BASF history

Motor vehicles, electrical products, and machinery are manufactured, and trade has been important since the opening of the harbour in 1897.

Beginning around 1900 leaders of the German chemical industry began to dream of what was, in effect, the merger of most German chemical companies.

In 1901, some 80% of the BASF production was dyestuffs.

By 1904 two major cartels had been formed.

1913: BASF's first ammonia synthesis plant starts operation at Oppau.

In 1916, BASF started operations at a new site in Leuna, where explosives were produced during the First World War.

BASF also acquired and began mining anhydrite for gypsum at the Kohnstein in 1917.

In 1919 head offices moved across the Rhine to Ludwigshafen.

On 21 September 1921, an explosion occurred in Oppau, killing 565 people.

I.G. Farben Formed in 1925

As early as 1931 its directors made secret contributions to the Nazi Party.

Following the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor in 1933, IG Farben collaborated with the Nazi regime, profiting from guaranteed volumes and prices, and from the slave labour provided by the government's Nazi concentration camps.

In 1935, IG Farben and AEG presented the magnetophon – the first tape recorder – at the Radio Exhibition in Berlin.

Shelling took place from the autumn of 1943 and saturation bombing inflicted extensive damage.

The allies dissolved IG Farben in November 1945.

On 28 July 1948, an explosion occurred at a BASF site in Ludwigshafen, killing 207 people and injuring 3818.

1951: Under the name Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik AG, BASF develops Styropor, a white rigid foam used as an insulating and packaging material.

Although BASF had lost all of its patents in 1952, within 10 years it had recovered a large number of them.

By 1957, BASF's sales of nitrogen and ammonia products were approaching their wartime levels.

As prices for plastics and fertilizers stabilized in 1963, however, sales for the company increased 19 percent in one year.

1965: BASF begins acquiring other companies to produce surface coatings, drugs, crop protection agents, and fertilizers.

In 1968 BASF (together with Bayer AG) bought the German coatings company Herbol.

1969: BASF acquires Wyandotte Chemicals Corporation, United States, and Wintershall AG, the German oil company.

In 1971 large investments in fibers and plastics were lost due to overcapacity.

1972: Company changes its name to BASF Aktiengesellschaft.

The shortened name, BASF Aktiengesellschaft, was adopted in 1973.

The 1985 purchase of American Enka doubled BASF's fiber capacity.

Strube took over BASF after it had posted one of its strongest years ever in 1989, with sales of DM46.16 billion and net income after taxes of DM20.2 billion.

Following German reunification, BASF acquired a site in Schwarzheide, Eastern Germany, on 25 October 1990.

1991: BASF Ecology Laboratory begins work.

BASF's first plant in China opened in 1992 in Nanjing, a production facility for unsaturated polyester resins.

1993: BASF & Gazprom (Russia's leading natural gas producer) establish WINGAS to market and distribute gas in Central and Eastern Europe.

In 1994 a new biotechnology and genetic engineering research center was opened by BASF Bioresearch Corporation in Worcester, Massachusetts, to develop drugs for fighting cancer and immune system diseases.

1995: BASF opens its first plant in Nanjing, China.

Another noncore business was potash and in 1996 BASF's holding in Kali und Salz was sold to Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan.

After an extensive reorganisation and an increasing international orientation of the coatings business, Herbol became part of the new founded Deco GmbH in 1997.

1998: With PetroFina, BASF constructs the world's largest steamcracker plant at Port Arthur, Texas; the company founds BASF Plant Science, a worldwide research platform, with sites in Germany, Sweden, Canada, and the United States.

Shell partnered with BASF in 1999 to establish one of the world's largest polyolefin manufacturing plants.

2000: BASF is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the listing BF and the company's worldwide pharmaceutical business is sold to Abbott Laboratories, Inc.

2001: The company begins transacting business via Elemica, a neutral electronic marketplace and sets up a global extranet platform, WorldAccount.

In early 2002, BASF joined with Dell Computer Corporation, in the United States, to introduce a worldwide corporate PC standard in an effort to streamline company communications and business processes.

BASF bought the Engelhard Corporation for $4.8 billion in 2006.

In March 2007 Sorex was put up for sale with a price tag of about £100 million.

On 19 December 2008, BASF acquired United States-based Whitmire Micro-Gen together with U.K.-based Sorex Ltd, Widnes, Great Britain.

On 9 April 2009, the acquisition was officially completed.

In December 2010, BASF completed the acquisition of Cognis.

As of 2013, the organization has total assets worth of 64.38 billion Euros and 1,12,206 employees.

The company generated 73.97 billion Euros as revenue in 2014 with a total profit of 4.84 billion Euros.

In May 2015, BASF agreed to sell parts of its pharmaceutical ingredients business to Swiss drug manufacturer Siegfried Holding for a fee of €270 million, including assumed debt.

In October 2017, BASF announced it would buy seed and herbicide businesses from Bayer for €5.9 billion ($7 billion), as part of its acquisition of Monsanto.

In August 2019, BASF agreed to sell its global pigments business to Japanese fine chemical company DIC for €1.15 billion ($1.28 billion) on a cash and debt-free basis.