Leverkusen, September 14, 2012 – At its meeting today, the Supervisory Board of Bayer AG elected Werner Wenning to serve as its chairman from October 1, 2012. Wenning (65) had already been elected by the Annual Stockholders' Meeting of Bayer AG on April 27, 2012, to become a member of the Supervisory Board effective October 1. He will thus take over as planned from Dr. Manfred Schneider (73), who steps down from the Supervisory Board on September 30.

Schneider has been in the service of the Bayer Group since 1966, including ten years as Chairman of the Board of Management and more than ten years as Chairman of the Supervisory Board.

Wenning was Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer AG from April 2002 until September 30, 2010. The statutory “cooling-off period,” after which a former member of a company’s board of management may join its supervisory board, ends after two years.

Wenning's career with Bayer spanned nearly 45 years, during which he rose from trainee to CEO. Born in Leverkusen on October 21, 1946, Wenning joined the company on April 1, 1966 as a commercial trainee. He subsequently held a number of positions with Bayer in Germany and abroad before being appointed to the Board of Management as Chief Financial Officer in February 1997. Five years later – in April 2002 – he became Chairman of the Board of Management of the pharmaceuticals and chemicals group. Milestones during his tenure as CEO included the strategic realignment of the Bayer Group and the spin-off of the traditional chemicals business under the name Lanxess. The most important and strategically decisive step toward expanding the life science business was the acquisition of Schering AG, Berlin, Germany, in 2006.

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Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech materials. As an inventor company, it sets trends in research-intensive areas. Bayer’s products and services are designed to benefit people and improve the quality of life. At the same time, the Group aims to create value through innovation, growth and high earning power. Bayer is committed to the principles of sustainable development and acts as a socially and ethically responsible corporate citizen. In fiscal 2011, the Group employed about 112,000 people and had sales of €36.5 billion. Capital expenditures amounted to €1.7 billion, R&D expenses to €2.9 billion. For more information, go to www.bayer.com.

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