Beijing will not directly intervene to shore up Swiss seeds company Syngenta against claims from US farmers and grains traders, nor chip in money for its takeover by Chinese buyer ChemChina, the regulator in charge of China’s state-owned companies said on Thursday.

The comments from Xiao Yaqing, head of the State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (Sasac), come as Syngenta hurries to resolve a dispute that already scuppered a $7bn bond this week. The bond was designed to refinance $6.5bn of bridge loans backing the group’s $44bn takeover by ChemChina, China’s largest outbound acquisition to date.

Standard & Poor’s said in a report published last month that Sasac might have to step in to backstop Syngenta against liabilities stemming from a dispute over seeds marketed in 2013, since both the Swiss firm and ChemChina are already heavily leveraged.