It had become apparent that the previous CEO Baumann would leave Bayer sooner. Now there is also a successor.
The recently increasing pressure from investors on Bayer has had an effect: the pharmaceutical and agrochemical group is parting ways earlier than planned with the controversial CEO Werner Baumann (60).
The Leverkusen company presented a successor: the pharmaceutical boss of Swiss rival Roche, Bill Anderson, is to take over the helm from the beginning of June. The 56-year-old will join the company as a member of the Executive Board on April 1st. The shares of the Dax heavyweight rose significantly before the close of trading.
Baumann has been criticized for a long time, especially the 2018 takeover of the US seed manufacturer Monsanto for 63 billion US dollars. With the purchase, the Leverkusen-based company had brought expensive legal disputes into the house about alleged cancer risks from the weed killer glyphosate. The billions in legal costs for proceedings and settlement payments weighed on the figures of the group. Bayer stock has been falling for years. In 2019, the shareholders even refused to discharge the CEO at the annual general meeting.
Since the middle of last year it has been clear that Baumann is not looking to extend his contract, which actually ran until 2024. However, speculation about an earlier exit had already made the rounds, because the glyphosate capital is not over, but the really big risks should have been dealt with.
Investors put the pressure on
Long-term strategic investors such as the Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek, which is one of the largest shareholders with more than three percent, have been putting pressure on for some time. Temasek Europe boss Uwe Krüger told the Handelsblatt newspaper in early December that the company was in “constructive dialogue” with Norbert Winkeljohann, head of the Bayer supervisory board, regarding the “strategic focus and general structure of the company”.
Recently, several activist Anglo-Saxon investors got involved and called for significant changes in the German group. And representatives of local investors followed suit. “When it comes to CEO succession, the earlier the better! As soon as a suitable candidate has been found, Mr. Baumann will certainly not resist an early handover,” said Markus Manns, manager at the Union Investment fund company, to the “Rheinische Post”. in this week.
Splitting Up Or Not: What Does Anderson Do?
Investors are now also hoping for a fresh start under the new boss. Activist investors are even calling for the group to be split up, as they see too few overlaps between the agricultural and pharmaceutical divisions. However, the group management had repeatedly rejected this and also referred to overlaps in pharmaceutical and agricultural research, for example with a view to genetic engineering.
Analyst Gunther Zechmann from Bernstein Research said that supporters of splitting up should now positively note that Anderson, a proven pharmaceutical expert, is taking the lead, who has done a lot of positive things at Roche in sometimes challenging times. At the same time, Bayer also emphasizes that the new boss is a qualified chemical engineer, which probably pleases the proponents of an unchanged group structure.
Source: Stern
