As it seeks global regulatory approval of its plan to acquire US agribusiness giant Monsanto, Bayer has said it is willing to divest its leading crop protection brand Liberty Link, which includes a herbicide and seeds.

The first economic bloc to conditionally greenlight the Bayer-Monsanto merger plans, South Africa’s Competition Commission said it would require Bayer to divest the businesses, due to competition concerns in the market for GM cotton seeds.

Bayer said it has agreed to the conditions and is evaluating “how best to execute the imposed divestiture." It added it would continue working with regulators globally with a view to receiving approval of the transaction by the end of 2017.

The fact that Bayer has agreed to sell the two brands, which compete with Monsanto's Roundup weed killer and Roundup Ready seeds, transcends the importance of South Africa, a relatively small market. Observers believe authorities in the US and EU also would have required the divestitures.

Together, Bayer and Monsanto are expected to have to sell assets worth about $2.5 billion to gain regulatory clearance in all global markets.

The South African regulatory body said it will require the potential buyer of the divested Liberty Link businesses to commercialize the products in the country or, alternatively, oblige the potential purchaser to license the divested business to a South African third party.

As the divestment plans advance, the name BASF as a potential buyer may well come up, possibly more than once. The German group’s CEO, Kurt Bock, has repeatedly expressed interest in picking up businesses the merger partners will be obliged to sell.

This would not be the first time the Ludwigshafen group has acquired agrochemical business other players were required to shed in a merger. In 2003, it acquired a package of agricultural products from Bayer CropScience that the Leverkusen rival needed to sell in exchange for EU approval for its takeover of Aventis CropScience, including the herbicide Fipronil and seed treatment assets.