Last year marked the beginning of a massive corporate overhaul at Bayer, and along with that restructuring came a year-over-year pay cut for the German conglomerate’s CEO.
In 2024, Bayer CEO Bill Anderson’s total compensation package declined (PDF) about 21% from the prior year to 8.84 million euros ($9.6 million), according to a compensation report published this week.
The decline shouldn’t come as a total shock, given that a whopping 3.8 million euros of Anderson’s pay package in 2023 came from a one-time "indemnity payment" the executive received when he joined Bayer from his previous position as Roche’s pharmaceutical chief. Overall in 2023, the CEO collected a pay package worth 11.24 million euros.
Anderson, who replaced longtime helmsman Werner Baumann, officially joined Bayer in April 2023 and became the conglomerate’s chief executive officer in June of that year. Since his arrival, Anderson has embarked on an extensive restructuring campaign intended to reinvigorate the company’s pharma pipeline, navigate U.S. liability litigation and cut through the conglomerate’s bureaucracy.
By the end of 2024, the company had laid off roughly 7,000 full-time employees as part of the initiative, according to Bayer's latest annual report (PDF).
Still, there’s much work left to be done at Bayer, with Anderson telling investors earlier this week that he expects 2025 to be the “toughest year for our turnaround.”
Taking a closer look at the CEO’s 2024 payout, Anderson’s base compensation came in at 2.25 million euros, directly in line with the sum he received in that category in 2023, according to Bayer’s annual compensation report.
Elsewhere, Anderson gained more from short- and long-term stock incentives in 2024 than he did in 2023, picking up roughly 2 million euros and 3.6 million euros, respectively, in each category last year.
In justifying the chief executive’s reward, Bayer’s compensation committee admitted that “2024 was a very challenging year,” pointing to the beginning of the company’s three-year restructuring period.
While Bayer’s consumer and crop science revenues continued to fall in both the fourth quarter and 2024 as a whole, the company’s pharma division managed to grow sales 1.7% in the fourth quarter and 0.3% for all of last year, Bayer reported earlier this week. Still, with Xarelto beginning to succumb to generics, the company warned it doesn't see any new pharma growth on the horizon until 2027.
Pharmaceuticals aside, Bayer will also have to continue contending this year with mountains of litigation tied to its ill-fated buyout of Monsanto in 2018. After paying $63 billion for the agricultural juggernaut, Bayer inherited thousands of lawsuits claiming Monsanto’s popular weed killer Roundup causes cancer.
In a bid to shoulder those legal costs, Bayer recently indicated (PDF) that it will seek shareholder approval at an upcoming meeting for a potential equity offer worth 35% of its outstanding shares to help tackle litigation and settlement fees.
Bayer will only use the capital “if it is absolutely necessary,” the company said in a notice ahead of its annual stockholders meeting in late April.
Bayer has already spent roughly $10 billion out of a $16 billion tranche to handle U.S. Roundup lawsuits, Bloomberg News reported Friday. The company is still facing about 67,000 claims in the U.S. out of an original pool of 181,000, according to Bayer’s 2024 annual report.
Historically, CEOs at European pharmas are paid considerably less than their U.S. peers, though that trend has started to shift somewhat in recent years. Still, Anderson’s 2024 payout has so far come out below those of his counterparts at other transatlantic operations like Roche, Novartis, AstraZeneca and GSK.
In Switzerland, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan’s 2024 pay grew 6.9% to around $15.7 million in 2024, while Roche’s helmsman, Thomas Schinecker, nabbed around $11.1 million last year.
Over in the U.K., AstraZeneca Chief Pascal Soriot endured a 16% cut to his pay package last year, though the CEO’s total 2024 compensation still came out to around $21.9 million. Meanwhile, crosstown rival GSK handed out roughly $13.4 million to its CEO, Emma Walmsley.
Looking ahead, Walmsley could receive a maximum 2025 payout of 21.56 million pounds sterling ($27.1 million) if she helps GSK accomplish the daunting task of boosting its shares by 50% this year.
Anderson’s 2024 pay more closely matched that of Novo Nordisk’s CEO. For all of last year, the Danish drugmaker’s helmsman, Lars Fiorard Jorgensson, received (PDF) 57.1 million Danish kroner ($8.3 million), representing a 16% decline from the sum he pocketed in 2023.