(Dow Jones) -- It took only a year for Monsanto Co. Chief Executive Hugh Grant to go from pursuing an unsolicited takeover of a European company to being the target of one.
The St. Louis-based biotech seed giant confirmed that German rival Bayer AG made an unsolicited offer about a potential deal that would reshape global agriculture, combining Monsanto's number one position in crop seeds with Bayer's much broader pesticide portfolio.
It is a reversal from a year ago, when Mr. Grant led a public effort to woo Swiss pesticide and seed maker Syngenta AG with a $46 billion takeover proposal that would have achieved a similar combination.
But Syngenta repeatedly rebuffed Mr. Grant's efforts, arguing that Monsanto's offer undervalued its prospects and that antitrust authorities could reject that deal.
Monsanto abandoned the effort in August, refocusing on its core business in seeds, crop genetics and herbicides as a deepening slide in crop prices battered the agricultural sector, slowing sales of tractors and weighing on prices for seeds, sprays and fertilizer.
Analysts and investors describe Mr. Grant, 58 years old, as a pragmatic strategist who has steered Monsanto through a pesticide-market collapse and commodity crunches in his 13 years as CEO.
In a soft Scottish brogue, Mr. Grant calmly has debated critics of genetically modified crops at the company's annual shareholder meetings -- sometimes for hours. At times he has changed direction, reconsidering Monsanto's seed prices after farmers balked at rising costs or admitting the company waited too long to mount a spirited defense of genetically engineered crops, which Monsanto and others argue can help produce more food using fewer resources.
"He understands that you don't have to be right all the time to succeed," said James Carrington, president of the Danforth Plant Science Center, a suburban St. Louis nonprofit focused on plant genetics where Mr. Grant was a longtime board member.
"What you have to do is understand, admit when something needs to be changed, and then have courage to shift directions or pivot," Mr. Carrington told The Wall Street Journal last year.
In June, Mr. Grant -- who is also Monsanto's chairman -- traveled to Europe to pitch Monsanto and Syngenta investors on the virtues of a tie-up, which Monsanto said would create a farm-supply powerhouse with the ability to create new seed and pesticide combinations more quickly, providing a bigger array of products to make farmers more profitable.
Now, Mr. Grant and Monsanto's directors will have to decide on an offer that could achieve a similar result by combining Bayer's crop chemical portfolio with Monsanto's prowess in seeds and herbicides. Monsanto said late Wednesday that its board of directors was reviewing the proposal, though a deal wasn't guaranteed.
Monsanto's board is weighing the approach as tough times in the U.S. Farm Belt have pushed farm income to its lowest level in more than a decade, cutting into profits for companies that peddle seeds, sprays, fertilizers and equipment. Monsanto hasn't been immune, earlier this year issuing a profit warning and laying off about 16% of its world-wide staff.
The struggles also have affected Monsanto's shareholders. The company's stock lost nearly a quarter of its value in the 12 months before reports of Bayer's interest in a deal with Monsanto, and agriculture industry officials in the U.S. have warned not to expect a swift rebound in the farm economy.
Should Monsanto reject Bayer, Mr. Grant and his fellow directors may confront irate shareholders, as Syngenta's directors did last year after Monsanto walked away. Monsanto this year shifted to a nonclassified board structure, with each of its 13 directors up for election every year.