Corporate Governance & Management

The Board of Executive Directors is responsible for the management of the company and represents BASF SE in business undertakings with third parties. BASF’s Board of Executive Directors is strictly separated from the Supervisory Board, which monitors the Board of Executive Directors’ activities and decides on its composition. A member of the Board of Executive Directors cannot simultaneously be a member of the Supervisory Board. As the central duty of company management, the Board of Executive Directors defines the corporate goals and strategic direction of the BASF Group as well as its individual business areas, including the sustainability strategy. In doing so, the Board ensures that the opportunities and risks associated with social and environmental factors for our company as well as the ecological and societal impacts of BASF’s activities are systematically identified and evaluated. In addition to long-term economic goals, the corporate strategy appropriately takes environmental and social objectives into account, too. The corporate planning defined on this basis comprises financial and sustainability-related goals.

Furthermore, the Board of Executive Directors determines the company’s internal organization and decides on the composition of management positions on the levels below the Board. It also manages and monitors BASF Group business by planning and setting the corporate budget, allocating resources and management capacities, monitoring and making decisions on significant individual measures, and supervising operational management.

The Board’s actions and decisions are geared toward the company’s best interests. It is committed to the goal of sustainably increasing the company’s value and developing the company over the long term, taking into account environmental and social goals as well as economic targets. The Board’s responsibilities include the preparation of the Consolidated and Separate Financial Statements of BASF SE and reporting on the company’s financial and nonfinancial performance as well as half-year and quarterly reporting.

Furthermore, it must ensure that the company’s activities comply with the applicable legislation and regulatory requirements as well as internal corporate directives (compliance). This includes the establishment of appropriate systems for control, compliance and risk management as well as establishing a company-wide compliance culture with undisputed standards.

Decisions that are reserved for the Board as a whole by law, through the Board of Executive Directors’ Rules of Procedure or through resolutions adopted by the Board, are made and all important matters of the company are discussed at regularly held Board meetings called by the chair of the Board of Executive Directors. Board decisions are based on detailed information and analyses provided by the business areas and specialist units and, if deemed necessary, by external consultants. The chair of the Board of Executive Directors leads the Board meetings. Board decisions can generally be made via a simple majority. In the case of a tied vote, the chair of the Board of Executive Directors gives the casting vote. However, the chair of the Board of Executive Directors cannot enforce a decision against the Board of Executive Directors’ majority vote. The chair of the Board also does not have the right to veto. Outside of matters that are assigned to the entire Board for consultation and decision-making, all members of the Board of Executive Directors are authorized to make decisions individually in their designated areas of responsibility.

The Board of Executive Directors can set up Board committees to consult and decide on individual issues such as proposed material acquisition or divestiture projects or to prepare decisions to be made by the entire Board. These must include at least three members of the Board of Executive Directors. For the preparation of important decisions, such as those on acquisitions, divestitures, investments and personnel, the Board has various commissions at the level below the Board. With the support of the specialist units and independently of the affected business area, these committees thoroughly assess the planned measures and evaluate the associated opportunities and risks. Based on this information, they report and make recommendations to the Board.

The Board of Executive Directors informs the Supervisory Board regularly, without delay and comprehensively, of all issues important to the company with regard to planning, business development, risk situation, risk management and compliance. Furthermore, the Board of Executive Directors coordinates the company’s strategic orientation with the Supervisory Board.

The Statutes of BASF SE and the Supervisory Board have defined certain transactions that require the Board of Executive Directors to obtain the Supervisory Board’s approval prior to their conclusion. Such cases that require approval include the acquisition and disposal of enterprises and parts of enterprises, as well as the issue of bonds or comparable financial instruments. However, this is only necessary if the acquisition or disposal price or the amount of the issue in an individual case exceeds 3% of the equity reported in the most recent approved Consolidated Financial Statements of the BASF Group.

The Supervisory Board works hand in hand with the Board of Executive Directors to ensure long-term succession planning for the composition of the Board of Executive Directors. BASF aims to fill most Board positions with leaders from within the company. It is the task of the Board of Executive Directors to propose a sufficient number of suitable individuals to the Supervisory Board.

BASF’s long-term succession planning is guided by the corporate strategy. It is based on systematic management development characterized by the following:

• Early identification of suitable leaders of different professional backgrounds, nationalities and genders
• Systematic development of leaders through the successful assumption of tasks with increasing responsibility, where possible in different business areas, regions and functions
• Desire to shape strategic and operational decisions and proven success in doing so, as well as leadership skills, especially under challenging business conditions
• Role model function in putting corporate values into practice

The aim is to enable the Supervisory Board to ensure a reasonable level of diversity with respect to education and professional experience, cultural background, international representation, gender and age when appointing members of the Board of Executive Directors. Irrespective of these individual criteria, a holistic approach will determine a person’s suitability for appointment to the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE. Both systematic succession planning and the selection process aim to ensure that the Board of Executive Directors as a whole has the following profile, which serves as a diversity concept:

