Good evening and welcome to our press conference, and thank you that you have dialed in. Today we are going to present and explain the financial figures of BASF Group for the third quarter 2025. You will be talking to Markus Kamieth, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, and Dirk Elvermann, CFO. Before we begin, let me give you a few points of housekeeping. The conference language is German with a simultaneous interpretation into English, and that's a Teams meeting. In the Teams meeting, you see all the charts in German. If you want to see the charts in English, you will find the link in the chat, or you will also find it as a download on the BASF website under Quarterly Statement Q3. That's it for introduction, and I give the floor to you.
Nina.
Thank you, Nina. Good morning, everyone. Dirk Elvermann and I welcome you to this press conference from Ludwigshafen, and we will present and explain our third quarter figures. The third quarter of 2025 continued to be challenging market dynamics-wise. Margins for basic chemicals were still under pressure. Customer buying behavior in almost all industries and regions remained cautious. Even in this demanding market environment, however, BASF's earnings came in slightly above market expectations and only slightly below the level of the prior year quarter. I'll start by looking at the sales performance of BASF Group compared with the prior year quarter, as usual. Overall, sales declined slightly on account of continued strong currency headwinds and lower prices. We were, however, able to achieve slightly higher volumes thanks to growth in the Surface Technologies, Chemicals, and Materials segments.
From a regional perspective, we recorded 12% volume growth in China, slight volume growth in South America, and fairly stable volume development in Europe. In North America, volumes were slightly down. Compared with the prior year quarter, prices declined in four of our six segments, particularly in the Chemicals segment. In the Surface Technologies and Nutrition and Care segments, we managed to achieve price increases. Currency effects dampened sales in all divisions and were mainly related to the strong depreciation of the US dollar, the Chinese renminbi, and the Indian rupee. Reflecting this underlying sales development, EBITDA before special items came in at over EUR 1.5 billion, compared with EUR 1.6 billion in the prior year quarter. Here, we provide you with an overview of how the markets and our segments' volumes and specific margins developed in the third quarter of 2025.
Due to a continued imbalance between supply and demand and the resulting pressure on margins, the business environment in our upstream segments remained challenging. Nevertheless, BASF achieved solid volume growth in both divisions of the Chemicals segment. However, the segment faced significantly lower prices, so margins declined sharply. In the Materials segment, despite the difficult market environment, BASF recorded slightly higher volumes due to increased volumes in the Monomers division and stable volume development in the Performance Materials division. Prices declined in both divisions. Overall, margins in the Materials segment were lower, owing mainly to developments in the Monomers division. The Industrial Solutions segment operated in a subdued market environment. Volumes slightly declined in both divisions. Specific margins decreased considerably, particularly in the Performance Chemicals division. The market environment for the Nutrition and Care segment became considerably more challenging in the third quarter of 2025.
BASF recorded lower volumes in both divisions but was able to achieve slightly higher prices in the segment. The specific margins in the Nutrition and Care segment declined. Lower fixed costs and improved margins in the Nutrition and Health division were more than offset by lower margins in the Care Chemicals division. Moving on to the Surface Technologies segment and its main customer industry, automotive. According to the latest data, global light vehicle production in the third quarter of 2025 increased by around 4% compared with the prior year quarter, mainly because of considerable growth in China. For the full year 2025, we expect global automotive production to increase by around 2% compared with 2024. In this environment, the Surface Technologies segment recorded volume growth, mainly in the Environmental Catalyst and Metal Solutions, ECMS division, and overall prices were up considerably.
Specific margins in the Surface Technologies segment also increased slightly. Finally, in the segment overview, let's look at the Agricultural Solutions segment. Crop commodity prices remained below historical averages. Farmers still faced elevated financing costs, resulting in unchanged and challenging economics for them. In this market environment, the Agricultural Solutions segment recorded slightly lower volumes and prices compared with the prior year quarter. By contrast, the segment achieved considerably higher specific margins in a seasonally low quarter, in a seasonally slow quarter. Let's now look at EBITDA before special items by segment in the third quarter of 2025. Considerable earnings growth in the Surface Technologies and Agricultural Solutions segments, as well as improved earnings in Other, were offset by lower earnings in the core businesses. Compared with the prior year quarter, EBITDA before special items in the Surface Technologies segment increased significantly due to the ECMS division.
The earnings increase at ECMS was driven by significantly lower fixed costs, a strong precious metal trading business, and volume growth. Lower fixed costs resulted from continuous cost improvement measures and U.S. government grants, for which ECMS is eligible as a leading recycler of platinum group metals. As we communicated at the capital market update in Antwerp at the beginning of the month, after the successful carve-out, ECMS has a stronger setup, and we will keep the business as part of BASF Group for longer. We expect to benefit from strong cash contributions from ECMS amounting to a cumulative cash flow of roughly EUR 4 billion from 2024 to 2030. This brings us to the Agricultural Solutions segment. Earnings in this segment rose considerably, mainly due to improved margins. The successful market launch of glufosinate- P- ammonium and lower manufacturing costs both contributed to this development.
