Bayer Caves to Investor Pressure, Picks Roche Vet as CEO
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Amid mounting pressure from investors and shareholders, Bayer’s supervisory board unanimously appointed outsider Bill Anderson as its new CEO, announced Wednesday. Anderson starts Jun. 1.
The leadership change comes a week after a Reuters report revealed that activist investor Jeff Ubben was rallying fellow shareholders to seek significant leadership changes at Bayer. Ubben heads the investment fund Inclusive Capital Partners, which in early January said it had bought a 0.83% stake in Bayer, equivalent to 8.18 million company shares.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that Ubben contacted several of Bayer’s institutional investors to drum up support for a campaign to replace Werner Baumann, current Bayer CEO, with an external candidate.
Anderson most recently held the CEO position at Roche’s Pharmaceuticals Division. Before that, he served as senior vice president at Genentech’s BioOncology unit and as vice president and general manager at Biogen’s Neurology unit. Before he assumes the top leadership post in June, Anderson will join Bayer’s management board on April 1.
At the end of May, Baumann will retire from the company after 35 years of service, seven of which he spent as chief executive. Meanwhile, he will work closely with Anderson to ensure a smooth handover.
Bayer gained around 6% after Anderson’s appointment.
To Bayer, Anderson brings 25 years of life science industry leadership experience and is “the ideal candidate” to head the company amid increasingly disruptive innovations in the industry, said Norbert Winkeljohann, chairman, supervisory board, Bayer.
Baumann Bows Out
In September 2016, Bayer signed a $66 billion deal to acquire seed giant Monsanto. At the time, Baumann touted the buyout as a “major step forward” for Bayer’s crop science business and cements the company’s leadership in the life sciences.
However, in the following years, the deal saddled Bayer with more than 42,000 lawsuits over Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, costing billions in settlement payments. Amid the debacle, Baumann lost a shareholder’s vote of confidence in April 2019, making him the first CEO in the country to lose such a vote.
Still, in September 2020, Bayer’s supervisory board voted unanimously to extend Baumann’s term through April 2024. At the time, Winkeljohann pointed to the company’s “strategic strength and robust operational performance,” which he attributed to Baumann’s efforts, along with the rest of the management team.
Under his refreshed term, Baumann was expected to lead Bayer through the industry and economic difficulties due to COVID-19 and chart a future of profitable growth and sustainable expansion.
In March 2022, Singapore-based Temasek Holdings called on Bayer’s board to install a new CEO, saying that it was not happy with the company’s operating performance under Baumann. Temasek was joined by Swiss investment manager Alatus Capital.
Investor pressure got to Bayer’s supervisory board soon after and in September 2022, it announced it had started looking for Baumann’s replacement.