VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Monsanto reported a 25% drop in its quarterly earnings as farmers try to reduce their expenditure. The company updated its earnings guidance for 2016.

Shares of the German pharmaceutical and chemical giant increased by 5% in Monday trading. Monsanto's interest to acquire its crop science business triggered the surge.

Monsanto, the agribusiness giant, faces an $80 million penalty to SEC on account of misstated earnings. The company had failed to incorporate the expenses related to a rebate program while entering the corresponding revenues. However, the SEC is not pressing further charges as the company, although neither admitted nor denied the allegations, has agreed to make the necessary settlements.

Missouri agrichemical giant Monsanto announced Monday that it will close down three research and development centers in 2016, cutting about 90 jobs. Reuters reported that the move is done to cut costs on its restructuring operations that are necessary for the dwindling agricultural commodity market.

The chief executive of German drugs and chemicals group Bayer (BAYGn.DE), Marijn Dekkers, said on Wednesday he could not comment on the possible takeover of Syngenta (SYNN.VX) by Monsanto (MON.N).

Agrochemicals firm Syngenta on Friday rejected a $45 billion takeover offer from Monsanto, saying the offer undervalued the Swiss firm and did not fully take into account regulatory risks.

Monsanto (MON.N), the world's largest seed company has again approached Switzerland's Syngenta (SYNN.VX) in recent weeks with an offer to buy the company, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter.

Chris Gould's combine cab is loaded like the cockpit of a fighter jet he used to fly as he harvests soybeans in northern Illinois, steered by satellites, four video screens glowing with up to minute updates about his crop and the work's progress.

San Mateo, US-based open platform as a service Cloud Foundry is about to become more popular by launching the Cloud Foundry Foundation, which will help servers deploy software apps of developers under an open-source Apache license.

Singaporean investment firm Temasek divested its holdings in US-listed companies Facebook, Monsanto and Air Products & Chemicals. The private equity firm, however, remains focused on energy, healthcare and technology stocks in the US.

Information technology news site Techcrunch cited investors of biotech company Monsanto, who said the company had purchased Climate Corporation for more than USD930 million.

Steve Cohen was named by BenefitMall as its new vice president.