We continue to expect that a slight increase in full year earnings is achievable. The core businesses recorded lower earnings, mainly due to the previously mentioned lower margins, which were partly offset by lower fixed costs. As the deviations from average analyst expectations were largest in the Nutrition and Care segment, I will give you a few more details. Compared with the third quarter of 2024, we generated considerably lower earnings in the Nutrition and Care segment. The Nutrition and Health division increased earnings, primarily thanks to lower fixed costs. The Care Chemicals division, on the other hand, recorded a decline in earnings. The main reason for this was continued margin pressure, which was particularly pronounced in the personal care applications businesses. I will now give a brief update on our new Verbund site in South China.
We will complete this mega project with capital expenditures around EUR 1.3 billion lower than originally planned. We achieved this significant CapEx reduction through tight budgetary discipline, scope changes, and excellence in procurement. As a result of the currently long markets in China, the ramp-up of earnings contributions will be slower than originally anticipated. In the years to come, we expect most markets and value chains to rebalance. We therefore confirmed the targeted EBITDA before special items of EUR 1 billion to EUR 1.2 billion by 2030. This slide illustrates the impressive progress the Zhanjiang team has achieved since May. This includes the successful mechanical completion of the steam cracker and downstream petrochemical plants. The infrastructure and utility plants are already in steady operation.
Additionally, we have safely and successfully started up various downstream plants, including butyl acrylate, 2- ethyl hexyl acrylate, form aldehyde, neopentyl glycol, and glacial acrylic acid, with more startups to come. We are thus transitioning the project from construction to operational readiness. Full operational startup for the site is expected as of the end of 2025. Let's now move on to the binding transaction agreement on BASF's Coatings business, which we announced on October 10th. This agreement with Carlyle marks an important milestone in focusing our portfolio and unlocking the value of our Coatings business. It demonstrates our strong commitment to swiftly execute BASF's Winning Ways strategy and create a leading Coatings company under Carlyle's operational leadership. The enterprise value of this transaction amounts to EUR 7.7 billion.
If we achieve regulatory approvals within the typical timeframes, which we anticipate, the transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026. At closing, BASF will remain invested in the Coatings entity with a 40% stake and will receive pre-tax cash proceeds of approximately EUR 5.8 billion. We believe in the future value creation and potential of the Coatings business and want to continue to participate in its success. Together with the divestiture of BASF's Decorative Paints business to Sherwin- Williams, which closed on October 1st, BASF's entire Coatings division is valued at an enterprise value of EUR 8.7 billion. The implied 2024 EV EBITDA multiple before special items of approximately 13 clearly demonstrates that we are unlocking the value of the Coatings division. With that, I will now hand over to Dirk.
Yes. Well, thank you, Markus, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. What are the implications of the Coatings transaction agreed with Carlyle in terms of BASF's financial information being presented today? As of September 30th, 2025, and until closing of the transaction, we will report Coatings in the P&L as discontinued operations. Therefore, sales and earnings of the business are no longer included in sales, EBITDA, and EBIT of BASF Group with retroactive effect as of January 1st, 2025. The prior year figures have been restated accordingly. The results of this business are presented as income after taxes from discontinued operations. Between September 30th, 2025, and closing of the transaction, there is no impact or change on BASF's statement of cash flow. The business will be considered as before in the respective line items of BASF's cash flow statement.
As of closing, BASF's minority stake of 40% will be accounted for as a financial investment using the equity method and will be reported in EBITDA and EBIT before special items of other. The cash inflow from the transaction will be reported in cash flows from investing activities in the line item payments received from divestitures. After closing of the transaction, dividend payments from the business to BASF Group will be reported in BASF's cash flows from operating activities. This table provides a comprehensive overview of the major changes in BASF's reporting following the classification of the Automotive OEM Coatings, Automotive Refinish Coatings, and Surface Treatment businesses as discontinued operations.
In the quarterly statement published today, for ease of comparison, we provide all relevant financial figures on both a pro forma basis, meaning with Coatings still fully included in the segment result of Surface Technologies, as well as excluding the discontinued Coatings operations. The decorative paints business sold to Sherwin- Williams is not affected by the retroactive restatement. It remained part of the Surface Technologies segment until its divestment on October 1st, 2025. This means that the figures for the Coatings division in the third quarter segment reporting refer exclusively to the decorative paints business, which was already classified as a disposal group in the first quarter of this year. Now, I would like to explain the capital allocation framework and how BASF will use the considerable cash proceeds from the portfolio measures that have already been completed or will be completed.
As you know, we closed the sale of BASF's food and health performance ingredients business to Louis Dreyfus Company on September 30th, 2025. This is reflected in the quarterly statement for the third quarter of 2025. The sale of BASF's Brazilian decorative paints business to Sherwin- Williams was closed on October 1st, 2025. The purchase price amounted to $1.15 billion on a cash and debt-free basis. For our Coatings transaction with Carlyle, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, we will receive pre-tax cash proceeds of around EUR 5.8 billion. At maximum, we assume taxes to be in a mid-triple-digit million euro range. We are also making further progress with the monetization of our oil and gas assets. In 2025, we will receive around EUR 200 million from our participation in Harbour Energy from dividends and Harbour Energy's ongoing share buyback program.
I would like to stress yet again, we consider our participation in Harbour Energy to be a financial investment, and our strategy remains to exit at the right time to realize the value of this participation. There is also good momentum in the topic of federal investment guarantees. Wintershall Dea received a first installment from the German federal government in the third quarter, and we expect a final decision soon. Proceeds will be distributed by Wintershall Dea via dividends and will contribute to BASF Group's operating cash flow in 2025 and 2026. As we previously announced and recently confirmed, we are targeting IPO readiness of BASF's Agricultural Solutions division by 2027, with a potential listing of a minority share as the next step. In other words, cash proceeds from this event would be beyond the 2025-2026 window.
