Reuters
Archer Daniels Midland Co said on Wednesday that South Korea had cleared the grain trader’s takeover of GrainCorp Ltd, leaving China and Australia as the last two countries that need to approve the deal.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission became the seventh government agency to approve the nearly A$3.0 billion ($3.1 billion) acquisition, according to ADM.
U.S.-based ADM, one of the world’s largest agricultural trading houses, is among the four large players known as the “ABCD” companies that dominate the flow of farm goods around the world. The others are Bunge, Cargill Inc and Louis Dreyfus Corp.
ADM struck a deal in April to buy Australian grain handler GrainCorp, the latest move in the rapid consolidation of the global grain sector amid intense competition to feed fast-developing countries like China.