There have been some sizable mergers announced during 2015. The largest deal was Pfizer’s plan to acquire Allergan for $160 billion, creating a $320 billion healthcare company.
 
The announcement that the boards of DuPont and The Dow Chemical Company have approved a definitive agreement under which the companies will combine in an all-stock merger of equals, forming DowDuPont, is huge for a number of industries. The combined company will have approxImately $90 billion in sales, and will be an industry leader in the agriculture, material sciences and specialty products sectors (more on that in a moment). The merger is expected to be completed by the second half of 2016.
 
The merger is about as even as one can get. Upon completion of the transaction, Andrew Liveris, Dow’s chairman, president and CEO, will become executive chairman of the DowDuPont Board of Directors, and Edward Breen, DuPont’s chairman, and CEO, will become CEO of the company. The new company will have headquarters in both Midland, MI and Wilmington, DE; the board of directors will be equally divided between Dow and DuPont members; and Dow and DuPont shareholders will each own approximately 50% of the company.
 
DuPont is in just about every product imaginable, from plastics to agriculture. Among DuPont’s many businesses is its inkjet ink area, where it is probably the industry leader in producing inks for the home computer market, as well as textile inks. The company has a major position in conductive inks and pastes, and is a leader in manufacturing inks and pastes for the solar market. On the raw material side, DuPont is an industry leader in producing titanium dioxide, the key pigment for white paints and inks.
 
Interestingly, if the merger is approved, the plan is to separate DowDuPont into three independent, publicly traded companies within two years.
 
Here is where those three fields I mentioned before come in. The largest business is tentatively labeled as the Material Science Company. Combined, DuPont and Dow recorded approximately $51 billion in sales in this segment in 2014. This group will include DuPont Performance Materials and Dow’s Performance Plastics, Performance Materials and Chemicals, Infrastructure Solutions, and Consumer Solutions (excluding Dow Electronic Materials) businesses.
 
The second company would be centered on Agriculture. DuPont and and Dow both have sizable seed and crop protection businesses; in 2014, the combined revenue for the two companies’ Agriculture business was roughly $19 billion.
 
The third spin-out would be the Specialty Products group, consisting of DuPont’s Nutrition & Health, Industrial Biosciences, Safety & Protection and Electronics & Communications and the Dow Electronic Materials business. Its 2014 combined revenues were approximately $13 billion.
 
DuPont and The Dow Chemical Company are two of the most storied companies in business. DuPont was founded as a gunpowder maker in 1802, and includes Teflon and nylon among its inventions. The company recently spun off DuPont Performance Coatings (now Axalta Coating Systems) in 2013 and Performance Chemicals (now Chemours) in 2015.
 
Dow dates its history back to 1897, and has had some sizable acquisitions of its own (Union Carbide, Rohm & Haas). Combined, it will be interesting to see what this company can accomplish.