Now, let's move on to the use of cash with a focus on the rest of this year and next year. We are clearly committed to paying an annual dividend of at least EUR 2.25 per share, subject to approval by the annual shareholders meeting. Furthermore, we will use a substantial part of cash proceeds to deleverage the balance sheet and secure our financial strength. The maturity profile of outstanding bonds will allow us considerable deleveraging in 2026. As announced yesterday, we will start buying back shares as of November 2025. This is a considerable acceleration compared with our initial plan to buy back shares from 2027 onwards. More details on that in a minute. Larger acquisitions are currently not in focus, while smaller to mid-sized acquisitions remain possible, and capital expenditures will be significantly reduced in 2026 and beyond.
They will consistently stay below depreciation level until at least 2028. Ladies and gentlemen, we are swiftly delivering on our Winning Ways strategy, and we are fully committed to attractive shareholder distributions. Therefore, and in view of our quick progress on the portfolio side, we have announced that we will start a share buyback program with a volume of up to EUR 1.5 billion in November that is scheduled to be executed by the end of June 2026. This is part of the share buyback announced in September 2024, with a total volume of EUR 4 billion until the end of 2028. The earlier start of the program demonstrates management's confidence in the underlying financial strength and true value of our company, which in our view is not fully reflected in the current share price.
Now is the right time to return capital to our shareholders and reduce the number of shares while bringing down debt. Let's now take a look at the financial details of BASF Group for the first nine months of 2025 compared with the same period of last year. All these figures still include the discontinued operations. At EUR 5.9 billion, EBITDA before special items declined slightly compared with the first nine months of 2024. The EBITDA margin before special items, excluding metals, remained almost stable at 13.6%. EBIT before special items reached EUR 3.1 billion compared with EUR 3.4 billion in the same period last year. Special charges resulted primarily from restructuring measures as well as the sale of BASF's share in the Nordlicht 1 and 2 wind farms back to Vattenfall in the first quarter of 2025.
Special income from the sale of BASF's food and health performance ingredients business had a partially compensating effect. Net income declined by EUR 1 billion and amounted to EUR 1.1 billion. In the prior year period, net income from shareholdings included special income in connection with the transfer of Wintershall Dea assets to Harbour Energy. Cash flows from operating activities amounted to EUR 2 billion compared with EUR 3.5 billion in the same period last year. The decline was primarily driven by changes in other operating assets, lower net income, and higher cash outflows from changes in working capital. Compared with the first nine months of 2024, payments for property, plant and equipment and intangible assets decreased by EUR 1.1 billion-EUR 2.8 billion. This clearly indicates that we have passed the peak investment phase for our South China Verbund site.
Free cash flow was minus EUR 868 million in the first nine months of 2025. Here you can see some more details on our cash flow. I will focus on the development in the third quarter shown on the right-hand side. In the third quarter of 2025, cash flows from operating activities came in at EUR 1.4 billion. The decline compared with the prior year quarter was mainly due to changes in other operating assets. Payments made for property, plant and equipment and intangible assets decreased by EUR 510 million compared with the third quarter of 2024. Free cash flow amounted to around EUR 400 million. And with that, back to you, Markus.
Thank you, Dirk. Our assumptions regarding the global economic environment in 2025 remain unchanged. Likewise, our outlook for 2025 remains unchanged content-wise.
As a result of the reclassification of the Automotive OEM Coatings, Automotive Refinishing Coatings, and Surface Treatment businesses mentioned by Dirk, we have made a necessary technical adjustment to our outlook. The adjusted outlook range for EBITDA before special items is now between EUR 6.7 and EUR 7.1 billion, and the difference compared with the previous outlook range of between EUR 7.3 and EUR 7.7 billion reflects the expected full-year contribution of the Coatings business that are part of the transaction with Carlyle. This business is retroactively reported as discontinued operations as of January 1st, 2025. The forecast for free cash flow and for CO2 emissions are unaffected by the restatement and thus remain unchanged, and now we'll be happy to answer your questions.
Right, thank you very much, Markus and Dirk. You may now ask your questions.
Please use the hand icon in Teams, and we will then give you the floor following the order you requested the floor. Please bear in mind that you are muted, and you then have to unmute yourself to ask a question. The first question comes from Mr. Fröndhoff, Handelsblatt.
Good morning. One question to both of you, maybe more to Mr. Kamieth. If we look at the earnings figures, you have grown in the carved-out businesses and the core business, which represents the future, tier figures declined. Looking at the earnings contribution of Coatings, well, this year there will be no more contributions. That is a high figure with a high return. So the question here is, does BASF really bet on the right part of the business because you seem to keep the declining businesses?
That was your question already. Thank you very much, Mr. Fröndhoff, for your question. Our strategy was announced very clearly last year, and we started to restructure our portfolio with that. From my point of view, it's a little simplified to say we will get rid of our standalone businesses. This is not true. We already announced that the ECMS business will be kept in the group, and in the years to come, we will generate cash contributions, and it will remain part of the BASF group, but obviously, as a standalone business, it will be managed differently from our core businesses. The Ag S olutions business, a significant earnings contribution business, will also, after the IPO, remain a fully consolidated business of the BASF group and contribute to our earnings figures. The business we are discussing now is the Coatings business, as you mentioned.
