The Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE has today, July 29, 2026, resolved on a share buyback program. The program, which has a volume of up to €1.0 billion, is scheduled to start in August 2026 and be concluded by the end of April 2027. It is part of the share buyback announced in September 2024, with a total volume of €4 billion until the end of 2028. BASF SE will cancel the repurchased shares and reduce the share capital accordingly.

The share buyback program of up to €1.0 billion is based on the authorization granted by the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting of BASF SE on April 30, 2026, authorizing the Board of Executive Directors to purchase up to 10 percent of the issued shares at the time of the resolution (10 percent of the company’s share capital) until April 29, 2031. The purchase shall be conducted making use of the safe-harbor exemption for buyback programs in accordance with Article 5 of the EU Market Abuse Regulation (MAR).

As announced as part of its “Winning Ways” strategy in September 2024, BASF has set itself the target of distributing at least €12 billion to shareholders from 2025 to 2028 through a combination of dividends and share buybacks. Specifically, the company intends to pay a dividend of at least €2.25 per share or around €2 billion each year. The total dividend distribution of around €8 billion over the four-year period will be supplemented by share buybacks of at least around €4 billion. Between November 2025 and June 2026, shares with a total value of around €1.5 billion have already been repurchased. BASF SE will cancel the 31,600,261 repurchased shares, corresponding to approximately 3.5 percent of the share capital on announcement of the program, and reduce the share capital accordingly.

Through the share buyback, available capital will be returned to shareholders, the company’s capital structure optimized and earnings per share increased.

BASF will also significantly reduce net debt to strengthen its balance sheet. The maturity profile of outstanding bonds will allow considerable deleveraging in 2026; in addition, the company will repay bonds and loans with a nominal volume of €1.6 billion in the third quarter of 2026, ahead of their maturity.

BASF continues to strive for a single A credit rating, which ensures unrestricted access to financial and capital markets. The company currently has a rating of A/F1/outlook stable from Fitch, of A3/P-2/outlook stable from Moody’s and A-/A-2/outlook stable from Standard & Poor’s.