New CFO Steps into Storm: Bayer Shares Hit Year Low as Legal Costs Devour Cash

Bayer shares hit yearly low as new CFO Judith Hartmann takes helm; Q1 free cash flow negative €2.3B due to €2B in legal payouts, overshadowing revenue growth.

Judith Hartmann’s first day in the Bayer finance chief’s chair was supposed to mark a fresh start. Instead, it delivered a brutal market baptism. On Tuesday — the first full trading session after Hartmann formally assumed the CFO role on 1 June 2026 — Bayer shares plunged as much as 5.57%, touching a new yearly low of €33.15 on Xetra before recovering slightly to €33.25. That made the stock the worst performer in the DAX by some margin.

The selloff wasn’t triggered by any fresh corporate announcement. It was the latest lurch in a slide that has been gathering pace for weeks, driven by a single, toxic overhang: the relentless drain of cash from legal settlements. Over the past seven trading days alone, Bayer shares have shed more than 12% of their value, and they now sit nearly 13% lower since the start of the year. At €33.15, the stock stands roughly 32% below its 52-week high of €49.17 hit in February and trades around 14% beneath its 50-day moving average.

The immediate cause of the market’s deepening scepticism is laid bare in the first-quarter results. Group revenue climbed a currency-adjusted 4.1% to €13.4 billion and adjusted earnings per share jumped 12.9% to €2.71 — numbers that, on the surface, suggest a decent start to the year. Crop Science, the agriculture division, was the standout performer: sales rose 6.8% on a currency-adjusted basis to €7.6 billion, while EBITDA before special items advanced nearly 18% to €3.0 billion, fuelled by strong soybean and corn seed demand and cost savings from efficiency programmes.

Pharmaceuticals, however, told a more muted story. Revenue was essentially flat at €4.25 billion. Nubeqa and Kerendia continued to expand, but patent expiries and generic competition eroded Xarelto and Eylea, dragging divisional EBITDA down 7.5% to €1.24 billion. The real problem, though, sits on the cash flow statement. Free cash flow came in at minus €2.32 billion in the first quarter, significantly worse than the minus €1.53 billion recorded a year earlier. The culprit: net cash outflows of €2.0 billion to resolve litigation around glyphosate and PCB, versus just €66 million in the prior-year period. Net financial debt consequently swelled to €32.5 billion by the end of March, up from the year-end 2025 level.

Bayer has reiterated its full-year 2026 guidance — revenue of €44.5 billion to €46.5 billion, EBITDA before special items between €9.4 billion and €9.9 billion, and adjusted EPS of €4.10 to €4.60, all on a currency-neutral basis. Yet the market is fixated on the cash flow forecast: free cash flow is expected to land between minus €2.5 billion and minus €1.5 billion. Stripping out legal payments, the number would swing to a positive €2.0 billion to €3.0 billion. That yawning gap is the core of investor anxiety.

Into this environment steps Judith Hartmann. She joined the Bayer board on 1 March but only took over the finance portfolio from Wolfgang Nickl — whose departure was described as a planned retirement — at the start of June. Her résumé is strong: CFO and deputy CEO at Engie, group CFO at Bertelsmann. The market now wants to hear her priorities on debt reduction, cash flow repair and how she intends to manage the lingering legal liabilities.

The technical picture offers little comfort. The stock closed Monday down 3.83%, even as the DAX slipped just 0.4%, and it is now trading well below its 200-day moving average of roughly €35.66. Whether the operational momentum in Crop Science can eventually offset the legal cash burn through the rest of the year will be the decisive factor in whether the shares can claw their way back above that level — or stay trapped beneath it. Hartmann’s first public address to the capital markets will give the first clue as to whether she intends to change course or hold the line.