Chris Hughes, Columnist

Bayer Finds a Time Machine

Stake sale is smarter than it looks.

September 29, 2017 at 11:00 AM UTC

Chris Hughes is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals. Previously, he worked for Reuters Breakingviews, the Financial Times and the Independent newspaper.

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Bayer AG has sold a big stake in chemicals subsidiary Covestro AG for a price it has barely any control over. The move is smarter than it looks.

The German drugmaker has been trimming its Covestro stake since selling part of the business in a 2015 IPO. On jettisoning another chunk earlier this month, it agreed to a lock-up preventing it from offloading more shares until mid-December. Yet on Friday it announced the sale of a further 7 percent, taking its stake to below 25 percent.