Wisconsin company buys Hawaii arm of Syngenta

A family-owned Wisconsin company is about to take over the Hawaii operations of global agribusiness giant Syngenta and become a new major player in local corn seed production.

Madison, Wis.-based Hartung Brothers Inc. is expected to acquire Syngenta’s Hawaii operations, which include about 100 full-time employees and 4,000 acres of land on Oahu and Kauai.

The sale agreement, initially publicized in mid-May, is scheduled to close by the end of this month.

Financial terms of the sale have not been disclosed. Syngenta, however, said it will hire Hartung for contract work in Hawaii. Hartung has provided corn production, processing and distribution services for Syngenta and its predecessors on the mainland since the 1980s.

“The goal has been to have our employee talent base and facilities maintained and to contract work with the new owner, and that will be achieved,” Ed Attema, Syngenta’s head of global seed operations, production and supply, said in a statement.

Syngenta and Hartung said in a joint statement that “the purchase ensures ongoing crop innovation will continue to be part of Hawaii agriculture, which plays an important role in food production for the U.S. and around the world.”

Hartung president and co-founder Dan Hartung said in the statement that his company was impressed with Syngenta’s Hawaii staff and that the acquisition will bring new opportunities for Hartung and its customers.

Hartung was incorporated by Dan, twin brother Don and other family members in 1975, a year after the two brothers rented 40 acres in Wisconsin to raise field corn. In the decades since then, the enterprise has expanded into seed production, fertilizer plants, transportation and vegetable production with operations in several states and Canada.

Syngenta’s roots in Hawaii go back to the late 1960s through predecessors including Novartis and Northrup King on Kauai. Expansion to Oahu happened in 2004 when Syngenta acquired Garst Seed Co. operations in Kunia.

In August, Syngenta announced that it was seeking to sell its Hawaii operations with an aim to have the buyer provide it with seed production services.

The sale effort followed a plan Syngenta announced in 2014 to cut $1 billion in costs by 2018 through consolidating research and development sites, outsourcing standard activities and other measures.

Syngenta is also preparing to sell itself to China’s state-owned chemical company, China National Chemical Corp., for $43 billion.

The Chinese company, also known as ChemChina, on Wednesday said about 95 percent of Syngenta stockholders have tendered their shares toward completing the sale, and that the share transaction is scheduled to take place Wednesday.

Syngenta was created in 2000 by Novartis and AstraZeneca combining and spinning off their agribusiness units. Last year the company produced $12.8 billion in sales largely from seeds, insecticides, herbicides and fungicides.