Aaron J. Bouchie

The supervisory board of Aventis SA (Strasbourg, France) revealed plans in November to divest the agricultural business Aventis CropScience (Lyon, France) by the end of 2001 in order to focus on pharmaceuticals, which accounts for 75% of the parent business. The divestment may take the form of an initial public offering under the name "Agreva," but big players in the agrochemical market have shown interest in purchasing the division, most notably Bayer AG (Monheim, Germany). However, 24% shareholder Schering AG (Berlin) is contractually able to veto major strategic decisions involving the division. Citing the less-than-stellar debut of Syngenta (Basel, Switzerland)—the merged agriculture divisions of AstraZeneca and Novartis—which hovered between $8.31 and $9.12 in the first three weeks after its November 14 opening of $8.625 on the New York Stock Exchange, spokesperson Friedrich von Heyl says "We are not in a hurry."

Aventis says the plan for transition from life sciences to strictly pharmaceutical was made before the StarLink controversy (see p. 11).