The next few months may prove pivotal to plans for Midland-based Dow Chemical and DuPont to merge.
The two rival chemical industry giants announced their $130 billion merger plans a year ago. It’s among several proposed mergers in the industry.
The Dow-DuPont merger has yet to win the blessing of government regulators. It’s also drawn the attention of Congress and several state attorneys general.
Perhaps most important, the merger has yet to win approval from the European Commission. The commission suspended its review twice in 2016, because the chemical industry giants were slow to provide information the commission requested.
A commission spokesman would only say the review in ongoing and is expected to be complete by the end of February.
A Dow spokeswoman says the companies remain “focused on closing the transaction” and expect the deal will close in the first quarter of the year.
If the merger goes further, company officials eventually plan to divide it into three smaller units.
Two would be based in Delaware. One would be based in Michigan.
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