Recently, BASF announced that it will separate the three large business units of agricultural products, coatings and battery materials from the company's existing structure and transfer them to legally independent units, according to Handelsblatt.

The three divisions will have their own information technology and control systems, but will remain part of the BASF Group.
 

It is reported that the sale of these business units is not the purpose of BASF's spin-off measures, and BASF stressed that there are no plans to sell these divisions at present.

The main reason for the spin-off is that it will be managed and controlled according to different criteria in the future, explains Dirk Elvermann, Chief Financial Officer of BASF, who wants to improve its competitiveness by realigning its business management, and that the company is combining a more differentiated approach to managing individual businesses with the product advantages of the business and our positioning as an integrated company to meet the needs of specific customer industries, giving these separate divisions more room to operate.

The divisions facing this major restructuring are one of the Group's sales drivers:

The agriculture segment generated sales of 10 billion euros in 2022;

With sales of 4.2 billion euros in 2022, the coatings division will gain greater freedom within existing limited liability companies;

The battery materials business for electric vehicles will be one of BASF's main businesses in the future.

It is reported that the paint business has been operating independently as a limited liability company since 2010, mainly producing automotive coatings and architectural coatings.