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Bayer Board in Emergency Meeting After Investors Rebuke CEO

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  • Baumann loses confidence vote in shock decision at rowdy AGM
  • Investors question handling of $63 billion Monsanto takeover
Werner Baumann
Werner Baumann Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

Bayer AG’s supervisory board called an emergency meeting on Friday after Chief Executive Officer Werner Baumann lost a crucial confidence vote as investors questioned his handling of the $63 billion Monsanto deal and the wave of U.S. lawsuits that followed.

In a stunning development for the German drugs and chemicals company, about 55 percent of shareholders voted against absolving Baumann and other managers of responsibility for their actions in the 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.