Dow, DuPont Merger Receives Conditional OK in Europe

Edward Breen (left) is chief executive officer of DuPont and Andrew Liveris (right) is CEO of Dow.

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The planned merger between DuPont (NYSE: DD) and The Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW) has received conditional regulatory approval from the European Commission. The deal still needs to clear major regulatory hurdles in the U.S. and the companies say they are confident they will complete the necessary steps.

The company say they will continue to work "constructively with regulators in the remaining relevant jurisdictions." The $130 billion merger "of equals" was first publicly announced in December of 2015. In January, the companies said the deal was making "significant progress" and could close during the first quarter.

If the merger is complete, plans call for the resulting operations to be spun into three independent, publicly-traded companies. The $18 billion agriculture spin-off is expected to have a major presence in Indianapolis at the current Dow AgroSciences facility on the city’s northwest side. Dow and DuPont say, in all, the combination will result in $3 billion in cost synergies and a potential for $1 billion in growth opportunities.