• Many years of leadership experience in scientific, technical and commercial fields
• International experience based on background and/or professional experience
• At least one female Board member
• A balanced age distribution to ensure the continuity of the Board’s work and enable seamless succession planning 

The first appointment of members of the Board of Executive Directors is for a term of no more than three years. The standard age limit for members of the Board of Executive Directors is 63. The Supervisory Board determines the number of members on the Board of Executive Directors. It is guided by insights gained by BASF as a company with an integrated leadership culture and is determined by the needs arising from cooperation within the Board of Executive Directors. The Supervisory Board considers six to be an appropriate number of Board members given the current business composition, future responsibilities associated with development and the fundamental organizational structure of the BASF Group.

The current composition of the Board of Executive Directors meets the competence profile and the requirements of the diversity concept in full.

The Supervisory Board appoints the members of the Board of Executive Directors and supervises and advises the Board of Executive Directors on management issues. It must also be involved in making decisions that are of key importance for the company. This also includes the Board of Executive Directors’ consideration of sustainability topics with regard to corporate governance. The Supervisory Board is also responsible for auditing BASF SE’s and the Group’s Annual Financial Statements. As members of the Supervisory Board may not simultaneously be on the Board of Executive Directors, a high level of independence is already structurally ensured with regard to the supervision of the Board of Executive Directors.

In addition to the SE Regulation, the relevant legal basis for the size and composition of the Supervisory Board is provided by the Statutes of BASF SE and the Agreement Concerning the Involvement of Employees in BASF SE (Employee Participation Agreement). The latter also includes the regulations applicable to BASF for implementing the statutory gender quota for the Supervisory Board. The German Codetermination Act does not apply to BASF SE as a European stock corporation (Societas Europaea, SE).

The Supervisory Board of BASF SE comprises 12 members. Six members are elected by the shareholders at the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting via a simple majority. Six members are elected by the BASF Europa Betriebsrat (BASF Works Council Europe), the European employee representation body of the BASF Group. In accordance with the resolution of the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting on June 18, 2020, the period of appointment for newly elected members of the Supervisory Board was reduced from five to four years; and the Statutes were amended accordingly. This ensures that the maximum membership duration of 12 years up to which a Supervisory Board member can be classified as independent in accordance with the German Corporate Governance Code corresponds to a total of three election terms.

Meetings of the Supervisory Board and its four committees are called by their respective chairs and independently, at the request of one of their members or the Board of Executive Directors. The shareholder and employee representatives of the Supervisory Board prepare for Supervisory Board meetings in separate preliminary discussions in each case. Resolutions of the Supervisory Board are passed by a simple majority vote of the participating Supervisory Board members. In the event of a tie, the vote of the chair of the Supervisory Board, who must always be a shareholder representative, shall be the casting vote. This resolution process is also applicable for the appointment and dismissal of members of the Board of Executive Directors by the Supervisory Board. Resolutions can, as needed, also be made in writing or through electronic communication outside of the meetings, as long as no Supervisory Board member objects to this form of passing a resolution. The Supervisory Board meets regularly even without the Board of Executive Directors.

The Board of Executive Directors continually informs the Supervisory Board about matters such as the course of business and expected developments, the financial position and results of operations, corporate planning, the implementation of the corporate strategy, including the sustainability strategy, business opportunities and risks, risk and compliance management and the internal control system. The Supervisory Board has embedded the main reporting requirements in an information policy. The chair of the Supervisory Board is in regular contact with the Board of Executive Directors, especially with its chair, outside of meetings as well.

One important concern of good corporate governance is to ensure that seats on the responsible corporate bodies, the Board of Executive Directors and the Supervisory Board are appropriately filled. In December 2017, the Supervisory Board agreed for the first time on objectives for the composition, the competence profile and the diversity concept of the Supervisory Board. These objectives and the competence profile have since been continuously updated in the implementation of legal requirements and further developed, taking into account the recommendations of the German Corporate Governance Code. The guiding principle for the composition of the Supervisory Board is to ensure qualified supervision and guidance for the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE. For the election of shareholder representatives to the Supervisory Board, individuals shall only be nominated to the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting who can, based on their professional knowledge and experience, integrity, commitment, independence and character, successfully perform the work of a supervisory board member at an international chemical company.
 

