Germany's Bayer has appointed the head of US lab equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific as its new chief executive, as part of a management overhaul that may see it focus more on healthcare. CEO-designate Marijn Dekkers, 51, will join Bayer's management board at the beginning of next year and take the reins nine months later, Bayer said on Tuesday, setting the stage for Werner Wenning's exit after eight years in the job.
Dekkers is also slated to serve as interim head of Bayer's healthcare division, replacing Arthur Higgins, who will leave in the first half of 2010 "for personal reasons," the company said. The overhaul, which will also see finance chief Klaus Kuehn take early retirement in April 2010 at the age of 58, immediately prompted speculation that the drugs and chemicals firm could launch a strategic revamp to focus on healthcare.
Kuehn will be replaced by 46-year-old Werner Baumann, an executive at Bayer's drugs business, where he helped integrate rival Schering, acquired in 2006 for 7 billion euros ($10.24 billion). Targets could include assets in emerging markets or selected prescription drug businesses, possibly in oncology, she added. Dekkers started out as a manager at GE's Plastics unit in the United States and the Netherlands, later becoming a director at US biotech group Biogen Idec.
The dual Dutch-US citizen oversaw Thermo Electron's purchase of much larger Fisher Scientific in 2006, creating a company with annual sales of $10.5 billion. The executive, who has a doctorate in chemistry, will have to decide whether Bayer is to remain one of the few drugs-to-chemicals conglomerates left alongside Solvay and Merck KgaA.
Wenning had championed Bayer's hybrid structure, but also showed a clear penchant for the drugs business and conceded that cost synergies played little to no role in keeping the Healthcare, MaterialScience and CropScience divisions together. "The changes will clearly shift focus even more on Life Science. A sale of MaterialScience in 2011 will get on the agenda again," said DZ Bank analyst Peter Spengler.
Shares of Bayer were barely changed at 46.68 euros by 1218 GMT, while the German blue chip index was down 0.1 percent. Wenning's contract, initially due to expire at the end of January, was extended until September 30, 2010, to allow an "adequate period of transition in these economically difficult times", Chairman Manfred Schneider said in the statement.