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Business Matters: Bayer to buy Monsanto in record deal

News

Bayer to buy Monsanto in record deal

15/09/2016 GMT

BBC World Service - Business Matters, Bayer to buy Monsanto in record deal

Bayer to buy Monsanto; Singapore Airlines hand back their first A380; Hanjin ship sale

German chemicals giant Bayer pays $66bn for biotech business Monsanto. Singapore Airlines will not renew their first A380 lease. Troubled Hanjin sell three vessels to pay debts.

It’s a deal that would create the world’s biggest seeds and pesticides company, with enormous power over the world’s food supply. German chemicals giant Bayer is paying a record $66bn dollars for Monsanto, the controversial biotech company largely known for developing genetically modified seeds for crops. Though such products are widely used in the US, plans to introduce them into Europe have previously prompted fierce protest from environmental activists. They’re not the only ones who might be opposed to the deal – farming groups and anti-competition regulators are likely to voice concerns. We look at whether the deal will happen and why Bayer is so keen to bet the farm on the GM agriculture sector.

Germany certainly deserves plaudits for the number of refugees it has taken in from war-torn countries like Syria in the last year – about a million at the last count – but how are they doing at one of the key planks of integration, namely employment? A survey by the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper suggests not so well. The top 30 German companies have employed precisely 54 of those new arrivals, and 1 company alone accounts for 50 of those jobs. We sent our reporter to investigate what the jobs market is like for a refugee and a German commerce expert helps us understand the obstacles. 

Singapore Airlines won’t be renewing the lease on the first A380 super-jumbo it took from Airbus back in 2007. The decision is a fresh blow for Airbus which has more than halved its delivery targets for the high capacity jet. Is this a sign that big aircraft are falling out of favour in the aviation industry? 

Plus, are we seeing the start of a fire sale for the creditors of troubled shipping giant Hanjin? And have you ever tried a Chinese Mooncake?

Roger Hearing is joined throughout the programme by Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland and Rosie Blau, China correspondent for The Economist.

(Photo: Inside a Monsanto Greenhouse. Credit: Brent Stirton / Getty Images)

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