As U.S. Corporations Sell Off Property, Bayer Puts Its Chesterfield Air Hangars Up for Auction

Aug. 21—CHESTERFIELD — The auctioneer already had a $5.5 million offer in hand. Then his machine-gun-fast work on the microphone slowed to a normal speaking cadence, and he pulled a rare move: He paused the auction. Bidding had ground to a halt.

"Don't be in that 'wish-you-had-it' club," Monte Lowderman, lead auctioneer for Williams & Williams Real Estate Auctions, told Friday's potential bidders. "You know what something like this would cost to rebuild by yourself."

Up for bid were two cavernous and gleaming air hangars, including high-end offices, pilot quarters and parking space for 100 vehicles on 11.2 acres at Chesterfield's Spirit of St. Louis Airport. As a bonus, any office furniture or other items that remained on the premises Friday were also part of the deal.

The auction resumed after the break gave buyers a chance to think things over. But the $5.5 million bid — by political lobbyist Steve Tilley, a former Missouri Speaker of the House — stayed on top.

Bayer, the German conglomerate that acquired Creve Coeur-based agribusiness giant Monsanto in 2018, had put the property up for sale.

If finalized, Bayer's move to sell the hangars means parting with an asset that has served the company since its Monsanto days and helped its owners log more than 88,000 consecutive hours of accident-free aircraft operation, according to an award on the wall from 2018.

The sale is consistent with a couple of broader trends.

On one hand, it marks another example of a company in St. Louis shedding the trappings of a corporate headquarters — just as Anheuser-Busch has done, along with plane maker McDonnell Douglas, Trans World Airlines and others, over the years.

It also joins a trend across corporate America, as the coronavirus pandemic has coincided with — if not fueled — a wide property sell-off by major companies.

Bayer said the sale of its hangars was the result of a reevaluation of how its assets are used and its ensuing decision that "it simply makes more sense to fly commercial or rent the use of aircraft when needed," according to a statement from the company.

The company said its "more flexible transportation approach" has been in place for some time.

"Bayer will always have a need to travel in and out of St. Louis with regularity," the company added. "The only thing that has shifted in this case is how we do it."

'Don't InBev us'

Bayer's $63 billion purchase of Monsanto stoked wide speculation about what it would mean for employees and the St. Louis region. At an introductory meeting with media outlets at the company's Chesterfield campus in 2018, Bayer leaders were candid about their recognition that the psyche of the St. Louis area is shaped by a long history of seeing its corporate might drained away after high-profile mergers.

"People quickly told me, 'Please don't InBev us,'" Liam Condon, president of Bayer's Crop Science Division, said then, referring to the decade-old sale of the St. Louis brewing icon, Anheuser-Busch, to the Belgian company, InBev, and the ensuing erosion of local jobs and clout at the company's regional operations.

"What we already said two years ago — and nothing has changed whatsoever related to this — the global headquarters for seeds and traits and the North American commercial headquarters are based here in St. Louis," Condon continued.

But the company now faces billions of dollars in legal liabilities stemming from cancer and crop damage claims against its marquee weedkillers. And its local footprint is changing.

Throughout 2021, the company has made piecemeal job cuts here and abroad. An internal initiative, called "Bayer 2022," aims to accelerate the company's transformation "to become leaner and more agile," according to a Bayer investor presentation from May.

Bayer said the changes — including the sale of the air hangars — are designed to strengthen operations while enabling growth and investment.

"What is not changing, however, is our commitment to the St. Louis area," the company said in a statement.

Bayer did not quantify its staffing changes. At least two former employees of Bayer's St. Louis-area operations confirmed that they were let go by the company this year.

One of them said that the hangar facility received plenty of use under Monsanto and would host meetings for high-ranking company officials and board members. That individual said the sale did not come as a surprise, considering Monsanto owned company planes and Bayer does not.

Widespread sell-offs

As Friday's auctioneers can attest, Bayer isn't alone in selling off corporate real estate.

Williams & Williams, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, said that its "sellers were a little skittish at first," when the coronavirus pandemic began. Then activity boomed.

"We had maybe one of our best years ever in 2020," said Cindy Dees, vice president of marketing for Williams & Williams.

The auction company sold surplus properties for a wide range of corporate juggernauts, from AT&T and Bank of America to oil companies such as Halliburton, Chevron and ExxonMobil, which faced a downturn for fuel prices.

Dees said that the auction house has also sold other real estate for Bayer over the past two or three years.

Bayer has seven business days to either accept or reject the result of Friday's auction.

The original asking price for the facility was more than $12 million, according to auction officials. The auction opened by seeking bids for $10 million or higher before dipping toward lower price ranges that eventually produced the winning bid.

Tilley, the winning bidder, was one of just under 10 in-person attendees on Friday, although prospective buyers could also submit simultaneous bids online.

Tilley declined to comment after the auction, saying only that the move is a business deal for his company, Strategic Holdings, based in Perryville — a new entity formed barely a week ago, according to filings with the state. Since ending his own political career, Tilley founded a consulting firm called Strategic Capitol Consulting and has been a prominent lobbyist in Jefferson City.

Through terms of the auction, a "buyer's premium" of 3% — or $165,000 — was added on top of the high bid. The winner was required to provide a 10% down payment Friday, immediately after the close of the auction.

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