Bayer's Carve-Out of MaterialScience on Track for 2016

The Bayer group is on track to become a pure life sciences group by mid-2016, by which time it intends to have carved out its plastics sub-group, CEO Marijn Dekkers said at the annual results press conference in Leverkusen.

Dekkers said the design of a new operating structure for Bayer MaterialScience (BMS) is in place, and key management positions also have been confirmed. By August of this year, the group expects to have achieved "the next milestone" in the legal and economic separation process and will subsequently decide whether to pursue an initial public offering or a spin-off.

In the meantime, the CEO said, Bayer management will study stock market movements.

In response to questions, Dekkers said he would not exclude divesting BMS to an investor if the price was right. He declined to speculate, however, on what the right price could be. Analysts have calculated a selling price in line with the sub-group's sales.

Dekkers also declined to reveal whether BMS's current CEO, Patrick Thomas, will continue to head the carved-out business, which he said aims to return to earning the full cost of capital this year.

For full year 2014, the Bayer group reported a sales improvement of 5% to €42.2 billion, with EBITDA improving by the same margin to EUR 8.8m. The life science sub-groups HealthCare and CropScience lifted EBITDA before special items by 2.8% and 5% respectively, while MaterialScience increased EBITDA pre-exceptionals by 10.7%.