Good morning, dear readers,
BayerBoss Werner Baumann is facing uncomfortable weeks. According to financial circles, the activist investor Bluebell is gathering allies after joining the chemical and pharmaceutical company in order to enforce his demands. At the top of Bluebell’s to-do list: Baumann has to go, and quickly. The contract of the Bayer CEO actually runs until April 2024. In addition, the investor is apparently demanding changes in the supervisory board and the splitting up of the group. A first step in this direction should be the spin-off of the business with non-prescription medicines around the Aspirin brand.
Bluebell typically buys small shares and seeks allied shareholders. Finding one is not too difficult at Bayer given the weak share price: the newly acquired US hedge fund Inclusive also favors a new boss who should come from outside, as well as a “review of the structures”. Representatives of the German fund companies Union Investment and Deka mentioned similar demands in the Handelsblatt interview. Other funds also voiced criticism behind closed doors. The main reason for the dissatisfaction: Since the takeover of the US agrochemical group Monsanto in 2018, Bayer shares have lost around half their value.
And another activist investor causing concern: Fears are growing in the financial sector that the turmoil at billionaire Gautam Adani’s conglomerate could affect the entire Indian economy. Charu Chanana, an analyst at securities trader Saxo, commented: “There is increasing concern about the risk of contagion.”
After the criticism of the US investor Hindenburg triggered an unprecedented drop in the Adani Group’s share price, Adani’s financiers are now also coming into focus. In addition to Indian banks and insurers, these include Deutsche Bank, Siemens Bank and the French energy group Total.
Ahead of the expected Russian spring offensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to be promoting a high-ranking military man to be the new defense minister. Military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov will replace Oleksiy Reznikov at the head of the ministry, said MP and Zelensky confidante Davyd Arakhamiya on Sunday. Resnikov will become Minister for Strategic Industries – which doesn’t sound like a promotion. It was not clear when the change would come into effect.
Selenski had recently replaced a number of high-ranking civil servants and justified this with allegations of corruption. The Ministry of Defense was also affected. The President spoke on Sunday of a difficult situation and bitter fighting on the front in the Donetsk region in the east of the country: “But no matter how difficult it may be and no matter how great the pressure there is, we have to endure. We have no alternative but to defend and win.”
In the race for the presidency of EU member Cyprus, left-wing politician Andreas Mavrogiannis is surprisingly going into the run-off election on February 12 alongside conservative favorite Nikos Christodoulidis. While ex-foreign minister Christodoulidis was ahead as expected in the first round of voting on Sunday with 32 percent of the votes, Mavrogiannis, who is also a diplomat, performed better than expected with a share of 29.6 percent. However, polls give the conservative Christodoulidis the better chance of winning the runoff.
The incumbent President Nikos Anastasiadis was not allowed to stand again after his five-year term. The election is important because the President, directly elected by the people, appoints and leads the government.
In Berlin, too, there will be another election on February 12 because you didn’t get it right the first time. According to a new survey, the CDU is well ahead of the Greens and the SPD. According to the representative survey by the opinion research institute Forsa for the “Berliner Zeitung”, the Christian Democrats currently have 26 percent. They are followed by the Greens (18 percent) just ahead of the SPD (17 percent). The left ends up in this survey at 12 percent, the AfD at 10 percent. According to the survey, the FDP must tremble about entering the House of Representatives, it stands at 5 percent.
Berlin’s CDU leader Kai Wegner gave a black-green cooperation at the weekend in the “Tagesspiegel” as it were a rejection. He justified this with plans by the Greens to want to remove half of the parking spaces in the capital – that was “a unilateral policy against the car”. Wegner wants a coalition with the SPD instead.
According to the survey, the current red-red-green government would still have an absolute majority – albeit under green leadership in the future. If Franziska Giffey (SPD) wants to remain governing mayor, she would probably have to negotiate with the CDU.
You just need a bit of power politics and media frugality, then you can exercise the office of Federal Minister of Justice for years without anyone taking much notice of it. The best example: Christine Lambrecht worked accident-free for two and a half years as head of the justice department before she very quickly reached her limits as Federal Minister of Defense. And who doesn’t remember the many justice ministers before her who no one remembers anymore?
But this political style of “laying flat and waiting until it’s over” does not seem to be the case for the current Minister of Justice, Marco Buschmann (FDP). Accordingly, he is currently causing a lot of trouble in traffic lights. The parliamentary director of the SPD parliamentary group, Johannes Fechner, told the Handelsblatt in relation to Buschmann: “We would like him to increase the number of projects that are in the coalition agreement. There’s still a lot of room for improvement with him.”
Criticism also comes from the Greens. However, a lack of enthusiasm for work does not necessarily seem to be Buschmann’s problem. Striking: It is mainly projects that displease the FDP clientele where Buschmann is on the brakes. For example in the regulation of index rents or in data retention. The harder the Minister of Justice is criticized by the Red-Green Party, the brighter his star probably shines among his own electorate.
I wish you a start to the week where your score is right and your star shines.
Best regards
Your Christian Rickens
Editor-in-Chief Handelsblatt
PS: Tomorrow evening at 6 p.m., Handelsblatt Editor-in-Chief Sebastian Matthes will speak with Bill Gates about Europe’s challenges. It is the highlight of the digital annual start-up conference “EUROPE 2023” by Handelsblatt, WirtschaftsWoche, Tagesspiegel and ZEIT. With exciting speakers such as EU Economic Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni or France’s Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, we want to discuss with you the realignment of foreign and security policy or an independent European energy supply. Here you can register for free.
