Bayer AG, Perimeter Medical, Twitter - Shareholder interests drive share price performance

Bayer AG - Cap on Executive Board salary

Singapore-based investor Temasek has been financing Bayer Group since 2016 when Bayer acquired US-based Monsanto under the care of CEO Werner Baumann. Along with the responsibility for the consequences of the deal, including lawsuits for damages in the billions based on the suspicion that the active ingredient glyphosate could cause cancer in humans.

Temasek argues that the share has lost 48% of its value since its investment. At the upcoming shareholder meeting, they are therefore likely to call for a vote of no confidence in the CEO or a vote against approving the actions of Bayer's management.

On the other hand, two well-known stockholder advisors stand by the current company CEO. In their latest reports, the two leading stockholder advisors, ISS and Glass Lewis, reiterate their support for discharging the Group's management at the upcoming annual stockholders' meeting.

"We are concerned about two decisions made by the board in the last fiscal year, namely the exclusion of the impact of litigation from the free cash flow metric under the annual bonus program and the full bonuses for a departing board member," Glass Lewis told Bloomberg.

Things will get exciting at the Annual Stockholders' Meeting on April 29, 22. According to Wallmine, Baumann earns EUR 5.7 million per year as Chairman of the Board of Management and Chief Executive Officer of Bayer AG. A more detailed analysis of the Bayer group can be found here.

Perimeter Medical - Innovative precision medicine in the fight against cancer

Through various corporate acquisitions, the Bayer Group also has a foot in the medical technology sector of imaging diagnostics. For example, the Group supplies contrast materials administered to patients before each visit to the MRI tube. The medical imaging division has been one of the first to catch the eye of investors in recent years, thanks to innovative AI technologies.

Perimeter Medical (PINK) is one such company that is setting out to gently change the way cancer patients are treated. Until now, surgeons have had to wait for tissue sample analyses from the lab before removing a malignant tumor from a patient. That results in a threatening loss of time, and there is also no guarantee that the cancer will be prevented from spreading after surgery. With Perimeter Medical Imaging, surgeons have immediate, valuable, real-time tissue information that helps them perform customized surgery on the patient in the field.

Thanks to the tireless work of CEO Jeremy Sobotta, affected patients can receive more precise care through new examination and treatment methods. Sobotta is a seasoned expert in his industry. He worked as a controller in the orthopedics division of Smith and Nephew. At Stryker, he has held positions of increasing responsibility, including head of finance for the surgical business unit. His specialty is medical device commercialization.

The Canadian/US MedTech startup will be one of 60 companies appearing at the prestigious Bloom Burton & Co trade show in Toronto, Canada, on May 2-3. The webcast of Perimeter Medical's presentation is available here.

Twitter - Poison pill for shareholders

Elon Musk last week offered to buy messaging services platform Twitter for the equivalent of EUR 38.6 billion. He offered EUR 50.01 (USD 54.20) per share, a 38% premium to Twitter's closing share price on April 1. To Twitter Chairman Brett Taylor (Co-Founder Salesforce), Musk said, "My offer is my best and final offer. If it is not accepted, I will have to reconsider my position as a shareholder." Musk had acquired just under 9% of the shares and cornered the board with his new takeover bid. By law, if Twitter rejects the offer, they are not acting in the best interests of shareholders.

And there came the poison pill for investors. A poison pill is a nickname for a procedure that allows shareholders to buy more shares of a company at a discount, diluting the value of each share. Twitter's justification for the practice is to "protect shareholders from coercive or otherwise unfair takeover tactics." The poison pill would give shareholders much more voting power, while Elon Musk's shares would be severely diluted.

But it seems that Twitter did the math without the Tesla and SpaceX CEO's fanbase. The man who has already caused the crypto market to fluctuate wildly in price is playing cat and mouse with his 82 million Twitter followers. To put that in perspective, that is roughly the number of citizens living in Germany that follow him. Musk is hinting that he is making shareholders an offer they will not refuse - loosely based on "The Godfather." "Love me tender" or "____ is the night" (spoiler: Tender is the night) he teases his audience. It will be interesting to see in which direction the Twitter share price will soon move.

A board of directors should stand up for the interest of its shareholders and communicate what challenges a company will face in the coming months. In the opinion of two leading stockholder advisors, this should also be reflected in one's salary. Since the Monsanto acquisition, Bayer's share price has fallen 48%, much to the frustration of Singapore-based investor Temasek. Perimeter Medical Imaging, on the other hand, is doing more innovatively and with a more upbeat sentiment. A small and fast-growing MedTech company that supports treating physicians in their medical decision-making with a real-time diagnostic solution for the benefit of patients. Sharing in the success there makes one want to know more. Twitter shareholders, meanwhile, can get out the popcorn and watch the US giants battle it out. At stake is nothing less than freedom of expression, which may no longer be as free as some think on the platform due to Twitter's jaded management.