GM Watch
  • Main Menu
    • Home
    • News
      • Newsletter subscription
      • News Reviews
      • News Languages
        • Notícias em Português
        • Nieuws in het Nederlands
        • Nachrichten in Deutsch
      • Archive
    • Articles
      • GM Myth Makers
      • GM Reports
      • GM Quotes
      • GM Myths
      • Non-GM successes
      • GM Firms
        • Monsanto: a history
        • Monsanto: resources
        • Bayer: a history
        • Bayer: resources
    • Videos
      • Latest Videos
      • Must see videos
      • Agriculture videos
      • Labeling videos
      • Animals videos
      • Corporations videos
      • Corporate takeover videos
      • Contamination videos
      • Latin America videos
      • India videos
      • Asia videos
      • Food safety videos
      • Songs videos
      • Protests videos
      • Biofuel myths videos
      • Index of GM crops and foods
      • Index of speakers
      • Health Effects
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donations
News and comment on genetically modified foods and their associated pesticides    
  • News
    • Newsletter subscription
    • News Reviews
    • News Languages
      • Notícias em Português
      • Nieuws in het Nederlands
      • Nachrichten in Deutsch
    • Archive
  • Articles
    • GM Myth Makers
    • GM Reports
    • GM Quotes
    • GM Myths
    • Non-GM successes
    • GM Firms
      • Monsanto: a history
      • Monsanto: resources
      • Bayer: a history
      • Bayer: resources
  • Donations
  • Videos
    • Index of speakers
    • Glyphosate Videos
    • Latest Videos
    • Must see videos
    • Health Effects
    • Agriculture videos
    • Labeling videos
    • Animals videos
    • Corporations videos
    • Corporate takeover videos
    • Contamination videos
    • Latin America videos
    • India videos
    • Asia videos
    • Food safety videos
    • Songs videos
    • Protests videos
    • Biofuel myths videos
    • Index of GM crops and foods
  • Contact
  • About

GMWatch Facebook cornfield banner

INTRODUCTION TO GM

GMO Myths and Facts front page.jpg

SCIENCE SUPPORTS REGULATION OF GENE EDITING

Plant tissue cultures

GENE EDITING: UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES AND RISKS

Damaged DNA on fire

GENE EDITING MYTHS AND REALITY

A guide through the smokescreen

Gene Editing Myths and Reality

ON-TARGET EFFECTS OF GENE EDITING

Damaged DNA

CITIZENS’ GUIDE TO GM

GMO Myths and Truths front cover

LATEST VIDEOS

  • Herbicide-tolerant/Bt cotton chaos in Indian fields
  • Seed keepers and truth tellers: From the frontlines of GM agriculture
  • Myths and Truths of Gene-Edited Foods

KEVIN FOLTA: A rogue’s gallery

Roundup, dollars and Kevin Folta

Please support GMWatch

Donations

You can donate via Paypal or credit/debit card.

Some of you have opted to give a regular donation. This is greatly appreciated as it helps place us on a more stable financial basis. Thank you for your support!

Monsanto's stock is tanking. Is the company's excitement about GMOs backfiring?

Details
Published: 11 October 2015
Twitter

Monsanto is slashing 2,600 jobs, 12% of its workforce, and spending $3 billion to buy back shares

Take action/donate to help defeat Monsanto’s attempt to kill GMO labelling in the US Senate:
http://bit.ly/1VLY9cg
—

Monsanto's stock is tanking. Is the company's own excitement about GMOs backfiring?

By Tom Philpott
Mother Jones, 9 Oct 2015
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2015/10/monsanto-stock-decline-layoffs
[links to sources at the URL above]

Pity Monsanto, the genetically modified seed and agri-chemical giant. Its share price has plunged 25 percent since the spring. Market prices for corn and soybeans are in the dumps, meaning Monsanto's main customers — farmers who specialize in those crops — have less money to spend on its pricey seeds and flagship herbicide (which recently got named a "probable carcinogen" by the World Health organization, spurring lawsuits).

Monsanto's long, noisy attempt to buy up rival pesticide giant Syngenta crumbled into dust last month. And Wednesday, Monsanto reported quarterly revenues and profits that sharply underperformed Wall Street expectations. For good measure, it also sharply lowered its profit projections for the year ahead.

In response to these unhappy trends, the company announced it was slashing 2,600 jobs, 12 percent of its workforce, and spending $3 billion to buy back shares. Share buybacks are a form of financial (as opposed to genetic) engineering—they magically boost a company's earnings-per-share ratio (a metric closely watched by investors) simply by removing shares from the market. And buybacks divert money from things like R&D — or keeping a company's workforce whole — and into the pockets of shareholders.

In a conference call with investors (transcript), Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant put a positive spin on the company's prospects. "Our germplasm performance has never been better, our trait technology has continued to leap and our market position and pipeline remains strong," he declared. But later, he hit upon a theme that became obvious when Monsanto was stalking Syngenta: that Monsanto's leadership feels the company is too invested in high-tech seeds, and underinvested in old-fashioned pesticides. (The market for Syngenta owns the globe's leading position.)

In the call, Jeff Zekauskas, an analyst with JP MorganChase, asked Grant whether Monsanto was still interested in boosting its pesticide portfolio by buying a competitor. Grant's answer was essentially yes, "We still believe in the opportunity of integrated solutions," i.e., selling more pesticides along with seeds. He added:

“We've got a 400 million acre seed technology footprint. We've seen time and time again that we can increase revenue and improve grower service by bringing chemistry up on that footprint.”

Translation: Our patented seeds and traits are sown on 400 million acres worldwide (about four times the size of California), and if we could sell more pesticides (chemistry) to the people who farm those acres, we could make more money. Later, he noted:

“We continue to see duplication in R&D in the sector. We continue to see the low effectiveness of R&D with some of our competitors and we continue to think that consolidation in this space is inevitable.”

Translation: Research-and-development investments in the ag-biotech/agri-chemical sector aren't paying off — not enough blockbuster new products — so the few companies remaining in the field (there are six) are going to start swallowing each other up.

Massive layoffs, share buybacks, dreams of buying up the pesticide portfolios of competitors — these aren't characteristics of a company confident in the long-term profitability of its core technology: the genetic modification of crops.

Menu

Home

Subscriptions

News Archive

News Reviews

Videos

Articles

GM Myth Makers

GM Reports

GM Myths

GM Quotes

Non-GM Successes

Contacts

Contact Us

About

Facebook

Twitter

Donations

Content 1999 - 2022 GMWatch.
Web Development By SCS Web Design