gate to the end user. The company is owned by its three shareholders, namely Glencore, CPP Investments, and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI). In India, the company sells grains like wheat, corn, sorghum, and rice, as well as raw vegetable oils such as soybean and sunflower oils.
In May, Bunge-Viterra merger was approved by Brazil's Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE). Last week, Reuters sources said the merger could be approved by the European Commission under certain conditions.
The merger of Bunge and Viterra raises serious concerns about market concentration and potential negative impact on competition, says Mikhail Shikhmuradov, an expert at the BRICS Competition Centre.
“The CCI's approval of the deal carries certain risks, and while the local market may not experience an immediate significant impact, the global implications will indirectly affect Indian consumers and farmers in the long term,”
notes the expert.
Under these circumstances, it is reasonable to require the merged company to guarantee the preservation of competitive prices and market access for national participants, Shikhmuradov says. It is also necessary to consider the possibility of introducing conditions similar to those proposed as part of the review of the deal in the EU, where the sale of Viterra's oilseed crushing and processing facilities in Poland and Hungary is being raised to ensure healthy competition in the local market.
Source: The Economic Times
