Major Polish chemical group Ciech has bought a 75% stake in Spanish plant protection company Proplan for €33.5 million, gaining access to new markets and products. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.

“Proplan is a company in which the greatest asset is its intellectual property and its presence on many attractive markets on three continents. The acquisition of this company will enrich our product offer and expand the activity of Ciech Group in the area of crop protection products on markets where we have not been present so far,” said Maciej Tybura, president of Ciech’s management board.

Proplan specializes in registering, manufacturing and distributing a range of generic crop protection products. It generated revenues of approximately €16 million in 2017, having doubled its sales during the past four years.

Spain is the main market for the Madrid-headquartered company; however it also supplies products to France, Italy, Australiaand countries in Africa, with plans to expand into South America. Proplan has 126 registered products in total and is currently trying to obtain several new registrations worldwide. It expects to have 18 new products available this year.

Ciech said that access to Proplan’s registered active substances and end products will yield considerable savings as product registrations on new markets take between three and five years and preparing documentation and carrying out research is expensive.

Citing market analyses, Ciech noted that the market for crop protection products will grow by about 2% per year during the next five to seven years, reaching a value of approximately $65 billion in 2025. However, the generic market is expected to grow at a faster rate of around 4% per year.