Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge April 26, 2019
Bayer, also known as IG Farben back in the day, survived World War II (which it helped fund for Hitler’s war effort while recruiting an army of slave workers), but it may not survive the worst acquisition in its history: the disastrous $63 billion purchase of Monsanto in 2018, which also brought over the infamous carcinogenic weed-killer Roundup, and with it countless lawsuits and legal charges.
And while the future of the iconic company which brought “cough medicine” heroin to the world remains in question, as it is slowly being buried under an avalanche of lawsuits emerging from Monsanto’s legacy misdeeds which have slammed its stock to 7 year lows…
… that of its CEO appears to be now sealed.
Late on Friday, in what Bloomberg called a “stunning development” for the German drugs and chemicals company, a majority, or about 55% of shareholders, voted against absolving CEO Werner Baumann and other managers of responsibility for their actions in the Monsanto takeover last year. Though the result isn’t legally binding, it throws his future into question and prompted an immediate supervisory board session. Similar rejections have cost German CEOs their jobs.
“Mr. Baumann, what have you done with our stable company?,” said Joachim Kregel, a representative of German shareholders association SdK. In just two years, “the erstwhile pharma giant has mutated into a dwarf,” said Ingo Speich, chief of sustainability and corporate governance at Deka Investment.
Bayer Chairman Werner Wenning said the board is taking the vote “very seriously” and would “do everything to win back the trust of shareholders as quickly and completely as possible” adding that “we regret this exceedingly.”
“Nevertheless, the voting results show that the stockholders’ meeting wanted to send a clear signal.”
The vote, which took place at around 10 p.m. local time, capped a tumultuous meeting in Bonn, with investors berating Baumann, arguing with Wenning and demanding explanations for the erasure of some 35 billion euros ($39 billion) in market value since the deal. At the heart of the debate was whether Baumann, Wenning and other leaders properly assessed the legal risks of Roundup, the controversial weedkiller it acquired together with Monsanto, according to Bloomberg.
“The loss of a nonbinding confidence vote at Bayer’s annual meeting may hasten management changes and the eventual logical split of Crop Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals into separate companies,” said Bloomberg Intelligence’s Christopher Perrella.
The outcome of the vote was historic because before the ballot, Bayer said a majority of shareholders opting not to endorse its managers’ actions at such a meeting hasn’t happened “possibly for its entire history.” Former Deutsche Bank AG co-CEO Anshu Jain stepped down in 2015 after a 61 percent approval vote from investors. In a separate motion, some 66% voted to clear Wenning and the rest of the supervisory board.
As a reminder, Bayer’s headaches started last summer, shortly after Bayer completed the Monsanto takeover last June after years of wrangling with antitrust regulators. Then in August, a California jury found that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, caused a school groundskeeper’s cancer. Lawsuits have multiplied since then, totaling 13,400 U.S. cases by April 11. Bayer has vowed to fight in court and says there’s no scientific proof that glyphosate causes cancer.
In the meantime, Bayer’s stock has tumbled about 40% from its mid-2018 level of about €100/share.
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Earlier, Wenning and his protege Baumann sought to reassure stockholders even as hundreds of protesters outside erected the CEO’s effigy from bales of hay and shouted “shame on you.” Inside, investors demanded explanations, with one likening the company to “a pile of broken glass.”
“The supervisory board is convinced that the strategy of management, including the takeover of Monsanto, was the right path,” Wenning said. “We have the fullest trust that Bayer under the leadership of Mr. Baumann will be very successful.”
All that appeared to change just hours later following the shocking outcome of the shareholder vote. Moments after the vote to effectively remove Baumann, Bayer’s supervisory board called an emergency meeting on Friday, whose outcome has yet to be determined but will likely cost the CEO his job.
I suggest a weekend telethon to raise money for those poor shareholders….
We should also band together and donate as much as we can to the beleaguered nuclear industry as well. The poor things are going through such hard times.
Chernobyl Nuclear Meltdown 33 Years Anniversary 3 million Disabled Children And Counting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvodKCVBi80&feature=em-lbcastemail
Fuck Bayer and their shareholders. I have no empathy for the makers and distributors of poisons. The demonic lunacy of Bayer in their drive to acquire Monsanto, which was regarded as THE most evil company in the known universe, was astounding and showed either an ignorance into the realm of mental retardation or an ill-conceived Satanic grasp at the further subversion & destruction of humanity. Monsanto was on the right side of absolutely nothing, with every single one of their products and efforts aimed at homicidal greed-mongering. Baumann sounds like a Jew name, so it’s no surprise he would give zero fucks about advocating for the destruction of lives and nature while solely driven by the quest for money, money, and more money. That asshole should be thrown into the street, stripped naked, flogged mercilessly, rolled in pig shit, then nailed to a rail and floated out to sea.
There were 2 reasons why the german factories were not bombed
First they were protected by anti aircraft fire, and the RAF were notorius for cowardice so many planes turned round in the air dropping their bombs in the sea and came home
second Rothschild who ran churchill in the same way Lord Levy ran Tony Blair
demanded he take the factories as war reparations after the war, jews now own all Germanys factories.
Churchill to stop the planes turning round and coming home changed the RAF remit
from attacking army positios etc, to bombing and burning the wives and children
of the German soldiers, the RAF also strafed refugee columns, in the words of Sir Anthony Blunt a great act of cowardice.
Princess Diana went to silfield school near the Q E hospital the gardener there said at the end of the war when Germany had very few buildings still standing and there were no men all captured or killed even the Hitler youth the German version of the boy scouts turned out to fight. The British were given flame throwers and ordered to kick in all the doors to cellars and give a quick 30-45 second blast inside, he said as one cellar door
was bashed in he hearda baby cry and said come out with your hands up and a group of bedraggled mums and babies came out, and on checking the mothers had all hidden in cellars, their orders were to burn all the women and kids alive.
Churchill did not want to feed and house any refugees
Hypocrisy And Short-Sightness Of German Investors
Bayer’s buying of Monsanto because of “…misdeeds which have slammed its stock to 7 year lows…”, resulting in comments by hypocrites like Joachim Kregel to say, “Mr. Baumann, what have you done with our stable company?” only proves that Germans too can be as evil as Americans. It appears that the Germans haven’t learnt anything from their misadventures during World War 1 and 2.
So are we to think that Bayer was a “good” company before the buying of Monsanto? Do you want to know how a company like Bayer can buy a company like Monsanto? Well, as I have said before, evil likes company, and evil always will be with more evil. Bayer was just as bad as Monsanto, there is nothing good about, or ever was about Bayer. If you think Monsanto was bad, the look at this evil list of misdeeds for Bayer [attention Herr Kregel!] will change your mind:
– Zyklon B Deaths: Extermination of humans during World War 2
– Factor VII Deaths: blood-tainted plasma for hemophiliacs from high risk donors with HIV and hepatitis, just to save costs!,
– Yaz and Yazmin Deaths: birth control pills that really do work…they’re killing the women that take them. And still Bayer sells them!!,
– Genetically Modified Rice: sneaking unapproved GM rice into world markets,
– Trasylol Deaths: on the market for 14 years before it was finally taken off the market, Bayer fought hard to keep killing people with it, so much so it got caught hiding its deadly effects, and no-one went to prison for it!,
– Flintstones Vitamins: Flintstones Vitamins for children, but ingredients like, Formaldehyde, Cupric Oxide, aluminum, Zinc Oxide, Sorbitol, Ferrous Fumarate are linked to ADHD, brain damage, leukemia and death,
All these poisons were brought to the market by Bayer BEFORE it acquired Monsanto. Hypocrites like Kregel playing innocent investor are full of lies and skullduggery or just plain stupid. Bayer has been evil since its days when it was better known as IG Farben, mass murdering company of humanity. Nothing has changed since those days with Bayer.
Bayer (IG Farben) should have been closed down decades ago. When you kill babies and people for profit, the only think you are doing is profit by killing. Germans haven’t learnt a thing from World War 2 if they can proudly boast of Bayer until it bought Monsanto.
What a disgrace Bayer is AND SO ARE ALL ITS INVESTORS, especially all its investors that already owned Bayer stock BEFORE IT BOUGHT MONSANTO.
Evil likes evil: that’s why Bayer and Monsanto are a good fit …. so they can do more and greater evil together!