Who Acquires FMC?

Last week, it was announced that FMC's board authorized the exploration of strategic options, including a full sale of the company. For those who have followed FMC's trajectory over the past two years — the Rynaxypyr patent cliff, the balance sheet deterioration, the junk credit downgrade, and the negative free cash flow, this announcement wasn't entirely surprising.

What is interesting is the question it forces the entire crop protection industry to consider: who has the strategic rationale, the financial capacity, and the willingness to take on the acquisition?

The short answer in looking at it is that it is complex, which tells us a lot about where the crop protection industry is right now.

What a Buyer Actually Gets

FMC generated $3.47 billion in revenue in FY25, down 18% yoy. The market cap sits at roughly $1.8 billion, but the enterprise value, the true cost to the acquirer, is somewhere around $5.8 billion once you account for ~$3.5 billion in net debt. At a 2026 EBITDA forecast midpoint of ~$700 million, that implies an EV/EBITDA of about 8.3x. For context, Corteva's crop protection business trades at roughly 13x.

Rynaxypyr still generated around $800 million in FY25, but patents are expiring across all major markets by the end of this year. Roughly $1 billion of the core portfolio faces Chinese generic pricing pressure. Free cash flow was negative $165 million last year and is guided to approximately breakeven in 2026.

FMC is still the world's 5th largest crop protection company, with a pipeline targeting over $2 billion in new revenue by 2035. Sales from new active ingredient products hit ~$200 million in FY25 (54% growth) and are targeting $300–400 million in 2026. The molecules, fluindapyr, Isoflex, Dodhylex, rimisoxafen, are differentiated and patented.

The manufacturing restructuring targeting 35% cost reduction by 2027 creates margin upside if someone with operational scale can accelerate it/execute it.

Distressed pricing means the entry point is as cheap as it's going to get for a global crop protection platform like this.

FMC's biologicals ("Plant Health") segment is also an attractive asset. The biologicals market is where premiums are highest right now. A buyer primarily motivated by FMC's biologicals pipeline and platform could view the synthetic CP portfolio as the piece to divest rather than keep.

The question in my head is whether a buyer values that pipeline and platform enough to stomach the balance sheet.

The Strategic Buyer Overviews and Downloadable Acquirer Analysis

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