SYNGENTA Group, the Swiss seed and fertilizer business owned by China National Chemical Corp., will use the proceeds from its expected US$10 billion initial public offering (IPO) to fund internal growth and an acquisition spree to snare more of the US$100 billion market for seeds and sprays, the agrichemical giant said Friday. The company’s prospectus to list on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style STAR Market was posted online by the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Friday, after its application was filed Wednesday. “Syngenta Group will expand and renovate its production facility and implement strategic acquisition to meet growing market needs,” the firm said. The Shanghai Stock Exchange filing showed Syngenta’s application to list on the STAR Market had been accepted and the company plans to issue up to 2.79 billion shares. Syngenta’s IPO still requires the approval of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and registration with the China Securities Regulatory Commission. The flotation, set to be the world’s biggest this year, will value the Basel, Switzerland-based firm at about US$60 billion including debt, or US$50 billion without, sources said. The float is expected to be bigger than video-sharing platform Kuaishou Technology’s US$6.2 billion Hong Kong IPO. It will likely be the two-year-old STAR board’s biggest. The filing means the flotation is likely to take place by the end by 2021, said the sources. The Swiss seeds and crop protection giant was bought in 2017 for US$43 billion by ChemChina, which was folded into Sinochem Holdings Corp. this year. The acquisition remains China’s biggest takeover of a foreign company and is aimed at using Syngenta’s top-tier chemicals and patent-protected seeds to drastically improve domestic agricultural output. (SD-Agencies) | 