Liverpool’s £116 Million Florian Wirtz deal so big its on Bayer AGs balance sheet

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Liverpool new signing Florian Wirtz during a pre-season friendly against Athletic Bilbao.

PHOTO: EPA

LONDON – Bayer AG won an unexpected boost this summer – the high-profile transfer of football star Florian Wirtz to Liverpool for a reported £116 million (S$199 million).

Ordinarily, Bayer’s ownership of the Bayer Leverkusen football team does not factor much into its financial results. But that was a bright spot in the second-quarter earnings published on Aug 6 amid challenges the German conglomerate faces with its traditional business.

“If we have these transfers, we need to compare the book value with the prices that we get and that can lead to an extraordinary result on several players,” chief financial officer Wolfgang Nickl said.

The surprise disclosure prompted at least one investor to question why Bayer failed to mention the football-fueled boost when it released preliminary results last week.

The company merely stated that in reconciliation, the business portion that includes the financial performance of the football programme, adjusted earnings had “improved to minus 13 million euros”.

That statement suggested Bayer’s performance has improved to a greater extent than it has, according to Markus Manns, a portfolio manager at Union Investment in Frankfurt.

“Bayer scored an own goal with last week’s statement,” Manns said in an email. “Something like this should not happen in capital market communications.”

Bayer shares fell as much as 7.5 per cent in Frankfurt, the biggest intraday decline in almost three months. The company said it raised its full-year forecast in last week’s statement because of strong demand for its pharmaceuticals.

Bayer’s football programme built