Bayer shares slide as earnings dip

Werner Baumann, chairman of the board of management of German life sciences company Bayer (BAYN: DE), said that the firm had shown resilience during the group’s presentation of its annual and fourth-quarter 2020 financial results, but investors appear unconvinced.

The company reported sales of 41.4 billion euros ($50.7 billion) for the year, a 5% drop on 2019, and fourth-quarter revenue of just below 10 billion euros, which was down 7%.

Negative currency effects skewed the results somewhat but earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), adjusted for one-offs, were marginally down for the year at 11.46 billion euros, while for the fourth-quarter they slipped by more than 3% to 2.39 billion euros.