ACCO Industries is a 100 per cent subsidiary of American Cyanamid Company and recently set up a formulation facility for liquid formulations of agrochemicals at Dadra, in the Union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

The merger will see the American parent company's holding in Cyanamid Agro go up to around 68 per cent, though this is subject to FIPB approval. As per the recommended swap for the merger, for every 4.25 shares of ACCO, shareholders will get one share of Cyanamid Agro. The move will also see the Atul group's holding in the new merged entity go down from around 26 per cent to around 14 per cent.

The Cyanamid business will continue to operate under the Cyanamid Agro Ltd name. CAL came into operation in January 1998 as a result of the demerger of the agricultural products division of Cyanamid India.

"India offers a tremendous opportunity to grow our business. We are strengthening our focus on growing our business by bringing and introducing various new technologies which will be helpful to the Indian farmer.

Technology transfer to the farmers and growing market share are the areas of focus for us," said Cyanamid Agro managing director VR Kaudinya.

"We recognise the strengths that Indian businesses have in chemical synthesis and manufacturing of technical product and the synergies that can be gained by working closely with them. We are placing an increased emphasis on our strenghts which are in delivering new technologies, marketing expertise and developing a distribution network," he said.

Cyanamid has been active in the Indian agrochemical market for the last thirty five years and has a strong brand equity among Indian farm-ers. Cyanamid brands such as Thimet, Cythion, Ripcord, Stomp and Durmet are household names among rice, cotton and soyabean farmers.

Meanwhile, the formulation facility built by ACCO at Dadra will cater to the needs of the Indian business in formulating various new products that it expects to launch in the near future. The facility will also be used to make products for a significant volume of exports to Cyanamid subsidiaries in Asian countries.