Biography|Werner Baumann — The Day Bayer Became Sole Owner of Monsanto

On 7 June 2018 Bayer's newsroom, datelined Leverkusen, said the company had completed the acquisition of Monsanto.

Monsanto shares left the New York Stock Exchange.

Shareholders were paid 128 US dollars a share.

The firm called it the largest acquisition in its history.

The first public offer had been disclosed from this same city on 23 May 2016: 122 dollars a share, an aggregate 62 billion dollars.

The written proposal to Hugh Grant at 800 North Lindbergh Boulevard in Creve Coeur was dated 10 May 2016.

Baumann had been chief executive for twenty-three days when that letter went out.

The price later rose and the closing value, including debt, was reported at about 63 billion dollars.

AP, Bloomberg, and CNBC all recorded the 7 June close.

Integration was scheduled to wait about two months while agreed divestments to BASF finished.

The Monsanto company name was to disappear; product brands were to remain.

What followed is on the public record: years of Roundup litigation in US courts and a sharp fall in Bayer's share price.

This pin stays on the Leverkusen campus that issued the closing statement.

The Creve Coeur campus is the other end of the same day.

Photo: A. Savin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo: World Economic Forum, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (portrait, Davos 2022)