IBJ Says DowAgroSciences LLC May Become Stand-Alone Business

INDIANAPOLIS – Dow AgroSciences LLC, based here, is likely to become a stand-alone public company in the next three years, according to some Wall Street analysts if in a year or two Dow Agro’s profits are on course to double from current levels, reported the Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ) March 31.

The IBJ says that the parent company of Dow Agro, Michigan-based Dow Chemical Co., could sell Indianapolis-based Dow Agro to another agricultural company, as it tried to do back in 2009. Analysts said Dow Chemical didn’t like the offers it received at the time, which was in the darkest days of the global recession.

Dow Agro’s $7 billion in annual revenue would rank it as the fifth-largest public company in Indiana, behind only WellPoint Inc., Eli Lilly and Co., Cummins Inc. and Steel Dynamics Inc. The company has annual cash flow of about $1 billion, and thinks a raft of new products can double those profits in five to seven years.

Dow Agro employs about 1,800 people here, and its most recent hiring expansion touted annual wages from $65,000 to $95,000.