Abstract Innovations in biological pest control and digital technologies hold great promise to reduce risks from pesticide use without compromising on agricultural productivity. These innovations are often marketed by small and emerging companies such as the Koppert Group for biological pest control or CropX for digital tools for pest prediction. However, currently these innovative technologies fail to scale effectively. In this article, we investigate whether so-called killer acquisitions contribute to this development, i. e. whether emerging companies for biological pest control and digital technologies are acquired by established pesticide producers with the main goal of avoiding competition by discontinuing the activities of the acquired companies. We analyze merger and acquisition activities of the four largest pesticide producers worldwide (BASF, Bayer, Corteva and Syngenta) in relation to criteria setting out potential killer acquisitions for the period 2000–2020. Our analysis includes 18 eligible acquisitions in the area of biological pest control and digital farm management and decision support tools for pest control, 16 of which (with a total value of nearly 5 B) have characteristics of killer acquisitions. We conclude that increased attention by policy makers and antitrust authorities is needed to enable scaling of innovations in biological pest control and digital technologies. In particular, we argue that the current criteria triggering an investigation of merger and acquisition transactions by competition authorities should be reconsidered, i. e. the minimum size criterion and the criterion of market overlap between acquirer and acquisition target.
Koppenberg et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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