Of course, if you look at BASF Group's figures, this business will no longer be part of these because we are deconsolidating, and we have a share now in this business. But the true importance of this transaction, I think, was described clearly. For our shareholders, we can show the value of the business with an EBITDA multiple of 13, which is much better, a very good evaluation, and this means an immediate offset and compensation, and it means that funds are coming in immediately. I think this is a good strategy, and the success story in the core is being continued because even in a difficult market environment, our core businesses are doing reasonably well, and we bet on our innovative strength, our cost advantages, and the core businesses, of course, do have a justified future with profitable growth.
Our portfolio strategy, from our point of view, is the right one, and the high earnings contributions and the high evaluation of Coatings, I think, confirms our strategy. I don't know whether Dirk, you want to add something. Mr. Fröndhoff, from the financial point of view, I described that the business is being reclassified, but it fully contributes to our 2025 earnings figures in cash flow also, and only from an accounting point of view, it is shown in a different way. Also, when it comes to the future, we are selling 60%, which gives us a cash share of $5.8 billion before taxes. For the 60%, we will have a 40% stake, and our stake, I tried to show this to you, will be reflected in the EBIT in future.
As soon as the closing is complete, the performance of this joint business under operational leadership by Carlyle will be shown in BASF's EBIT. So it doesn't disappear, but we still have a minority share. If you look at the profitability of Coatings over several years, then looking at the strength in earnings, looking at return on capital, it is not much different from our downstream businesses in the core business. So your hypothesis that this is less profitable is not true. Thank you.
English with good morning, Andrew. Your question, please.
Hi, can you hear me okay?
Yes, we can hear you.
Great. Morning, everyone. I've got three, and I'll try to keep them brief. The first one is, you've mentioned small to medium M&A. Sorry, I'm getting a terrible echo. I don't know how to get rid of it, but I'll continue.
You've mentioned small to medium M&A. Given the focus on the Verbund and getting everything inside the tent, so to speak, what would that look like? Are you referring to the stray commodity assets in Europe, for instance? Because it's hard to picture how you would buy anything given your retrenchment around the Verbund. That's the first. I take your point on ECMS and Ag and how they are good standalone businesses, but given you've sold Coatings, you've sold food and health, I'm struggling to work out how something like Cognis fits in. It's got a ton of SKUs. It's cosmetic actives, anti-aging, pharma or natural ingredients. It feels like less of an overlap with Coatings. Are there more businesses that could come out like that? I've forgotten the other. Yeah, I'll leave it there. You only get two.
Nina, good luck with your next role in Roche.
Oh, thank you, Andrew.
Do we answer in English or in German?
In English. In English.
Okay. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks for your question. I'll take a stab at them. First of all, M&A, I mean, the notion that we say we consider small to medium-sized M&A or acquisitions is, at the end of the day, also a financial statement, so to say, that we put in the context of our financial use of cash, so to say, right? We wanted to make sure that we are not now sitting here and targeting major transformational M&A as a group, at least for the time being. I would say your statement that everything has to fit under one tent is a little bit black and white from my perspective.
Of course, we are focusing a lot on our strength and our Verbund sites, and we have also said recently that about 80% of what we do in the Verbund is linked to one of our value chains. But that also leaves a lot of room for attractive, high-growth, high-profit businesses that we run that are not necessarily always linked to a value chain and are not present at our Verbund sites. So I don't think this is an exclusive view so much. The business in particular that you mentioned in the second part of your question, we consider as one of our strong downstream businesses. We have also a very integrated business, by the way, in the personal care space, starting from fatty alcohols all the way to a large amount of personal care ingredients.
We are going to market with one of the broadest and, I would say, most powerful portfolios into an industry that, of course, also benefits a lot from other products that come out of the Verbund in Ludwigshafen, the EO value chain, for example. Overall, we like the personal care business a lot. We have shown that we can run this operationally very well. We are one of the market leaders, and it shows also an over-average profitability for us. We don't discard anything just because it's not in Ludwigshafen or just because it's not linked to a Verbund value chain, but we look at it case by case, and we see what businesses fit to us and where are we the best owner. This is also, I would say, the lens we put on potential small to medium-sized acquisitions.
This is not a super high priority for us right now, but we wanted to indicate that we have the capabilities to do so.
Yeah, I remembered the last one. Just super quick. In 2024, you announced a deal with International Process Plants to sell some ammonia, methanol, and melamine plants in Ludwigshafen. Did they get relocated and shipped off, or has it been written off? Was it a positive experiment that you could do again?
Andrew, to be honest, I really don't know the answer to this question. I think some of the media, some of the attention this got in the media was, from my perspective, blown a little bit out of proportion. There's an active market for people who are looking for distressed plant and pieces of equipment, like you have scrap yards in automotive.
You have people that are looking for these types of equipment pieces. It's not a big deal. It's not strategic, certainly not on the radar screen of the BASF board.
Okay, thank you.
Okay. Thank you. [Foreign language] Hartmut Reitz from SWR. Mr. Reitz, please.
