Seminis is a developer, grower, and marketer of fruit and vegetable seeds. Seminis' hybrids claim to improve nutrition, boost crop yields, limit spoilage and reduce the need for chemicals. Their retail line includes over 3,500 seed varieties.

History

Seminis was established in 1994 by

Alfonso Romo Alfonso Carlos Romo Garza (born 8 October 1950), known as Alfonso Romo, is a Monterrey businessman, agro-industrialist. He founded the ''Opción Ciudadana'' (Citizen Option) party in 2005. He is the owner of VECTOR Casa de Bolsa, the largest fu ...

under his Savia Group, a part of the Empresas La Moderna S.A. conglomerate, to consolidate leading companies in the fragmented fruit and vegetable seed industry. The process was realized by takeovers of such companies (mainly US origin) as: Asgrow, Petoseed, Royal Sluis, Bruinsma Seeds, and Genecorp.Seminis history (official site)
In 1996, Romo sold the field crop business of Seminis to

Monsanto The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in ...

for $240 million. In 1999, Savia took Seminis public, in which Savia retained control of the company. In September 2003, Savia took Seminis off the public markets for approximately $650 million via an investment of approximately $222 million from Fox Paine & Company and additional cash and stock from Savia and related entities. On March 23, 2005, Monsanto Company announced that it had completed its acquisition of Seminis. According to the press release announcing the deal, Monsanto paid $1.4 billion in cash and assumed debt, plus a performance-based payment of up to $125 million payable by 2007. In 2018, Bayer acquired Monsanto and all of its seed brands, including Seminis.https://seminis-us.com/about/history/

References

External links

Corporate website

Agriculture companies of the United States Companies based in St. Louis American companies established in 1994 Monsanto {{food-company-stub