Nufarm Ltd., an agricultural chemicals firm, said today that the tender offer from Japan based Sumitomo Chemical Company Ltd. has received a huge response by its shareholders. The company said that it had received acceptance of 81.45% of the total shareholders in favor of the offer for 20% stake in the company.

However, Nufarm said that the offer has now become unconditional as it had opened on March 12 and closed on April 9, 2010.

According to the offer, Sumitomo had offered to acquire up to 20% stake in Nufarm at an offer price of $A14 per share. Nufarm informed today that 81.45% of its total shareholders accepted the offer. The company said that 61.45% of the total acceptances will be scaled back to make it sure that Sumitomo will acquire only 20% of the stake, as per the terms of the offer.

Nufarm further said that each Nufarm shareholder who accepted the Sumitomo offer will be sent a statement on April 15. In this letter, they will be told how many of their Nufarm shares have been acquired by Sumitomo under the offer.

Earlier, Nufarm had rejected the takeover offer worth $A2.62 billion from China's Sinochem Corp. last year.