Yes, good morning. I would like to ask about two aspects. Firstly, the site in South China, you always talk about $10 billion, so now you assume approximately $9 billion investment there. If you then operate the site with all the overcapacities, is it too big maybe now, even if it is more cost-efficient? Then maybe a word on the site in Ludwigshafen. You are talking with the Works Council on the site agreement, and can we expect a solution soon?
Let me start with China, if that's okay. You are right. At the beginning of October, on the Capital Markets Day, we gave you a new figure, a more accurate figure, rather, because with such a major project, you have to wait and see until everything is really approximately finalized. Now we drew a line and said, okay, EUR 8.7 billion is the figure, not the EUR 10 billion that we said at the beginning. But we wanted to see, really. It's like when you build a house, you remain cautious until everybody left, the last craftsman left the site. So EUR 8.7 billion is the figure.
Your question whether it's too big, whether the site is too big? No, because on the one hand, we have longer markets in China. What does that mean? That means that there are slight overcapacities on the market in China. The entire chemical industry has this situation.
But size and scale, of course, is the point that makes us competitive. Starting with upstream, the steam cracker, you can't build it half as big because then it's too expensive, and then you can forget it in China. You have to be big here, think big. Then it is competitive. Then you have competitive downstream assets, which you integrate as well as possible. That's what BASF, and that's what we believe, is able to do compared to many Chinese competitors. Maybe we are better here. The site is big, but in a cost curve in China, it is at a very favorable position, and that allows us to really go and fight on this tough market in China and to confront the Chinese competitors successfully. Yes, it's big, but it has to be big in order to be cost-efficient.
This is the game that we have here with commodity Materials s ite agreement. Second question. No news here. There's talks going on between employee representation under Katja Scharpwinkel. She's a labor director here in Ludwigshafen and her team. You might imagine that in these times, these are difficult and intensive talks. I'm not personally involved here, but I learn that this is on good track, and both sides make constructive contributions, even if it is hard work to find a solution. I'm quite confident because I said so time and again, I think a site agreement was always good for us. It regulates, like in a coalition agreement for politicians, it regulates a certain period of time, and it's good to have such a document.
You can rely on it, and we just rely on it to be a solution for us, for the board, but also for employee representatives and employees for the transformation that we're faced with.
Thank you. Now we switch back to English. A question from Jakob Wei zman from Politico. Good morning.
Hi, good morning. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can hear you fine. Hi. Thank you, Dr. Kamieth and Dr. Elvermann, for the presentation. My question is regarding the Verbund site in South China. As BASF's largest investment today, that is now progressing with lower costs than originally planned. I wanted to ask more from a BU policymaking level, given Europe's ongoing struggle with the chemicals industry, with higher energy costs, high regulation, and less demand.
Does the growing investment footprint in China signal a crucial shift away from Europe's chemical base, as you see many plants close across Europe with Dow, LyondellBasell, Borealis, and Covestro, and especially with Sir Jim Ratcliffe mentioning the stress calls for the decline of Europe's chemical industry? I wanted to ask from a Brussels perspective, what can EU policymakers do to stop the deindustrialization and keep production innovation at home, especially with Europe's fight to decarbonize as well across the Green Deal transition? Thank you.
Great. Yeah, thanks, Jakob. I mean, of course, especially the last part of your question would be enough to fill an entire hour or two on debate about EU policy. But let me come back to the first part of your question. I think that the picture of things shifting from Europe to China is fundamentally flawed because China is a growing market for chemicals.
It's a growing market in general for many industries. Europe is a stagnating, to right now, even slightly shrinking market for chemicals and also customer industries of the chemical industry. So you have two very different dynamics. If you are a global company, you have to accommodate for both of these trends because you have assets and you have visions to be profitable and to have market-leading positions in both of these regions, which is true for other regions as well. That means you have to have in China a smart growth strategy, investing into competitive assets that allows you to grow with the market, to continue to deal with your customers in China, and also to compete successfully against local competition.
At the same time, you have to have an appropriate strategy in Europe to deal with a high-cost environment with lack of growth in most of our end markets and with a continued denser regulatory environment that is often guided by the thought of leading and regulating a green transformation. Very different market environments, and we have to have appropriate strategies in both regions, like we do have to have a successful strategy for North America. I'm always speaking back against a little bit of the notion that something is shifting. We are just executing a game plan in China, and we're executing a game plan in Europe. But in Europe, the game plan is about rationalization. The chemical industry has significant overcapacities in Europe for the European market.
This is, I would say, significantly also influenced by a denser and partially destructive regulatory framework that we are facing here in Europe. This is also what you hear other people pointing out very clearly. If we talk to politicians in Brussels, we very much mention, first of all, the high level of regulation that is not necessarily helping with the competitiveness of the European industry and the high degree of bureaucracy that has emerged, especially over the last years, which is also partially toxic for an investment climate.
The second thing is, of course, the increasing cost for CO2 in Europe, which fundamentally, I think when it all started with the ETS system and the idea to establish a CBAM system, might have been a good idea, but it shows that, A, it is becoming very, very difficult for the industry in Europe to deal with the rigidness of this system and the incredibly increasing CO2 costs that we might have in the next decade if we don't change it. On the other hand, the matter of fact that the rest of the world is not playing along. CO2 prices in the rest of the world are not increasing. That, of course, sets back the chemical industry in Europe.
