Mr. Anderson, with you at the helm, Bayer is going through difficult times. Another team from Leverkusen is much more successful, the professional team of the football club affiliated with the group. How often do you go to the stadium to cheer on the Bundesliga leaders?
I've been there well over a dozen times. Many players in the team are individually top-class, and so is the coach. But they're not in first place because of two or three stars, but because they're a great team. This is a great role model for the company too.
There is much less reason to celebrate there than in the stadium. Anyone who bought Bayer shares for 100 euros in 2015 now has the equivalent value of just 20 euros. What's going on at Bayer?
There are many very positive aspects, but also some very serious challenges. Our agricultural business and its technologies can make a significant contribution to feeding the world's population and maintaining the Earth as a viable planet. In our pharmaceutical division, we develop new therapies for serious diseases such as cancer and Parkinson's, and we are doing pioneering work in cell and gene therapy. We also produce over-the-counter medicines that will enable better health care for a billion people in the future.
Those were the positive aspects.
Yes. If that were all, the situation wouldn't be so complicated. But it's not everything. We are facing four major challenges: Firstly, Bayer has high debts, almost 35 billion euros, and has to spend a lot of money on interest and repayments. Second, there are legal disputes in America that make it difficult for investors to accurately assess the value of our company.
This involves tens of thousands of plaintiffs who say that the weed drug glyphosate, which came to Bayer with the takeover of Monsanto in 2018, made them sick. . .
. . . while regulatory authorities around the world have been confirming the product's safety over and over again for decades, only a few months ago in the EU again. Third, the patent protection for some of our most important medicines is about to expire. And fourthly, we afford a bureaucracy with up to twelve levels of hierarchy between the employees and the board. First we hire brilliant people, then we tie them down with hundreds of rules – that's no way a company can succeed in the 21st century. We take care of these four tasks with high priority.
What exactly do you plan to do?
Let's start with litigation: We will improve our defense strategy and also look at what we can do outside of the courtroom to mitigate legal risks. I understand the interest in more details, but it would not be in our interest to reveal our playbook to the US litigation industry. Then to the debt: In order to pay it off, we need a higher cash flow. We get this when we unleash the abilities of our employees, when we free them from hierarchical levels and enable them to make more decisions for themselves, introduce new products more quickly and thus drive our business forward. Our new organizational model will help with all of this.
#Bayer #CEO #Bill #Anderson #bosses