Bayer board backs CEO after unprecedented shareholder rebuke

Baumann suffers defeat with 55% of shareholders in opposition

Bayer AG’s supervisory board threw its support behind Chief Executive Officer Werner Baumann after an unprecedented shareholder rebuke over his handling of the $63 billion Monsanto deal and the wave of US lawsuits that followed.

At a fractious, 13-hour Annual General Meeting earlier in Bonn, 55.5 percent of shareholders voted against absolving Baumann and other managers of responsibility for their actions in the takeover last year. Though the shock result isn’t legally binding, it prompted an emergency session of the German drugs and chemicals company’s supervisory board that stretched into the early hours of Saturday morning.