And thirdly, I would say that in general, the European Commission or people in Brussels still have to do a much better effort to focus on Industrial competitiveness by, for example, really committing to the recommendations that were in the Draghi report. I just mentioned the full commitment to creating a single market in Europe because I think that's the only chance of making Europe strong enough to, at the end of the day, compete with the US and with China on eye-to-eye level because we have the theoretical potential to do it. But in real life, I think we shoot ourselves in the foot way too often.
Thank you. [Foreign language] . Okay, let's continue with Mr. Kros, Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung. Good morning, Mr. Kros.
Good morning. I have a follow-up question regarding the Ludwigshafen site. You have ambitious savings plans here. Do you think from today's point of view that you will be able to achieve your targets here without dismissals for operational reasons? Maybe you can give us a status report here. You also mentioned Wintershall installment you received from the federal government. I think it's about investments in Russia. Could you tell us how much this installment is and how much you expect in future? What do you think to how much money are you entitled here?
The third question regarding Coatings. The share of 40% you keep, has this been the plan from the very beginning that you keep such a share? What is the background for this? Didn't Carlyle want more, or do you want to take part in profit, or do you want to have a say in the strategy in future as well?
Would you like to answer the first two questions? Yes. Good morning, Mr. Kros. The Ludwigshafen site. I'd like to repeat what I've already mentioned in recent quarters very briefly. We continue with the savings program along the lines that we had. It's even faster. We announced additional savings of EUR 100 million for this year. We are faster. We do this along the lines of the framework we have. For the Ludwigshafen site, we will not have any dismissals for operational reasons. This is a savings program that we will execute without dismissals for operational reasons. Wintershall Dea. Yes, we are making progress as a matter of fact. I already received a significant amount of money, but please bear with me. We agreed with the federal government and the parties involved that we only qualify the success once we have received it.
Currently, the money that we received is with Wintershall Dea. There are some formal aspects we have to look into until they can forward the money. Once we've received it, I will let you know. Yes, this is a first installment that we received. As a matter of fact, we expect another payment, and we hope that this will come smoothly. Mr. Kros, thank you very much for your questions regarding Coatings. I will try to be as simple as possible here. When you start, you have many parties who say, "Yes, we are interested. We think it's a good business." I think over many years, we have shown that this is a great business. We always said that we believe in the future of the business.
There are other parties who say, "We'd like to have 100%." There are other parties who say, "We want to have a small share and everything in between." We have been open from the very beginning because we decided it's not about a specific amount of cash that we want to have by selling this or by starting a joint venture. But the important thing was, what is the best structure when we look at this business? Carlyle turned out to be a partner that has great strength and good experience, where we thought this may work excellently in a partnership. On the other hand, they have a similar evaluation logic when it comes to the business, and they confirmed the value we had in mind. When combining these strengths, this means we can continue to operate the business successfully.
However, the operational leadership of the business is with Carlyle. They have a 60% share, and we have a financial share. I think Carlyle appreciates our share and our future commitment regarding the business. But operational leadership and strategic management, this will be decided by Carlyle. Still, I think it's an excellent combination. At the end of the day, it's reflected in the evaluation of the business. We are very satisfied, but this was not the plan from the very beginning.
Thanks.
Thank you very much. Now let's continue. The next question comes from Mr. Lismann from Rheinpfalz. Hello, Mr. Lismann.
Hello. Good morning. My question is on the employees. On 30th of September, the headcount there, I see an accelerated decline by 1,400 over the year. I would be interested in what stands behind that and whether this decline in headcount will take place in Ludwigshafen proper. Would you like to do that?
Yes, I can start. Good morning, Mr. Lismann. Yes, definitely. The program in Ludwigshafen, of course, is picking up speed, which means that the number of employees at the site is reduced. It's always when you take personnel measures, it needs a certain preparation time with all the negotiations, which are right and also necessary. Then, of course, everything gains momentum. This is why now we see a stronger decline. It doesn't surprise us. To the contrary, it is exactly what we had planned. Mr. Lismann, maybe I would like to comment on that too. At the beginning of October, we showed you a figure to show what the momentum, the dynamics is.
It was a global figure, but you know that Ludwigshafen always is a major part of BASF Group. We always say that increasing headcount in Zhanjiang is external. We don't include that now because we need people there. Since 2024, we reduced about 3,000 employees for BASF in the framework of several restructuring and optimization programs, which shows we see a certain momentum. It differs from quarter to quarter. It's volatile. For example, in the third quarter in Ludwigshafen, we employ trainees, apprentices in Ludwigshafen. Quarterly figures are difficult to evaluate and to rate. This is why we want to report once a year on the headcount figures at BASF. You are right. There is momentum. Things are happening. Headcount decline is actually happening just as we had planned for in the Ludwigshafen cost improvement program. Do you have another question, Mr. Lismann?
Ms. Höveler is next.
Hello. I have two questions also with regard to China. One question, you were talking about volume growth of 12% in China. Where does that come from? Has demand recovered, or have you opened further assets? This is why you have more supply now. The second question is, you said that the project scope in Zhanjiang has been adjusted. What does that exactly mean? Have you left out three or four assets, or can you be a little more concrete about that?
