Evonik's Board Digs In as BASF's €22.15 Bid Meets a 44% Shareholder With Its Own Agenda
Published on 09/30/2026 at 12:32 | Editorial boerse-global.de
BASF's opening gambit for Evonik has landed with a thud in Essen. The specialty chemicals maker's leadership, led on an interim basis by Claus Rettig while CEO Christian Kullmann recovers, dismissed the roughly €22.15-per-share proposal as too cheap, and the market is now waiting to see whether Ludwigshafen returns with real money or walks away.
The numbers behind the rejection are stark. BASF's offer valued Evonik's equity at approximately €10.3 billion and the company including debt at about €14.2 billion — a figure management considers well short of fair value. Rettig has said publicly that the group is undervalued on the capital markets, and Reuters and Handelsblatt reporting suggests the board sees the company as worth considerably more.
A 44% Stakeholder Sits at the Pivot
Any path forward runs through the RAG-Stiftung. The foundation owns roughly 44% of Evonik and had already intended to scale that holding down to just over 25% over time. Whether it chooses to accelerate that exit through a BASF combination — or bides its time — will shape everything that follows.
Both sides have assembled heavyweight advisory teams. Evonik is being guided by Perella Weinberg and J.P. Morgan, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, while BASF has enlisted Deutsche Bank, Barclays and law firm Linklaters.
DZ Bank analyst Peter Spengler sees strategic merit in a deal that would bolster BASF's specialty chemicals operations, but he flags two unresolved issues: how the transaction would be financed, and where the foundation ultimately lands.
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Labor Pushes Back
Employee representatives are not standing aside. IG BCE chief Michael Vassiliadis has raised concerns about the future of Evonik's sites and is pressing for binding investment commitments and dependable long-term prospects.
The workforce is already in the middle of a deep restructuring. Evonik plans to shed 3,200 positions by the end of 2029, about 2,150 of them in Germany. It also intends to give up its Rheinfelden and Düren plants by that same deadline and consolidate precipitated silica production at Marl. Separately, the company has said it will close the smaller Hamburg and Bitterfeld sites next year and concentrate activities in Essen and Rheinfelden — an internal tightening meant to sharpen earnings power.
What the Market Is Pricing
Evonik shares changed hands at €19.87 on Tuesday, up 49% since the start of the year and within touching distance of their 52-week high of €20.36. In pre-market trading after the rebuff, the stock was quoted at €19.95.
The valuation argument draws on recent results as well. For 2025, Evonik reported revenue of €14.1 billion and adjusted EBITDA of €1.87 billion.
DZ Bank's Spengler lifted his price target to €22 from €21 on September 28, keeping a buy rating and arguing that takeover speculation still leaves room for further gains. A revised BASF bid well above the initial €22.15 would likely pull the shares quickly toward the new offer level. Should Evonik also deliver its specialty chemicals restructuring as planned, the board could justify an even richer transaction value. A dividend policy overhaul — targeting a payout ratio of 40% to 60% of adjusted group earnings from the 2026 financial year — adds another layer of confidence in future profitability.
The Downside If Talks Collapse
The chief risk is that BASF, having been shown the door, declines to raise its offer and lets the exploratory talks lapse. In that scenario the takeover premium would evaporate and the stock would once again trade purely on sector fundamentals.
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Those fundamentals are not without obstacles. Morgan Stanley downgraded Evonik from Overweight to Equal Weight roughly two weeks ago, cutting its target to €18 from €21 and pointing to potential normalization risk in the animal nutrition segment. Without a deal as a safety net, investors would have to refocus on those cyclical pressures — compounded by uncertainty over how long Kullmann's recovery will take, even with Rettig holding the reins.
The Levels That Matter
As long as the shares hold above €19.00, the market is betting the conversation continues. A break below that support, combined with a signal from BASF that it is done, would open the door to a retreat toward chart support around €18.
The next real catalyst is either an official BASF response to the rejection or a sweetened offer. If no fresh bid materializes within a few weeks, attention will shift to operating updates and the execution of the site consolidation. Until there is clarity, Evonik's stock remains tethered to the outcome of the standoff.
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