* Marijn Dekkers to take over as CEO on Oct. 1, 2010
* Current CEO Wenning's contract extended to Sept. 30, 2010
* Group CFO Kuehn, head of healthcare Higgins to step down
* Analysts say move could herald more M&A activity
* Shares of Bayer up 1.2 percent
(Adds more analyst comments, background on Dekkers, Wenning)
By Ludwig Burger
FRANKFURT, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Germany's Bayer has appointed the head of U.S. lab equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific as chief executive as part of a management overhaul likely to focus it more sharply on healthcare.
Dutch-born CEO-designate Marijn Dekkers, 51, will join Bayer's management board at the beginning of next year and take the reins nine months later, Bayer said on Tuesday, setting the stage for Werner Wenning's exit after eight years in the job.
Dekkers is also slated to serve as interim head of Bayer's healthcare division, replacing Arthur Higgins, who will leave in the first half of 2010 "for personal reasons," the company said.
The overhaul, which will also see finance chief Klaus Kuehn take early retirement in April 2010 at the age of 58, immediately prompted speculation that the drugs and chemicals firm could launch a strategic revamp to focus on healthcare.
Kuehn will be replaced by 46-year-old Werner Baumann, an executive at Bayer's drugs business, where he helped integrate rival Schering, acquired in 2006 for 7 billion euros ($10.24 billion).
"(Bayer is) looking to expand in the healthcare space, and it's interesting that both the new CEO and CFO have experience with acquisitions and integration of companies, so the question is: are there plans to go for another takeover at some point," WestLB analyst Cornelia Thomas said.
Targets could include assets in emerging markets or selected prescription drug businesses, possibly in oncology, she added.
The management changes will make Bayer the eighth German blue-chip company to be led by a foreigner, underlining a growing trend.
Shares of Bayer were up 1.2 percent at 47.23 euros by 1508 GMT, while the German blue-chip index was up 0.1 percent.
POTENTIAL M&A
Dekkers started out as a manager at GE's Plastics unit in the United States and the Netherlands, later becoming a director at U.S. biotech group Biogen Idec.
The dual Dutch-U.S. citizen, who also speaks German, oversaw Thermo Electron's purchase of much larger Fisher Scientific in 2006, creating a company with annual sales of $10.5 billion.
Dekkers, who has a doctorate in chemistry, will have to decide whether Bayer is to remain one of the few drugs-chemicals conglomerates left, alongside Solvay and Merck KGaA.
"If Bayer is really looking to turn itself into more of a pharmaceutical company or healthcare company as opposed to an industrial company, I think they've appointed the right person to guide them through that transition," said Alex Morozov, an analyst at Morningstar.
Another analyst, who declined to be identified, described Dekkers as a "very well respected CEO" who cut a "tremendous amount of costs" at Thermo but also agressively pursued an expansion in the Asia-Pacific region.
MORE SWEEPING CHANGE?
Wenning had championed Bayer's hybrid structure, but conceded that synergies played little to no role in keeping the Healthcare, MaterialScience and CropScience divisions together.
"The changes will clearly shift focus even more on Life Science. A sale of MaterialScience in 2011 will get on the agenda again," said DZ Bank analyst Peter Spengler.
Wenning's contract, initially due to expire at the end of January, was extended until Sept. 30, 2010, to allow an "adequate period of transition in these economically difficult times", Chairman Manfred Schneider said in the statement.
Wenning, who started at Bayer as an apprentice in 1966, is credited with leading Bayer from the depths of a drug side-effects scare and keeping the group independent.
In 2002 he took over a company plunged into crisis by the 2001 market withdrawal of the potential blockbuster cholesterol drug Baycol, also known as Lipobay, which had been linked to deadly side effects.
In 2003, Wenning set out to overhaul the group's structure, giving its healthcare, plastics and pesticides businesses greater autonomy and later spinning off much of its chemicals businesses under the name Lanxess.
Bayer hit rock bottom that year as writedowns ballooned its annual net loss to more than 1 billion euros. Later Wenning oversaw a turnaround and clinched takeover deals that boosted Bayer's drugs business, now admired for its strong pipeline. (Additional reporting by Maria Sheahan in Frankfurt, Ben Hirschler in London and Lewis Krauskopf in New York, Editing by Lin Noueihed and Sitaraman Shankar)