Marrone Bio closes its acquisition of Finland-based Pro Farm Technologies OY

Marrone Bio Innovations Inc (NASDAQ:MBII) announced Monday its acquisition of Finland-based Pro Farm Technologies OY has closed.

In a statement, the California-based company said that with the Pro Farm acquisition it is adding to its portfolio proprietary nutrient and biostimulant technology as well as products for seed and foliar treatments.

The deal has an agreed enterprise value of $31.8 million, Marrone Bio said.  

That includes a combination of $6.2 million cash and 12.7 million shares of Marrone Bio stock paid to Pro Farm’s equity holders, debt holders and advisors as well as the opportunity for potential payment of a total of up to $7.5 million of additional shares deliverable from 2021 through 2024 based agreed commercial milestones being achieved.

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As a result of the acquisition, Pro Farm has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Marrone Bio.

“I am pleased to announce the completion of our strategic acquisition of Pro Farm, which not only provides Marrone Bio with an exciting, complementary technology but with an expanded global distribution network for our entire product portfolio as well,” said Marrone CEO Pam Marrone.

“The addition of Pro Farm to our platform is expected to be accretive to net income and cash flow from operations in 2020. We look forward to further leveraging our technology and products across all three fast-growing biologicals categories of bioprotection, biostimulants and bionutrition.”

Furthermore, Pro Farm and Corteva Agriscience of Wilmington, Delaware have recently announced a strategic, long-term exclusive commercial agreement in Europe as part of Pro Farm’s expansion plans, the company said.

Together, both companies will develop and commercialize a suite of seed-applied biological products based on Pro Farm’s proprietary technology platform.

Corteva Agriscience will launch the first corn, sunflower and oilseed rape products based on Pro Farm’s biological platform in Europe in the 2020-2021 season, with a target treatment coverage of more than 10 million hectares, or about 25 million acres.

Marrone Bio provides bio-based pest management and plant health products for the US and international agricultural and water markets.

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