Bayer delays US listing

August 16, 2001 Posted: 1511 GMT

LONDON (CNN) -- Bayer has put back plans to list its shares in New York from next month to February 2002 in light of last week's withdrawal of a key drug.

The German drug and chemicals maker has seen its share price slide more than 20 percent in just over a week, after it halted sales of anti-cholesterol treatment Baycol in response to reports of deaths among the drug's users.

"We don't want to list our shares on what is for us the world's most important capital market without being able to give convincing answers to the questions that have been raised," Chief Executive Manfred Schneider said in a statement on Thursday.

Bayer said last week it was conducting a review of its pharmaceutical division, previously the star performer in a company whose products range from asprin to polymers and plastics.

Schneider said then that the opions for the future of the drug operation included a joint venture in which bayer would be prepared to give up control. He described selling the unit as a "theoretical" possibility, but not his preferred option.

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