By Ludwig Burger, Emma-Victoria Farr and Patricia Weiss
(Reuters) – Bayer AG will likely hold off on presenting break-up plans at an investor update scheduled for early March as its CEO prefers to focus on an internal reorganisation for now, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
The likely delay in preparations to separate Bayer’s pharmaceuticals, consumer health and agriculture units comes even after several investors have for years urged the company to split up to shed a conglomerate discount.
CEO Bill Anderson, at the helm since June last year, said in November he is weighing options to break apart the diversified company in a staggered fashion but would not rule out keeping all businesses.
He also said at the time that he would seek to simplify and speed up decision-making, and to cut a significant number of management positions, confirming an earlier Reuters report.
The sources said on Thursday that plans for any break-up could still be announced at a later stage, but that internal cutbacks and improvements would take precedence for now.
Bayer declined to comment on the deliberations, which were first reported by Bloomberg.
Late on Wednesday, the company said it had agreed with shop stewards on a significant reduction in managerial jobs and extended a pact that rules out compulsory redundancies in Germany until the end of 2026.
(Additional Reporting by Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Miranda Murray)
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