Despite this Canadian agribusiness giant Viterra is pressing ahead with its acquisition of the South Australian based firm.

ABB says the half-year result was adversely affected by the write-down of stock values and losses incurred in the fertiliser business of $9.8m after tax, due to a significant fall in global fertiliser prices.

Before the fertiliser losses, a strong underlying NPAT of $40.5m was recorded. After net one-off items, bottom-line NPAT was $29.7m.

One-off items comprised merger and acquisition costs in relation to the proposed AWB merger, employee termination payments and income tax benefit from a prior year.

ABB announced a fully franked interim dividend of 10 cents per share, to be paid on 30 June 2009, with a record date of 16 June 2009.

Managing director, Michael Iwaniw, said that although the result was not as strong as he would have liked, it was solid considering the challenging environment.

The full-year underlying profit expectation has been revised to $53m to $63m to reflect first half fertiliser and other losses.

"The past six months have been extremely challenging for ABB, as they have for many businesses both here and overseas," Mr Iwaniw said.

"But we believe we have the capacity to meet those challenges and achieve our financial goals."

Viterra and ABB yesterday signed an implementation agreement under which Viterra proposes to acquire all the issued and outstanding shares in ABB for a mixture of cash and scrip via a scheme of arrangement, which will be subject to shareholder and court approval.

Click here to read the full ABB-Viterra share offer document

The transaction, valued at approximately $1.6 billion, is comprised of a combination of cash and shares, including a special dividend to be paid by ABB.

The ABB directors are unanimously recommending that ABB shareholders vote in favor of the proposed scheme of arrangement, in the absence of a superior proposal and subject to an independent expert concluding that the proposal is in the best interests of ABB shareholders.

The transaction has also been unanimously approved by the Viterra board of directors.

Expected synergies are estimated to total $30 million per year, with those being fully realised within three years.

This will be achieved by a combination of sharing best practices, as well as leveraging markets on an international scale and more efficiently.