BASF SE (BASFY)

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BASF

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BASF SE is the largest chemical company in the world and is headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany.[2] BASF originally stood for Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik (English: Baden Aniline and Soda Factory). Today, the four letters are a registered trademark and the company is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, and Zurich Stock Exchange. The company delisted its ADR from the New York Stock Exchange in September 2007.

The BASF Group comprises subsidiaries and joint ventures in more than 80 countries and operates six integrated production sites and 390 other production sites in Europe, Asia, Australia, Americas and Africa.[3] Its headquarters is located in Ludwigshafen am Rhein (Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany). BASF has customers in over 200 countries and supplies products to a wide variety of industries. Despite its size and global presence BASF has received relatively little public attention since abandoning its consumer product lines in the 1990s.

At the end of 2013, the company employed more than 112,000 people, with over 52,500 in Germany alone. In 2013, BASF posted sales of €73.97 billion and income from operations before special items of about €7.2 billion. The company is currently expanding its international activities with a particular focus on Asia. Between 1990 and 2005, the company invested €5.6 billion in Asia, for example in sites near Nanjing and Shanghai, China and Mangalore in India.


History


BASF was founded on 6 April 1865 in Mannheim, in the German-speaking country of Baden by Friedrich Engelhorn. It had been responsible for setting up a gasworks and street lighting for the town council in 1861. The gasworks produced tar as a byproduct, and Engelhorn used this for the production of dyes. BASF was set up in 1865 to produce other chemicals necessary for dye production, notably soda and acids. The plant, however, was erected on the other side of the Rhine river at Ludwigshafen because the town council of Mannheim was afraid that the air pollution of the chemical plant could bother the inhabitants of the town. In 1866 the dye production processes were also moved to the BASF site.


BASF refounded

On 28 July 1948, an explosion in which 207 people died occurred in Ludwigshafen. In 1952, BASF was refounded under its own name following the efforts of Carl Wurster.[7] With the German economic miracle in the 1950s, BASF added synthetics such as nylon to its product range. BASF developed polystyrene in the 1930s and invented Styropor in 1951.


Business segments

BASF operates in a variety of markets. Its business is organized in the segments Chemicals, Plastics, Performance Products, Functional Solutions, Agricultural Solutions and Oil & Gas. The company occasionally advertises to the public using the tagline "At BASF, we don't make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better." Its slogan is "BASF The Chemical Company".




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