BASF Faces a Pivotal Summer as Coatings Payday, Buyback Completion and Cost-Cutting Collide
03.06.2026 - 11:01:48 | boerse-global.deJuly is shaping up as a decisive month for BASF. The chemicals giant is juggling three major moving parts simultaneously: the final regulatory green light for a €7.7 billion coatings sale, the end of a €1.5 billion share buyback programme, and the deepening of its CoreShift cost-reduction drive — all converging just as second-quarter results are due on 29 July.
The European Commission on Wednesday formally cleared the planned divestment of BASF’s coatings division to private equity firm Carlyle, but attached a condition. Carlyle must sell the global polysulfide business of Nouryon, one of only two worldwide suppliers of specialty sealants for aerospace, to prevent an excessive concentration of market power. BASF will retain a 40% minority stake in the unit after the transaction closes, which is expected in the second quarter of 2026. The pre-tax cash inflow to the German group is estimated at roughly €5.8 billion. The Qatar Investment Authority is also joining as a co-investor alongside Carlyle.
Yet the market greeted the news with a shrug. BASF shares slipped 0.55% to €50.68 on Wednesday, lagging about 7% below the 52-week high of €54.70 and roughly 3% under the 50-day moving average. The stock has still gained a solid 13% since the start of the year, but the immediate price action reflects lingering scepticism.
J.P. Morgan reinforced that caution by sticking to its "Underweight" rating. The US bank nudged its price target up to €40, still well below current trading levels, and warned that structural problems in BASF’s core chemicals business — overcapacity and competitive pressure from Asia — remain unresolved despite the portfolio pruning. It sees downside potential of up to 20%.
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BASF, for its part, is ploughing ahead with the CoreShift efficiency programme, which targets a 20% reduction in cash fixed costs in the core business by 2029. A newly created "Core Transformation Office" under Julia Raquet is co-ordinating projects across business divisions, service units and the corporate centre. Chief executive Markus Kamieth has described it as one of the group’s biggest optimisation initiatives. It also comes with a headcount price. Kamieth has flagged a leaner core workforce in future, though no specific job numbers have been announced yet. Talks with employee representatives are due to begin.
The pressure is most acute at BASF’s Ludwigshafen headquarters, which posted a loss for the fourth consecutive year. Roughly 2,800 positions have already been cut there since the start of 2024. That backdrop underscores the difficulty of turning around a German chemicals operation beset by high energy costs, bureaucracy and global trade uncertainties, as highlighted by the VCI industry association. The VCI described the start of 2026 for the German chemical-pharmaceutical sector as weak and said it cannot yet offer a reliable full-year industry forecast, partly because of the impact of the Middle East conflict on energy and raw material markets.
Against that headwind, BASF is sticking to its full-year guidance of EBITDA before special items between €6.2 billion and €7.0 billion. First-quarter EBITDA came in at €2.4 billion, marginally down from €2.5 billion a year earlier, while earnings per share rose to €1.06 from €0.91, helped by solid volume growth, particularly from China, though currency effects and slightly lower prices weighed on revenue.
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Meanwhile, the share buyback programme — which has so far repurchased 27,835,549 shares since its launch — is nearing completion. The €1.5 billion programme, conducted through a mandated bank on Xetra and other trading platforms, is scheduled to end in June. On Tuesday, BASF closed at €50.84. The stock has slipped 0.37% over the past week and 3.51% over the past month, but remains up 13.63% year-to-date and 20.70% over twelve months. Technically, the picture is mixed: trading below the 50-day line at €52.20 but still above the long-term average.
All eyes now turn to 29 July. When BASF reports second-quarter numbers, investors will be looking for concrete details on how the coatings disposal proceeds will be deployed, the extent of further job cuts under CoreShift, and whether the operational turnaround is gaining enough traction to justify the stock’s re-rating. The end of the buyback removes one supporting pillar just as the next major phase of restructuring begins to bite.
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