DuPont-Pioneer headquarters in Johnston. (file photo)
Iowa has lost out on landing the executive headquarters of the world’s largest seed company.
DuPont bought Iowa-based Pioneer Hi-bred International in 1999. Now, as the merger of chemical giants DuPont and Dow continues, company executives have decided the corporate headquarters will be in Wilmington, Delaware.
Iowa officials had offered the company millions if it had picked Johnston, where DuPont Pioneer has been based.
An agricultural unit of the newly-merged company will remain in Johnston. State officials are giving the company $14 million in research activities tax credits and a two million dollar forgiveable loan. It appears up to 500 people will work in the research facilities. More than 2600 people currently work at DuPont Pioneer in Johnston.
Henry Wallace founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company in 1926. Ten years later its name was changed to Pioneer Hi-Bred. Thirteen years after DuPont acquired Pioneer it changed the company’s name to DuPont Pioneer.