Essential News

• Center offers accounting, finances and business support services from Costa Rica to Bayer’s operations in America.

• In its 40th anniversary, the company, leader in Life Sciences, reaffirms its commitment with the country, reinvests and diversifies.

Heredia, February 19th, 2018. Costa Rica is the country Bayer selected to establish the first and only center that will provide accounting, finances and business support services to all the company’s operations in Latin America.

This week, it will officially inaugurate the Shared Service Center (SSC) that began by mid-2017 with 25 persons that were trained for two months and a half in Barcelona, Spain -this is where the company previously had these tasks done-. Now the SSC has 140 collaborators and will have more personal, processes, and services until it reaches a human workforce of 350 employees by the end of this year.

The Center offers its services to all Central America, Mexico, the Southern Cone and the Andean Region.

The President of the Republic, Luis Guillermo Solís, said: “Celebrating 40 years of Bayer in Costa Rica is a source of great satisfaction. And celebrating it by opening its new Shared Service Center seals a commitment from our country and our Government with the attraction of investment and the commitment to continue strengthening the conditions of education, infrastructure, services and stability that allow companies like Bayer to consolidate operations and continue to generate employment and welfare for our population. "

The President of Bayer for Central America and the Caribbean, Erika Bernal, explained that, for the company, it is a great pride to celebrate the 40 years of the operations in the country with the opening of a Shared Service Center, located in America Free Zone, in Heredia.

"We are reaffirming our confidence and commitment to Costa Rica by investing new resources, generating more jobs, innovating and diversifying the type of operation we have in this country that is so important for our region," said Bernal.

For the initial operation, Bayer has adapted 1,220 square meters of offices and two additional offices will be upgraded later. For this, the projected investment is $5 million between facilities and equipment purchases.

Bayer, additionally, has the offices of the regional headquarters for Central America and the Caribbean located in Escazú, a medical device plant in Heredia, an experimental station in Guácimo, Limón, and a cotton farm in Liberia, Guanacaste.

For his part, the Minister of Foreign Trade, Alexander Mora, commented: "It is an honor for us to know that Costa Rica became the home of the first Service Center of the company in the region. With 40 years of commitment to the country, Bayer reaffirms its roots and expands operations in Costa Rica in a new sector: services.

The establishment of this type of operations shows us the important role that the service sector plays in the Costa Rican economy, not only in terms of diversification and sophistication of our investments and exports; but also, in generating quality employment. With this new operation, Costa Rica becomes a place where Bayer performs a complex and extensive set of activities. This allows us to position ourselves in levels of greater sophistication of global value chains.

As a Government, we must redouble our efforts to strengthen the conditions of competitiveness that have allowed us to attract and grow these types of activities and the investments that make them possible ".

The Manager of the Shared Service Center, Xavier Campoy, considers that the decision to open a new Center in the region is a consequence of the extension of accounting services to other administrative services, managing these processes in an integral way in the future (end to end).

"For example, before, when we talked about the management of invoices of suppliers, it only focused on the accounting and payment of invoices, now it starts from the selection of the supplier to the management of the payment," he added.

For the installation of the Center, several destinations were evaluated and in Costa Rica they found what they were looking for: a central and accessible location for clients working in their same time zone, political, social, economic stability, as well as security, high standards of education and trained human resource.

"Costa Rica knows how service centers work, they have managed to specialize in this industry and provide the tools to facilitate the process. Time has confirmed that it was the best decision, we are very satisfied with the professionals we have, they are committed people who make the operation a great experience to carry, "added Campoy.

Jorge Sequeira, Managing Director of CINDE, commented: "By the end of 2017, the services sector had accumulated more than 60,000 jobs. Companies like Bayer have managed to diversify their operations in the country, now having manufacturing operations and services, thanks to the excellent results over the years, obtained from the hand of the Costa Rican human talent ".

Bayer will continue to recruit personnel for this operation, the profiles sought are specialized professionals in various administrative areas, and English is an essential requirement for any position. Those interested can send their CV to recursoshumanos.scr@bayer.com as well as visit the profile of LinkedIn of Bayer: www.linkedin.com/company/bayer where some of the positions are published.

Bayer is a leader in innovation, whose motto is science for a better life, and this Shared Service Center is part of the six that the company has in the world, located in: Manila-Philippines, Shanghai-China, Gdansk -Polonia, Barcelona-Spain and Leverkusen-Germany, where the parent company is also located.

About Bayer

Bayer: Science For A Better Life. Bayer is a multinational company with key competences in the fields bio scientists of health and agriculture. With its products and services, the

company wants to be useful to humanity and contribute to improving the quality of lifetime. At the same time, the Group aims to create value through innovation, growth and high profitability. Bayer adheres to the principles of sustainability and, as a civic enterprise, act socially and ethically responsible. In the 2016 financial year, the Group, with around 115,200 employees, obtained a turnover of 46,800 million euros, made investments worth 2,600 million euros and allocated 4700 million euros euros to research and development. These figures include the business with high performance polymeric materials that on October 6, 2015 came out to stock market under the denomination of Covestro. For more information, visit the site of the Internet www.bayer.com.

For more press information

Carolina Murillo-carolina.murillo@bayer.com

Fabiola Domínguez- fdominguez@cinde.org