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Activist investor Jeff Ubben is set to join Bayer’s supervisory board as the struggling German aspirin-to-glyphosate conglomerate prepares to update investors about a potential break-up early next week.
Ubben disclosed a 0.83 per cent stake in Bayer a year ago, becoming a leading force behind the ousting of then chief executive Werner Baumann, who was replaced by Bill Anderson, a former Roche manager.
Anderson has blasted the German conglomerate’s performance as “not acceptable”, announcing in February the suspension of the dividend for three years to preserve cash and lower its crippling debt burden.
In response to pressure from investors to break itself up, the new CEO last year launched a strategic review and will update investors at its capital markets day next Tuesday when it will also report annual results.
Ubben told the Financial Times on Thursday that he continued to hold his stake and declined to comment further. A co-founder of activist fund ValueAct, Ubben said last year that his three-year-old Inclusive Capital was being wound down. He is also on the board of US oil major ExxonMobil.
Shares in Bayer have fallen 45 cent since Ubben disclosed his stake in January last year, exposing the founder of Inclusive Capital to paper losses. At the time, he said Bayer’s business divisions were performing well, but he blamed management for having been unable to “drive the stock price”.
The company is suffering from a sprawling multibillion litigation over its weedkiller glyphosate in the US, which it acquired in its controversial 2016 acquisition of US rival Monsanto and which former users blame for their cancer. The company also faces the expiration of key patents in its pharma division and last year aborted a late-stage trial of its most hopeful new drugs.
Under Germany’s two-tier governance system, the supervisory board is not involved in day-to-day decisions but oversees and challenges the work of the executive board.
Alongside Ubben, Bayer nominated Nancy Simonian, the former CEO of US biotech company Syros Pharmaceuticals, and Lori Schechter, the former general counsel of US healthcare group McKesson, to join its supervisory board. Shareholders will vote on the nominations at the company’s annual meeting in late April.
Last year, Ubben was already appointed to an independent, external group of experts advising Bayer’s management on sustainability — a body he will leave after he formally joined the supervisory board, according to Bayer.
On Thursday, Bayer also announced the early departure of the head of its consumer health unit, Heiko Schipper, who will be replaced by Julio Triana, a senior manager in the group’s pharma division. Among other options, Bayer has considered a carve-out of the consumer health unit, which specialises in over-the-counter medication, in order to streamline its business and raise much-needed cash.
The company said that Schipper had “asked the supervisory board to bring forward the end date of his contract in order to pursue a career opportunity outside of Bayer”.
