ACQUISITION UPDATE: Aventis Acquires Maxforce

Aventis Environmental Science, a business unit of Aventis CropSci-ence, announced on Feb. 6 that it had reached agreement with The Clorox Company to purchase Clorox’s Maxforce® brand and products for the professional pest control market.

Clorox will continue to sell its consumer insecticides, including those sold under the “Combat” and “Black Flag” brands into the consumer market. The parties agreed not to disclose the price of the transaction.

Under the terms of the agreement, Aven-tis Environmental Science will have the global rights to sell Max-force to the professional pest control market. Aventis Environmental Science is already the exclusive distributor for Maxforce in Europe and sells Maxforce in South America.

“Baits are an area where we had a gap and this helps round out our product portfolio,” said Mike McDermott, vice president of professional products for Aventis Environmental Science. “This is a great acquisition for us and strengthens our product offerings to the pest management market.”

McDermott said that Aventis had been working to gain access to the bait market since the company was created in December of 1999.

Gordon Morrison, Maxforce’s national sales and marketing manager, said that Maxforce was not core to Clorox’s business, which is consumer-based. Morrison said he thinks the purchase will “be positive” for Maxforce. “The insecticide business at Clorox went from a growth engine to a maintenance strategy,” he said. “Clorox decided to sell its product offering for the professional market. However, the professional market is core to Aventis.”

Morrison said in many ways Maxforce was a victim of its own success because the product controls roaches so effectively that there’s been an overall decline in consumer purchases of cockroach control products. He added that professionals have a better understanding of cockroach baits than consumers, who still rely a lot on aerosols.

“The PCO market took off when the product was introduced because they understood the technology,” Morrison said. “Consumers never figured out that even though baits don’t work as fast, they provide better long-term control.”

Currently, Max-force products are sold through B&W Sales and Marketing. McDermott said both B&W Sales and Marketing and the Aventis sales force will represent the Maxforce line until further notice. He said Aventis will continue to honor its respective distribution agreements and the company doesn’t plan on making any significant changes, but is planning to review those agreements for next season.

McDermott added that Morrison and Joe Barile, national technical manager, Maxforce, will remain in their current roles. “We are extremely pleased to have this continuity and to have Joe and Gordon with Aventis,” he said

McDermott said he expects Aventis will face a few issues with the Maxforce integration, but he expects the process to go smoothly. “Once we complete this integration we will be ready for the Bayer integration, once FTC clearance is received.”

For an update about Aventis Environmental Science, visit the company’s Web site at www.cropscience.aventis.com.

The authors are publisher and Internet editor of PCT magazine, respectively.