© 2020 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved. **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Thursday, February 27, 2020 |B1

MICHAEL NAGLE/BLOOMBERG NEWS

REAL ESTATE

Blackstone buys a

major owner of U.K.

student housing.B6

BERLIN—BayerAG, in the
midst of a major legal battle
over its Roundup herbicide,
said Chairman Werner Wen-
ning would step down earlier
than planned and be replaced
by a former Pricewater-
houseCoopers executive who
joined the German company’s
board in 2018.
Bayer said Norbert Winkel-
johann will succeed Mr. Wen-
ning after the company’s an-
nual meeting on April 28.
Mr. Winkeljohann’s appoint-
ment marks a break from a
company tradition of having

Bayer Head Quits Amid Roundup Woe

DuringBobChapek’stenureasheadofparks,

thedivision’srevenuegrewasdidDisney’s

box-officesales,despitethecompany’s

releasingfewerfilms.

Sources: the company (parks revenue, 1Q 2020 revenue by segment); IMDb (films distributed, box-office revenue); Image Group LA/Disney/Getty Images

Note: Parks revenue includes consumer products from 2017.Quarterly revenue segment excludes intercompany transactions.Doesn’t include films

distributed by companies that are no longer part of Disney. Revenue from each film is attributed to the year of its release.

FilmsdistributedbyDisney Box-officerevenue

(U.S.andCanada)

Parksrevenueasshareoftotal

Revenuebysegmentandchangefrompreviousyear

Studio MediaNetworks

Entertainment

Direct-to-

Consumer&

International

$4.0B

+334%

1stquarter2020

IncludesDisney+andotherstreamingplatforms

$70

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

billion

2005 ’19

20

0

5

10

15

2005 ’19

$4

0

1

2

3

billion

2005 ’19

Parks,Experiences

andProducts

$3.8

+106%

$7.4

+24%

$7.4

+8%

BYJOEFLINT
ANDR.T.WATSON

Disney Boss Brings Blunt Attitude

senior managers assume the

role of chairman. Mr. Wenning

was widely respected at Bayer

for steering it through an ear-

lier legal battle in the U.S. over

the cholesterol-lowering drug

Baycol.

Mr. Wenning, 73 years old,

said he had intended to retire

last year but agreed to a re-

quest by the group’s supervi-

sory board to stay on given

“the company’s situation at

the time.” He was named

chairman in 2012 with a man-

date originally set to run until

2022.

Mr. Wenning, who is a for-

mer Bayer chief executive, has

been a mentor of CEO Werner

Baumann. He also championed

the 2018 acquisition of U.S. ag-

ricultural giant Monsanto that

tipped Bayer into one of its

worst crises in its 156-year his-

tory.

With a board seat opening

up, shareholders at the annual

meeting will be asked to vote

on a new nominee, Horst

Baier, a former finance chief at

travel company TUI AG.

The replacement of Mr.

Wenning, a company veteran

of over 50 years, comes as the

chemicals and pharmaceutical

company is under pressure to

resolve a high-stakes legal con-

test over Roundup, which

thousands of Americans allege

causes cancer.

At the depth of the crisis

last June, Bayer had lost more

than a third of its market value

in the wake of three California

jury verdicts that went against

it and a resulting surge in the

number of plaintiffs. Bayer ar-

gues Roundup and its active

ingredient glyphosate are safe

when used as directed and ap-

pealed all three verdicts.

Bayer inherited the litiga-

tion over the world’s most

popular weedkiller when it

bought Monsanto in a $63 bil-

Please turn to page B2

BYRUTHBENDER

maintain trust with the public

and investors as it grows.

“I went to meetings in 2009

where the first question was,

‘Who’s BlackRock?’” Ms.

Novick said in an interview.

“Nobody asks that today.”

BlackRock, the world’s larg-

est money manager, ushered

in an investment revolution

with funds that trade on ex-

changes and mirror markets.

“Our public policy and stew-

ardship efforts are at an inflec-

tion point,” said Chief Execu-

tive Laurence Fink and

President Rob Kapito in their

memo. “Much of the post-finan-

cial-crisis policy work that Bar-

bara led is largely implemented,

and she has greatly enhanced

our stewardship practices.”

Ms. Novick was a regular

visitor at Washington federal

agencies and on a first-name

basis with key officials. Under

her leadership, BlackRock dis-

seminated 138 memos on its

viewpoints and 507 comment

Please turn to page B6

Barbara Novick, who turned

BlackRockInc. into a force in

Washington, is stepping down.

The face of BlackRock’s pub-

lic-policy efforts, Ms. Novick

built a lobbying machine that

let the money manager avoid

the regulatory burdens big

banks faced, fueling the firm’s

transformation into a giant

with $7.4 trillion in assets un-

der management. She also su-

pervised the firm’s oversight

over public companies.

BlackRock announced in a

firmwide memo on Wednesday

that Ms. Novick, 59 years old,

will be scaling back her day-to-

day duties. The co-founder and

vice chairman will help pick

her successors and become a

senior adviser at the firm.

Her departure signals the

end of a chapter in which

BlackRock successfully fought

to prevent regulators from

seeing it as a big bank. The

firm’s challenge now is to

BYDAWNLIM

BlackRock’s Warrior in Washington Steps Aside

Through Barbara Novick’s lobbying, the firm skirted a designation as a big bank in need of regulation.

INSIDE

TECHNOLOGY: CHIEF LEAVES AS UBER EATS WORKS TO BOOST PROFITS B4

ment officer at Brooks

Macdonald. “We don’t yet know

the size of how much it’s spread

or the mortality rate. That’s what

markets are reacting to, peak un-

certainty, rather than facts.”

