Bayer investors concerned soccer transfers inflated earnings, shares drop

FRANKFURT: Investor concerns that Bayer’s earnings were inflated by soccer player transfer fees rather than supported by its core health care and agriculture businesses helped send its shares plummeting nearly 5 percent to a one-month low on Wednesday.

The German maker of pharmaceuticals and crop protection products reported in unscheduled preliminary results last week that second-quarter operating income, adjusted for some items, came in at a better-than-expected 2.1 billion euros ($2.43 billion).

In a more detailed disclosure on Wednesday, however, it said those results included higher revenue from its German Bundesliga team Bayer Leverkusen resulting from player transfers.

Bayer shares were down 4.7 percent at 0958 GMT.

Fresh details in Wednesday’s disclosure indicating that Bayer’s performance was also more the result of established blood thinner Xarelto than newer drugs with longer patent protection contributed to the stock selloff as well.

“The detail of the beat being somewhat related to Xarelto and the sale of a footballer could be disappointing to some,” JPMorgan analysts said in a note.

British media reported in June that Premier League champions Liverpool had agreed a fee of 136.3 million euros to sign Bayer Leverkusen attacking midfielder Florian Wirtz.

Bayer’s finance chief Wolfgang Nickl, however, would not provide details on the transfer earnings on Wednesday.

“If we have these transfers, we need to compare the book value with the prices that we get, and that can lead to an extraordinary result on several players, and that was just recorded last quarter,” he said during a call with journalists.

JOB CUTS, ROUNDUP PROVISIONS
Bayer also said it has now cut around 12,000 full-time positions since the