DON HALCOMB

There were not many large companies in the agribusiness selling chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides and seeds to the farmers of America. When there was an attempted merger, the regulators were supposed to make sure that the merger press would not be responsible for higher prices as with the merger, there would be less competition. As Holcomb said in this quotation, the companies would typically tell the regulators how they merger would produce synergistic cost savings for the farm products. And in theory that wold be true in most cases. However once the company receives approval, the tend to claim the products are losing money and they must raise prices. And often that is true but the main reason for the loss is the cost of the money that they usually borrowed to pay for the acquisition.

There were not many large companies in the agribusiness selling chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides and seeds to the farmers of America. When there was an attempted merger, the regulators were supposed to make sure that the merger press would not be responsible for higher prices as with the merger, there would be less competition. As Holcomb said in this quotation, the companies would typically tell the regulators how they merger would produce synergistic cost savings for the farm products. And in theory that wold be true in most cases. However once the company receives approval, the tend to claim the products are losing money and they must raise prices. And often that is true but the main reason for the loss is the cost of the money that they usually borrowed to pay for the acquisition.