Brazil and Pakistan reported

their first cases of the virus on

Wednesday, with Brazil’s being

the first confirmed case in Latin

America. Officials in Nassau

County, outside of New York

City, said they were monitoring

83 people for possible exposure.

Switzerland-based Nestlé

suspended overseas business

travel for its employees, one of

the strictest such measures

taken by a multinational in re-

sponse to the epidemic.

Investors continued to seek

safety in government bonds,

pushing Treasury yields lower.

The yield on the benchmark 10-

year note fell to 1.310%, a re-

cord, from 1.328% Tuesday.

Yields have been under pres-

sure in recent days in part be-

cause of a growing expectation

Please turn to page B11

The Dow Jones Industrial Av-

erage and S&P 500 fell Wednes-

day for the fifth consecutive ses-

sion as investors continued to

assess the economic impact of

the coronavirus epidemic.

Both indexes opened sharply

higher, and the Dow climbed as

much as 461 points before turn-

ing negative in afternoon trad-

ing. The blue-chip index closed

with a drop of 123.77 points, or

0.5%, to 26957.59—down more

than 8% from a week ago.

The S&P 500 slid 11.82

points, or 0.4%, to 3116.39. The

Nasdaq Composite added 15.16

points, or 0.2%, to 8980.77,

pushing back into positive ter-

ritory for the year.

The Dow and S&P 500 are

off 5.5% and 3.5%, respectively,

in 2020.

Investors were hoping for

markets to stabilize after the

Dow fell more than 1,900 points

Monday and Tuesday in its larg-

est two-day point decline on re-

cord. Markets were spooked this

week by a growing number of

coronavirus cases outside China

and fears that the epidemic

would dent corporate earnings

and global growth.

“This is a time of peak uncer-

tainty for coronavirus,” said Ed-

ward Park, deputy chief invest-

BYANNAISAAC

ANDALEXANDEROSIPOVICH

Dow, S&P 500

Extend Slide

ToaFifthDay

S&P3116.39g0.38% S&PFINg0.67% S&PITÀ0.40% DJ TRANSg2.19% WSJ$IDXÀ0.27% LIBOR3M 1.613 NIKKEI (Midday)22025.05g1.79% See more at WSJ.com/Markets

BUSINESS & FINANCE

INTELLIGENT INVESTORBy Jason Zweig

Pros Must Sell Stocks

Now. You Don’t Have To

When mar-

kets crumple,

the culprits

usually aren’t

the smallest

investors, but

the biggest.

So far, most individual in-

vestors have remained stead-

fast as stocks have been pum-

meled by fears that the

coronavirus could turn into a

pandemic. If they continue to

keep their cool, small investors

might even get to buy bargains

as the big money bails out.

Professional investors tend

to move the fastest when a

market suddenly turns. That’s

largely out of self-preservation,

because the biggest risk they

face is being so out of step

with the market that their cli-

ents fire them. That can lead

the pros to chase the market

trend too far and too long.

“Institutions sell more

than individuals when there

is a large stock-market drop,”

finance professors Patrick

Dennis and Deon Strickland

found in a 2002 study. They

also showed that the more

widely a stock is held by big

investors, the greater its

trading volume during sharp

market drops.

And the stocks dumped by

the biggest investors on down

days tend to outperform the

market over the ensuing six

months. Selling by institu-

tions when the market falls at

least 2% “drives prices below

their true values,” the re-

searchers concluded.

Patience is a luxury that in-

dividual investors can afford.

Money managers must focus

not only on analyzing what as-

sets are worth, but also on

“anticipating what average

opinion expects the average

opinion to be,” as John May-

nard Keynes wrote in 1936.

That’s because the pros

are in a never-ending strug-

gle to attract new funds. For

professionals seeking to max-

imize their fees, it is ratio-

nal—at least in the short

Please turn to page B11

They may share the same
first name, but there are few
other similarities between Dis-
ney Chairman Bob Iger and his
successor as chief executive,
Bob Chapek.
While Mr. Iger is known for
being charismatic and cosmo-
politan and loves to hob-
nob, Mr. Chapek is all
business with little
time or interest in
niceties, people
who have worked
closely with both say.
“A meal with Bob
Chapek is one minute and
30 seconds of pleasantries
and 58 minutes and 30
seconds of business,” said a
former high-ranking Disney ex-
ecutive.
Current and formerWalt
Disney Co. executives agree
that Mr. Chapek, 60 years old,
has the experience and skill set
to succeed Mr. Iger at the
Magic Kingdom.
“Bob Chapek doesn’t fail. He
is incredibly disciplined about
doing what it takes to deliver
the numbers,” the former exec-
utive said. “He is relentless in
that regard.”
As a skilled tactician, Mr.
Chapek clearly identifies tar-
gets and looks for ways to
achieve his metrics.
During Mr. Chapek’s tenure
as head of the parks and re-
sorts division, from 2015 until
earlier this week, he amassed
five consecutive years of
growth, thanks to a combina-
tion of historic expansion and
strategic cost reductions. He
prioritized double-digit annual
growth, according to one for-
mer colleague, a goal he
achieved in all but one year,
when the division’s operating
income grew 9%.
Announcing Mr. Chapek’s el-
evation a little more than two
weeks before the company’s an-
nual meeting, scheduled for
March 11, means the company
won’t have to answer questions
from shareholders about suc-
cession planning.
Many who have worked
closely with Mr. Chapek during
his 27 years at Disney appreci-
Please turn to page B2

Broad Impact

 Factory shutdown hits

sellers on Amazon........ B10

 Flight to munis sends

yields to records............ B11

 Oil prices slide to January

2019 levels....................... B11

BUSINESS NEWS

Papa John’s expects

to rebound from

controversies with

sales growth in ’20.B3

LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG