Government-owned China National Chemical Corp., known as ChemChina, said Monday that a U.S. national-security regulator had cleared its planned $43 billion acquisition of Swiss seed company Syngenta AG, removing one of the deal’s biggest potential hurdles.
The deal, which marks the most ambitious foreign takeover attempt by a Chinese company to date, is still subject to antitrust and other regulatory reviews.
Analysts had been watching for a decision from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS, a government body with the power to block deals that it deems a threat to the nation’s security, because a quarter of Syngenta’s sales come from North America.
