22 What would you buy if you could spend $2 billion? A majority interest in a sports team? A small island featuring a James Bond-like villain’s lair? If you are AGCO, you acquire 85 percent of Trimble Ag, a precision ag platform developer whose claim to fame is its ability to be used on any brand of farm vehicle. To be clear, AGCO’s purchase price gets it the assets and technologies of Trimble Ag, creating one of the biggest players within the global precision ag industry through the joint venture. Some background: Headquartered in Duluth, Georgia, US, AGCO is a global leader in the design, manufacturing, and distribution of ag machinery and precision ag technology. Some of the brands it owns are: Fendt, GSI, Massey Ferguson, Precision Planting, and Valtra. The company was founded in 1990, and in 2022, it had net sales of US $12.7 billion. AGCO also houses Manitoba, Canada-headquartered JCA Technologies, a leader in autonomous agricultural machine systems—yes, farm vehicles that drive themselves. The company has been providing tech solutions for OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) since the turn of the century. It was acquired by AGCO in May 2022 and has been working to retrofit autonomy solutions as part of AGCO’s retrofit-first strategy. As a technology company, Trimble is headquartered in Westminster, Colorado, US, with customers around the world who use its precision ag technology on all agricultural vehicle brands. It has offices, fulfillment centers, manufacturing, services, research and development (R&D) centers, and related facilities totaling over 152 locations in 34 countries. That still doesn’t tell you why AGCO was willing to spend $2 billion. Trimble’s Agriculture division (Trimble Ag) offers solutions involving guidance and steering, flow and application control, water management, harvest solutions, and positioning services, as well as cloudbased technology that allows farmers to collect, share, and manage information across their farms while providing improved operating efficiencies in the agricultural value chain. Trimble Ag technology is designed to provide farmers with the ability to make better agriculture-related decisions that help make them more efficient and, ultimately, profitable via automation and autonomy, regardless of the brand of their tractor, combine, or any other piece of equipment. Hmmm, $2 billion does buy more than you think, with plenty of room for future value. “The joint venture with Trimble will be truly transformational for AGCO and for farmers by fasttracking our technology transformation. It enables $2 BILLION BUYS A LOT OF PRECISION AG KNOW-HOW A joint venture between AGCO and Trimble Ag creates a global mixed-fleet precision ag industry leader ANDREW JOSEPH FARMS.COM
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