Crop Protection Trade Sees Big Acquisition

Agro-Chemical company Crystal Crop Protection, one of the leading research and development based crop protection companies in India, has acquired 3 insecticide companies—Dursban, Nurelle-D and Predator—in India from US-based Corteva Agriscience. 

The said acquisition took place earlier this week. The acquisition is expected to help the company generate additional revenue of about Rs 50 crore annually, some news reports suggest. The company has seven manufacturing plants in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Haryana. It posted a net profit of about Rs 130 crore over a turnover of around Rs 1,400 crore during the last financial year.

Ankur Aggarwal, Managing Director of Crystal Crop Protection group said: "This acquisition is a part of Crystal’s strategy to add value to its business and ensure growth for all its stakeholders. We believe such strategic acquisitions would improve our competitiveness, further help in diversifying our product portfolio and thus strengthen our market presence across India.”

This is also an important development for the industry and specifically for Crystal group as it is there fifth acquisition in last two years, the first was the acquisition of the manufacturing facility at Nagpur from Cytec India. This acquisition has been followed by the second which was Indian Grain Sorghum, Pearl Millet and Fodder Sorghum seeds business from Syngenta India, third was four brands namely Furadan, Splendour, Affinity Force and Metcil from FMC India Limited and fourth was three brands from Syngenta, namely Tilt, Proclaim and Blue Copper.

Agro-Chemicals products company, Crystal has made a number of acquisitions in the past few years. Crystal signed an agreement with Germany's BASF SE in 2016 to acquire the brand Bavistin for use in India. Crystal Crop Protection Limited also acquired Hyderabad based company Rohini-Seeds Private Limited and Rohini Bio seeds and Agritech Private Limited is 2011, which has brought its presence in the seeds market.

The Crystal’s big move has come on the very crucial period following techsciresearch’s report on the Indian seeds market. The report suggests that Indian Seed market registered robust growth at a CAGR of 8.4%, in volume terms during 2012-16 and is expected to showcase double-digit growth over the coming years. The Indian seed industry is projected to surpass USD4.3 Billion by the end of 2026. Owing to favourable policies and plans laid by Government of India such as National Policy for Farmers (NPF), National Food Security Mission, Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), National Mission on Agricultural Extension and Technology (NMAET), etc., the seed industry of the country would witness tremendous growth through 2026.