Yes. Thank you very much, Ms. Höveler. First of all, 12%, where do they come from? The Chinese market in 2025, the chemical market in China, again has massively increased. I think we are talking, if I remember correctly, in the first three quarters, we are talking 7%.
That's how much the chemical market in overall China grew. There's a strong growth, and that is due to the customer industry that we serve there, with an exception of the construction industry, which in China has a difficult life too. All the rest is growing. If you then look at the chemical industry worldwide, in 2025, we saw the growth coming from China. The rest of the world, excluding China, is shrinking. We have a growth in markets in China, yes, but a market that is growing by 7%. We grow by 12%. This is not because of new capacities, because we didn't have so many more capacities in 2025 in China. We gain market shares, and some of our business fare very well when it comes to volume in China.
What is also true is that in China, the 12% of volume growth goes hand in hand with the lower price structure. The price structure in China is very difficult. There's a lot of capacity. The market is very competitive. In this market, we show that we have what it takes. We do have the plants. We do have the assets and the competitiveness to be strong on this market. The investments, yes, of course. Maybe take two steps back when we started. Maybe you remember that originally, when we started planning Zhanjiang and also started communicating, we were talking about phase one and phase two. After what we now see as the scope of the investment, afterwards, there was a kind of second phase, which comprised a number of plants.
Two years ago, we had a closer look at, and that makes sense in the Chinese situation. We looked back on phase one, and we put some of the plants on ice because it made sense. We planned a number of assets that were not part of phase one because the resources were still to be discussed. But a number of other assets were put on ice because on the market today, these projects would not pay off. Maybe we can buy these products from the Chinese market for the time being. Nothing has really shrunk, but it has been adjusted, I would say.
Let's continue with Mr. Eckl-Dorna from Bloomberg. Good morning.
Good morning to everybody. I have four short questions. I'd like to know how you are affected by the dollar weakness. Maybe you can tell us something about that. Which are the areas where you are hit worst? Second question, decline in demand in many segments. When do you think will demand catch up and in which segments? Thirdly, the acquisitions, you don't have any priority, but how many of these possible acquisitions do you have planned or in mind? Maybe you can tell us where you would like to become stronger with acquisitions. Fourth, Battery Materials business. This has been a hope for growth for quite some time. Is there still hope, or will there be more restructuring measures? If so, what kind of measures are planned here?
Far from my side, a whole package. Yes, we will try to be brief but still clear. Let me start, and then we reach a topic where Dirk is the expert. Battery Materials. We always said that with Battery Materials, we are looking for partnerships along the value chain because in the last two, three years, the market for Battery Materials in Europe and all over the world has gone through a difficult development. Looking at the technology development here and the technology demands, the situation has become more difficult. So we are trying to have full capacity utilization rather than investing in new assets. I think the strategy has worked quite well.
The team did an excellent job to leave the expansion mode and focus on we will deliver profitability from the existing business. Changing the business in this way, this worked excellently. We are still together with customers in the value chain trying to establish this new strategy. With CATL, the leading cell manufacturers, we announced that we will start with a supplier partnership.
When it comes to our plant in Schwarzheide, we have been able to come up with new partnerships. It will remain a difficult business, a business that will remain challenging for the years to come. We think we have good assets, and we think that with this strategy, we can get the best value for BASF.
How many M&A ideas do we have? We won't tell because this is a discussion. It depends on whom you ask. If you ask our M&A department, they have more ideas than the Board of Executive Directors maybe wants to look at. We do have ideas. It does not make a lot of sense to look at acquisitions or parts of companies that would be standalone businesses within BASF because we decided we want to strengthen our core businesses and grow them.
Of course, we prefer to look for businesses that match our core businesses, classical chemical businesses when it comes to profitability and growth potential. If they are a good match and match our technology scope and business models, that would be good. If they allow us to enter stronger growth markets, for example, in Asia, if we can tap those, then this would be the ideal prize, so to say. How much we have in the pipeline, I won't tell today.
When will demand catch up? It's really difficult to predict. You know that a major part of the economic and industrial weakness in the world is shaped by difficult predictability. You know that 2nd of April, there is one topic dominating the world, so to say. I'm not able to tell you that this unpredictability will change in the months to come.
We think that the economic development will continue as it is in 2026. Whether there is or will be a catalyst in the weeks and months to come, which means that we have higher GDP growth rates and maybe higher industrial production rates, I think this is pure speculation. It might happen. In the world of today, it might happen any time. If between the US and China, we see an enormous breakthrough regarding their trade relationship, of course, this could trigger some very positive effects in the world. We all know how shaky the world is at the moment. So we expect a vertical economic development, but we are well prepared, of course, a horizontal economic development. We are well prepared. If the situation changes, we want to benefit from this as well.
Regarding your currency question, the negative FX effects do have an adverse effect across the board, so to say. In a quarter such as Q3, it costs a double-digit million amount when it comes to earnings. It is significant, and it has been with us since the beginning of the year. Let me add to M&A here. I think it's important to understand that next year, we have the focus to reduce our debts. I mentioned it briefly in my presentation. We will reduce debt in addition to the share buyback program. As Mr. Kamieth already mentioned, M&A will become more normal, but the focus for next year is strengthening our balance sheet.
