China looks to career engineer Li Fanrong to steer Syngenta’s US$10 billion Shanghai IPO

Syngenta’s US$10 billion IPO, filed last year, is expected by the end of 2022, according to Bloomberg’s report

The company, the result of a US$120 billion merger in 2017, is part of Sinochem Holdings, chaired by Li Fanrong, who recently replaced Frank Ning Gaoning

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Farmers covered their field with plastic film in Yuli county in the Xinjiang region on March 28, 2021. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 3:00pm, 12 Sep 2022Updated: 4:23pm, 2 Dec 2025

Corrected [10:31am, 13 Sep, 2022]

[10:31am, 13 Sep, 2022]
Updates with Syngenta Group's new corporate logo in the second photograph.

The first mission for Li Fanrong, who succeeded Frank Ning Gaoning last month as the chairman of Sinochem Holdings, will be to steer the successful completion of the US$10 billion initial public offering (IPO) of its agrichemicals unit Syngenta Group in Shanghai.

Li, who turns 59 next month, has spent his entire career in China’s oil and gas industry, most recently as president of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the nation’s largest oil producer. The petroleum production engineer, who obtained an MBA degree from Cardiff University in the UK, was assigned to Sinochem in April 2021 as general manager, and promoted to chairman after Ning’s retirement.

Ning is still the chairman of Syngenta. Li has been on the board of the company since last June.

Syngenta’s IPO, half a decade in the making, would be one of the most closely watched fundraising events on Shanghai’s Star market, a tentpole deal for President Xi Jinping’s platform to showcase China’s national champions. The company, based in Basel in Switzerland, was bought in 2017 by China National Chemical Corporation (ChinaChem) for US$43 billion, in what remains the largest Chinese takeover of a foreign company. ChinaChem merged with Sinochem in April 2021, during Ning’s tenure.

Much is riding on Syngenta’s IPO - expected by the end of 2022, according to Bloomberg - on an exchange that was created as a showcase for technological innovation. The Basel company was formed in November 2000 through the merger of the agriculture subsidiaries of the drug makers Novartis and AstraZeneca, and is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of seeds, pesticides and fertilisers.

Li Fanrong, then chief executive of Cnooc Limited, speaking at the company’s press conference in Hong Kong on January 19, 2016. Photo: Nora Tam

A US$10 billion deal on the Star market would extend the exchange’s lead in global IPO rankings this year, according to Refinitiv’s data.

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