WWhen your office softball group or 5-a-side football team has a winning streak, it's a good boost for morale, not the balance sheet.
And then there's the German conglomerate Bayer AG, which owns Bayer 04 Leverkusen. The soccer team could complete its first-ever undefeated season in the country's top-flight Bundesliga in front of 30,000 fans on Saturday.
Leverkusen have already won the league title, breaking Bayern Munich's 11-year hold and reached both the domestic final and the European Cup final.
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Leverkusen's dominance boosted morale at Bayer, whose employees were used to being bombarded with bad news. On LinkedIn, the company has achieved: Die Welkselfunder the inspiring leadership of Spanish coach Xabi Alonso.
A soccer flag was hoisted in front of Bayer's headquarters before the recent European quarter-finals. “They are known as #Werkself, or the Factory Eleven. We call them colleagues,” declared the company's LinkedIn post after the team won the Bundesliga.
Bayer's stock price has fallen 70% since its $63 billion acquisition of U.S. agricultural giant Monsanto six years ago. And since Bill Anderson joined the company as chief executive last spring, he has undertaken a high-stakes strategic overhaul and pushed through the first phase of thousands of job cuts. The goal is to reverse the fortunes of the manufacturer, whose business units focus on everything from cancer drugs and corn seeds to skin creams.
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Bayer's finance chief, Wolfgang Nickell, believes the soccer team's assets could help with the parent company's financial problems, including high levels of debt.
“All great players value it highly,” Nickel said in a press conference Tuesday. “But that's probably all we can say at this point.”
Founded 120 years ago by employees of the company that had just invented the wonder drug aspirin, Leverkusen spent its early years in the lower leagues and did not join the Bundesliga until 1979. Since then, Leverkusen has become known as one of Germany's strongest teams.
However, Leverkusen failed to win the title in the 2000 season and lost the German Cup and Champions League finals a few years later, earning them the unfortunate nickname “Neverkusen” in the English media.
Still, Bayer's management has never considered selling its stake in the team. Back in 2006, one of the attendees at the shareholders' meeting demanded that the company sell the club. The team was labeled a “valuable advertising asset for Bayer AG” and the appeal was rejected.
Rather, the company is strengthening its ties with football clubs. In 2007, they announced that they would allocate 56 million euros ($60.9 million) to renovate the stadium and build new stands and a roof.
“Our football team is an important means of promoting our image at home and abroad,'' CEO Werner Wenning explained at the time, justifying the construction to shareholders. Wenning retired in 2010 and has been Leverkusen's chairman ever since.
Bayer remains the soccer team's main sponsor, but it's unclear how much money it provides each season. Investments under CEO Anderson are unlikely to decline anytime soon.
The Texas native said in a press conference on Tuesday that he has been reviewing Bayer's asset portfolio since last spring but has never considered selling his stake in the club. Furthermore, the Bundesliga's strict ownership rules do not allow the kind of deals that have helped boost team valuations in England's Premier League.
“There are very strict limits on what can be done to German soccer clubs,” Anderson said. recently. “That's not even an option.”
Outside his corner office, Anderson presented an original soccer jersey to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was accompanying him on a visit to China. He recently had lunch with Alonso.
While the Bundesliga title is within reach, the prospect of finishing the season unbeaten has supporters and managers alike excited. On Saturday, Andersson will join the 30,000 fans who will flock to Leverkusen's BayArena, just a 10-minute drive from Bayer's headquarters, for the final league game in hopes of seeing a historic performance.
“It's a really great day for Leverkusen, for the city and for the club,” he said. “And businesses could definitely use it too.”