Dow AgroScience to divest AgroFresh business

In line with the Dow’s plans to divest $4.5 billion to $6 billion of non-strategic businesses and assets by 2015, the company confirmed that its AgroFresh businesses is being actively marketed for divestment. The Company expects to complete signing of these transactions by year-end 2014, and close in early 2015. 

As a global business unit of Dow AgroSciences, AgroFresh makes products used to enhance the freshness, quality and value of fresh produce, with its SmartFresh Technology, which was first tested in 1992. The company markets 1-MCP (1-Methylcyclopropene) based technologies that suppress ethylene development and its degrading effects on produce. Its customers include farmers, packers, shippers, exporters, and importers of agricultural products around the world. The company’s annual EBITDA is $40-50 million. Dow completed its acquisition of Rohm and Haas, the parent company of AgroFresh in 2009.