FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Bayer AG (ETR:BAYGN)'s shares slid in volatile trading on Tuesday after the drugmaker said it would slash its dividend over the next three years to reduce its debt.
Bayer said late on Monday it would propose a dividend of 0.11 euro ($0.12) for 2023, part of a three-year policy to pay out the legal minimum. That compares with 2.40 euros a year earlier, and expectations of a dividend of 1.92 euros, according to a consensus published on its website.
Analysts at Jefferies said the move "highlights the extent of the challenges (both operational and financial) facing the business" and that "further major strategic actions are required to restore the balance sheet" at Bayer.
The stock was down 0.9% at 0824 GMT after gaining as much as 1% earlier in the session.
Barclays (LON:BARC) analyst Emily Field said the move indicated that Bayer's management was receptive to investor concerns about its stressed balance sheet, adding that investors were seeking clarity on more structural measures to be announced at Bayer's capital markets day scheduled for March 5.
"One of our top priorities is reducing debt and increasing flexibility," Bayer Chief Executive Bill Anderson said. "Our amended dividend policy, which considered investor input and was not taken lightly, will help us do so."
Anderson has had a tumultuous start since taking the helm in June last year, as a wave of U.S. litigation about an alleged cancer-causing effect of Bayer's main weedkiller shows no sign of abating, even as regulators have declared it safe to use.
Bayer's pharmaceuticals division suffered a major setback last year in its bid to develop a next-generation anti-blood-clotting drug and the business outlook for its agriculture division has clouded.
Bayer had net debt of almost 39 billion euros ($42 billion) at the end of September, up 7.9% from a year earlier, and about 3.6 times the adjusted EBITDA expected for this year.
It has warned that it would not generate cash flow after investments in 2023, as it struggles to cut liabilities stemming from the $63 billion takeover of Monsanto (NYSE:MON) in 2018.
In January, Bayer announced management job cuts and in November it said it was weighing options to break apart the maker of prescription drugs, consumer health products, crop chemicals and seeds, in a bid to revive a battered share price.
Bayer's previous policy was to pay out 30% to 40% of adjusted earnings per share to shareholders.
Last year, it paid out 2.36 billion euros in dividends for the 2022 business year.
Analysts at brokerage Baader estimated payouts over the next three years of 300 million euros, far below what would have been a combined 6 billion under the abandoned dividend policy.
($1 = 0.9284 euros)