BASF SE

Is BASF publicly traded?
Yes. BASF SE trades on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker BAS and is a DAX component. U.S. investors use the OTC ticker BASFY.

Who owns BASF?
BASF is a public company owned by institutional investors and other shareholders, with no controlling owner. Markus Kamieth is chairman and CEO.

Where is BASF headquartered?
BASF is headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, site of its largest Verbund complex. It was founded in nearby Mannheim in 1865.

What does BASF make?
BASF makes chemicals, plastics, engineering materials, catalysts, coatings (being divested), nutrition and care ingredients, and crop protection products. Its output is almost entirely inputs to other companies' goods.

How much revenue does BASF make?
BASF reported fiscal 2025 sales of 59,657 million euros, EBITDA of 5.6 billion euros, and net income of 1.6 billion euros.

Why is BASF cutting jobs?
BASF is running a cost program targeting more than 2.3 billion euros in annual savings from the end of 2026 to restore competitiveness amid European energy costs and global chemical overcapacity. Thousands of positions are being cut, concentrated at Ludwigshafen.

Friedrich Engelhorn founded Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik in Mannheim in 1865 to make aniline dyes from coal tar. The company built its main site across the Rhine at Ludwigshafen, where it pioneered industrial-scale synthetic chemistry, most famously the 1913 Haber-Bosch process for ammonia and fertilizer.

The darkest chapter came with the 1925 merger into I.G. Farben, the conglomerate that supplied the Nazi war economy and used forced labor at Auschwitz. I.G. Farben was dissolved after the war, and BASF re-formed as an independent company in 1952.

Post-war growth rebuilt it into a diversified chemical giant. The company expanded through acquisitions across the second half of the century: Wintershall for oil and gas, Engelhard for catalysts, Ciba and Cognis for specialty chemicals, and Chemetall for surface treatment.

The recent decade has been corrective. BASF sold its Wintershall Dea energy business to Harbour Energy in 2024, and under Kamieth's Winning Ways strategy agreed in 2025 to sell its coatings division to Carlyle, reported as discontinued operations. A cost program targets more than 2.3 billion euros in annual savings from the end of 2026, with thousands of positions cut at Ludwigshafen and an 11 percent reduction in senior executives between 2023 and 2025.

The counterweight is Zhanjiang, China, BASF's largest single investment: a new Verbund site where the steam cracker commissioned in December 2025 began supplying processing plants in January 2026.

BASF publishes detailed sustainability reporting with targets for operational emissions reduction, circular economy products, and net-zero by 2050. It reports through CDP, participates in responsible sourcing programs, and has set targets for recycled and renewable feedstocks.

Its footprint is inherently large: it is one of Europe's biggest industrial energy users and emitters, and its products include plastics, fertilizers, and pesticides that attract environmental criticism. The company acknowledges and reports against these exposures rather than minimizing them.

BASF appears on the Fortune Global 500, Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and CDP leader lists for climate and water. It is consistently ranked among Germany's most valuable corporate brands and a top chemical industry employer.

BASF's I.G. Farben past, including forced labor at Auschwitz, is the industry's most significant historical reckoning and one the company addresses through remembrance programs and acknowledgment.

Current scrutiny covers PFAS and chemical safety regulation, emissions at Ludwigshafen and other sites, the environmental footprint of its plastics and crop protection businesses, and the social impact of thousands of job cuts at its German home site through 2025 and 2026.