Bayer lands its CEO Werner Baumann, replaced by Bill Anderson


Bill Anderson’s appointment is scheduled for June 1, 2023. TOBIAS SCHWARZ / AFP

The news follows a “unanimous” vote with the taking of office effective June 1, 2023.

The German chemical giant Bayer announced on Wednesday the early departure of its CEO Werner Baumann, who will be replaced in June by an American manager from the Roche group, in a context of growing criticism from activist funds that recently entered the capital of Bayer.

Bayer’s Supervisory Board has appointed Bill Anderson Chairman of Bayer’s Board of Directors effective June 1, 2023 (…) the vote was unanimousthe company said in a statement. Bill Anderson, a 56-year-old American, a chemist by training, was, between 2019 and December 2022, head of the pharmaceutical division of the Swiss group Roche.

He is the ideal candidate to lead Bayer to a new chapter“, greeted Norbert Winkeljohann, chairman of the supervisory board of Bayer. The German Werner Baumann, 60, will leave his post almost a year before the end of his mandate, scheduled for April 2024. He was the main architect of the takeover in 2018 of the American group Monsanto, the manufacturer of Roundup, which has since caused Bayer endless and costly legal setbacks.

For several weeks, activist funds led by the Americans Bluebell and Inclusive Capital Partners, who recently entered the capital, were pushing him towards the exit. They wanted to press for a split of Bayer into at least two parts, the agro-industrial activity and health, allowing a giant added value for the group, according to the press.

Bayer must manage a rain of legal proceedings in the United States from former users of Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide marketed by Monsanto. Glyphosate has been considered since 2015 as “probable carcinogen» by the Circ, a branch of the WHO A characterization that the group still denies.

These misadventures have caused Bayer’s share price to plummet on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, causing it to lose almost half of its value since 2018. In Germany, investors are claiming 2.2 billion euros in damages from Bayer due to these losses.

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