WILMINGTON, Del. — The DuPont company began making gunpowder more than two centuries ago on the banks of the Brandywine River in northern Delaware. It’s now the “new” DuPont, becoming an independent company again after completing separation of its agriculture division through the spin-off of Corteva Inc.
The spin-off was part of a corporate restructuring envisioned in DuPont’s 2015 merger with Dow Chemical. The combined DowDuPont conglomerate was split into three separate companies, with Corteva focusing on agriculture; the new Dow specializing in materials science; and the new DuPont focused on specialty products for various industry markets.