US: Sale of Iowa Fertilizer plant, $8 billion merger called off

The sale of a large fertilizer plant in southeast Iowa will no longer go through after two fertilizer companies called off an $8 billion deal.

CF Industries and OCI N.V. announced Monday they are canceling their deal, which involved Illinois-based CF Industries purchasing the North American and European operations of Netherlands-based OCI.

The buy would have included CF Industries taking over ownership of OCI’s $2 billion fertilizer plant in Wever, which is currently under construction and operates as Iowa Fertilizer Co.

The two companies said “changes in the regulatory and commercial environments” caused them to terminate the deal, specifically mentioning new tax regulations issued by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Last month, the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service announced new rules intended to curb “inversions,” The New York Times reported. Corporate inversions are the practice of companies re-incorporating in a foreign country, such as through a merger, often to lower their tax bills. In the proposed CF-OCI deal, CF Industries would have become a subsidiary of a new company headquartered in the Netherlands.

Full Content: The Des Moines Register

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