Novartis: the long goodbye - FT.com Does a multinational company need an honorary chairman? Surely the title belongs in the golf club. Daniel Vasella, outgoing chairman of Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, will take up that role - and a $250,000-a-year retainer as a consultant. The remuneration is an improvement on his original SFr72m golden goodbye, which caused such a fuss that it was torn up with red faces all around. Mr Vasella will not be on Novartis's board. But the saga of his departure suggests that he still casts a proprietorial eye on the company he created. That could complicate his successor's job. Mr Vasella's long goodbye has become a distraction for Novartis. As Wednesday's second-quarter results showed, the company is financially and operationally solid. Revenue was up 1 per cent; chief executive Joseph Jimenez raised the 2013 outlook due to a less severe impact than expected from generic competition. The relief may be only temporary; some of its big-selling drugs are going off patent or being challenged by stronger rivals. Yet Novartis has a strong pipeline and, unlike some rivals, has remained heavily invested in research and development. It has two obvious problems. One is communicating with investors. Mr Vasella's departure has been handled badly; its highly regarded chief financial officer left unexpectedly, too. Another is that some of its units are a drag. Novartis has annual revenue approaching $60bn, but its vaccines and diagnostics division is lossmaking, and its consumer and animal health business is sub-scale. There is also its 6 per cent stake in Roche - too big to be an investment, too small to be strategic. Novartis's shares trade in line with the Swiss market while lagging a bit behind Roche. Still, they are nearing their all-time high of seven years ago. Mr Jimenez should unlock the value inside Novartis that would push them beyond that threshold.