Regarding my comments on M&A, please don't misunderstand me. This is not something that we are thinking of all the time. But I think in every company, you have to look at what is happening out there. But Dirk is right. At the level of the Board of Executive Directors, we are not always discussing M&A. Right now, we are focusing on what Dirk mentioned, reducing debt, making sure that the portfolio transaction runs smoothly. But of course, we always have M&As in the view.
Freytag. So the question of Mr. Freytag by FAZ. Hello, Mr. Freytag.
Thank you very much. Mr. Kamieth, maybe a word on the debate on the European emission trade. So where is your position there? Are you also in favor of the energy-intensive industry to be without cost or get without cost certificates for their emissions? I would be interested in a cost calculation. How expensive would the certificates be if the price were EUR 80 or EUR 100 per ton of CO2?
Thank you, Mr. Freytag. Maybe let me start with the overall positioning that we take. It might take a few minutes because it is a sensitive, delicate discussion, which is in the interest of the wide public, I believe. The idea to introduce an ETS system in Europe with a market-oriented certificate price is a good idea, basically, and was the best system for a long time that we could think of. A market-based system in which eventually the CO2 price is regulated is a good system. But over the past years, a lot of things changed. On the one hand, we realized that CO2 transformation in the chemical industry, and this is what I can talk about best and most competently, that it doesn't happen as quickly as everybody had hoped for six or eight years ago.
That has to do with the framework conditions in Europe, look at energy prices, electricity prices, and other things that make life a little more difficult for the chemical industry than we thought. Secondly, there were two basic assumptions. The first assumption was that a CBAM system, which would avoid the famous carbon leakage. And it is also based on the image that in Europe, the production of green products, a product with a low carbon emission or a smaller product carbon footprint, would be better than in the rest of the world. And meanwhile, we have realized that this is not realistic. We and other chemical companies in China, the United States, and India can produce much more cost-efficiently because the energy is much cheaper there than in Europe, for example. The ETS concept is not fitting to today's situation.
The CO2 price in Europe in the next years for CO2-emitting companies will go up if we continue like that. We are talking about really large figures. The rest of the world doesn't go along. There are no significant movements in the rest of the world to talk about CO2 prices. The CO2 prices will not go up, for example, in the United States. Thus, the competitiveness in Europe and the rest of the world will shift, will be distorted. This will not only happen in 2039 when ETS has reached zero formally, but now there are no more free allocations. Supply and demand for the certificate is short. In the next years, the prices will go up significantly. For that reason, the system needs a fundamental reform. That can be done and addressed simply and easily.
For example, to extend free allocations for CO2, that's a short-term measure that would be practicable, I believe. But you can, of course, also have a political discourse on whether we can have a better system against the background that a CBAM over a longer period of time will not be viable in Europe. There are other companies also together with us to work out such proposals and then discuss it with the politicians. That will last some time. Basically, I believe that a discussion on the free allocations, free certificates, and extending them, we can't go around it because if not, in the next years, the trend towards shutting down chemical plants will accelerate. We need this debate. It is, of course, necessary, and these debates have to be led clearly.
We have to see what's on the table, namely the competitiveness of the whole of Europe. This is why I believe that we should be very transparent about it in our communication. I give you a figure for now. In 2024, we had a three-digit million figure in Europe buying CO2 certificates. This figure in the next decade, according to our model, if the ETS stays as it is, will be over half a billion. At the end of the next decade, it will be EUR 1 billion even. These would be costs because we produce in Europe. We wouldn't have it if we produce the products in China, United States, or India. You see this competitiveness disadvantage that we have in Europe. Then multiply that with the tiny market share that we have in Europe with the CO2 emission.
You get figures that will clearly be of harm to the chemical structure in Europe.
We do have one more question, namely coming from Mr. Burger at Reuters. Hello, Mr. Burger.
Thank you very much. Two short questions. Maybe again on Coatings. What is the expected book profit, booking profit of Coatings? Was that communicated already, the book gain? A second question, financial debts of the head company, were they transferred to Coatings? That would be the two questions.
Yes, Mr. Burger, let me answer the question. The real book gain, we don't know exactly because we have a transaction in the closing accounts approach. We still have to do some computing. I can tell you what the book gain of the transaction business is, $3.3 billion. We will have a significant book gain.
We cannot give you the exact figure right now, unfortunately.
This is it for today. Thank you very much for your interest. Oh no, sorry, sorry.
Debts, well, no debt when handing over the business. But before you say goodbye to everybody, please give me one minute. I'd like to thank you. Maybe it's not your last press conference with BASF, but the last press conference of the two of us together. On behalf of everybody here, I'd like to thank you for the five years. You will stay for some time now. But thank you very much for your commitment, for what you contributed to BASF, for your support, and how you accompanied me personally and always gave good advice and support. We wish you all the best for your future.
I envy the company that can benefit from the fact that you will join them. I know for you personally, it's a good step. So thank you very much. You will stay for some time still. So it's not a farewell speech, but thank you very much. Thank you, thank you. We will do our best for the next three months to benefit. And of course, I will stay in touch with you and stay connected with you. And if after the press conference, you have questions, of course, our press team will be available. There will be the next press conference face to face. Unfortunately, I will not be with BASF then. Scheduled for the 27th of February, 2026, here in Ludwigshafen, a face to face meeting where we will present the 2025 figures, figures for the full year. We'd appreciate it if you came.
All the best and have a great day. Thank you. Bye bye. All the best.