Wever Fertilizer Plant May Be Changing Hands

The Iowa Fertilizer Plant.

The Iowa Fertilizer Plant.


The massive $1.8 billion Iowa Fertilizer Plant in Wever may be changing hands before it even produces a single batch of Fertilizer.

CF Industries will acquire the distribution networks of Netherland’s OCI N.V., the owner of the plant in Lee County, in a deal valued at $8 billion and create one of the world’s largest nitrogen fertilizer companies in the process.

The deal, which includes about $2 billion in debt, is expected to increase CF’s effective nitrogen capacity per share by 18 percent.

CF would get OCI’s nitrogen operations in the rest of Iowa and in the Netherlands as well as a complex in Beaumont, Texas. The deal also includes OCI’s distribution system in Dubai.

CF Industries Holdings Inc., which is based in Deerfield, Illinois, will become a subsidiary of a new holding company based in the United Kingdom. The combination with Amsterdam-based OCI’s European, North American and global distribution businesses follows its attempt to join with Yara International ASA, a deal that fell apart.