Competence profile

The following requirements and objectives (as amended in December 2022) are considered essential to the composition of the Supervisory Board as a collective body:

• Leadership experience in managing companies, associations and networks
• Members’ collective knowledge of the chemical sector and the related value chains
• Appropriate knowledge within the body as a whole of finance, accounting, financial reporting, risk management, law and compliance
• Appropriate expertise within the body as a whole on sustainability topics that are of key importance for BASF
• At least one member with special knowledge and experience (special expertise) in accounting, including sustainability reporting
• At least one member with special knowledge and experience (special expertise) in the annual audit, including the audit of sustainability reporting
• At least one member with in-depth experience in innovation, research and development, and technology
• At least one member with in-depth experience in the areas of digitalization, information technology, business models and start-ups 
• At least one member with in-depth experience in the areas of human resources, society, communications and the media
• Specialist knowledge and experience in sectors outside of the chemical industry
  

The status of implementation of the Supervisory Board’s competence profile is shown in the following qualifications matrix.  
 

Diversity concept

The Supervisory Board strives to achieve a reasonable level of diversity with respect to character, gender, international representation, professional background, specialist knowledge and experience as well as age distribution. It takes the following composition criteria into account:

• At least 30% women and 30% men
• At least 30% of members have international experience based on their background or professional experience
• At least 50% of members have different educational backgrounds and professional experience
• At least 30% under the age of 60
   

Further composition objectives

• Character and integrity: Members of the Supervisory Board must be personally reliable and have the knowledge and experience required to diligently and independently perform the work of a supervisory board member.
• Availability: Each member of the Supervisory Board ensures that they invest the time needed to properly perform their role as a member of the Supervisory Board of BASF SE. The statutory limits on appointments and the recommendations of the German Corporate Governance Code must be complied with when accepting further appointments. 
• Age limit and period of membership: Persons who have reached the age of 72 on the day of election by the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting should generally not be nominated for election. Membership on the Supervisory Board should generally not exceed three regular statutory periods in office, which corresponds to 12 years. 
• Independence: To ensure the independent monitoring and consultation of the Board of Executive Directors, the Supervisory Board should have an appropriate number of independent members on the board as a whole and an appropriate number of independent shareholder representatives. The Supervisory Board deems this to be the case if more than half of the shareholder representatives and at least eight members of the Supervisory Board as a whole can be considered independent. The Supervisory Board’s assessment of independence is based on the assessment criteria in the current respective version of the German Corporate Governance Code. Among other things, this means that members of the Supervisory Board are no longer considered independent if they have been a member of the board for 12 years or longer. The Supervisory Board has additionally defined the following principles to clarify the meaning of independence: The independence of employee representatives is not compromised by their role as an employee representative or employment by BASF SE or a Group company. Prior membership of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE does not preclude independence following the expiry of the statutory cooling-off period of two years. Material transactions between a Supervisory Board member or a related party or undertaking of the Supervisory Board member on the one hand, and BASF SE or a BASF Group company on the other, exclude a member of the Supervisory Board from being qualified as independent. A material transaction is defined as one or more transactions in a single calendar year with a total volume of 1% or more of the sales of the companies involved in each case. In the same way, if a Supervisory Board member or a related party or undertaking of a Supervisory Board member has a personal service or consulting agreement with BASF SE or one of its Group companies with an annual compensation of over 50% of the Supervisory Board compensation, they do not qualify as independent. Furthermore, if a Supervisory Board member or a related party of a Supervisory Board member holds more than 20% of the shares in a company in which BASF SE is indirectly or directly the majority shareholder, the necessary independence is also not met.
  
  

Status of implementation

According to the Supervisory Board’s own assessment, its current composition meets all of the requirements of the competence profile: 11 of the 12 current members, of which six are shareholder representatives and five are employee representatives, are considered independent based on the above criteria. Only the employee representative Michael Vassiliadis is no longer considered independent as he has been a member of the Supervisory Board since August 2004, and therefore for over 12 years.

The supervisory board of a publicly listed European stock corporation (SE) that is composed of the same number of shareholder and employee representatives must, according to section 17(2) of the SE Implementation Act, consist of at least 30% women and 30% men. Since the 2018 Annual Shareholders’ Meeting, the Supervisory Board of BASF SE comprises four women, of whom two are shareholder representatives and two are employee representatives, and eight men. The Supervisory Board’s composition meets the statutory requirements.

Following the entry into force of the Act to Supplement and Amend the Regulations on Equal Participation of Women and Men in Management Positions in the Private and Public Sector (FüPoG) on August 12, 2021, if the management board of a listed company consists of more than three persons, at least one woman and one man must be members of the management board (section 76 (3a) AktG). BASF met this requirement in the reporting year. With Dr. Melanie Maas-Brunner, there was one female Board member. With six members of the Board of Executive Directors, this corresponds to a 16.7 percentage of women.

In compliance with legal requirements of the FüPoG, the Board of Executive Directors decided on target figures for the proportion of women at the two management levels below the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE. For the target-attainment period from January 1, 2022, to December 31, 2026, the Board of Executive Directors resolved as targets the quotas achieved as of December 31, 2021: 20.0% for the proportion of women in the management level directly below the Board and 23.2% for the level below that.

BASF views the further development and promotion of women as a global duty independent of individual Group companies. For this purpose, it has committed to ambitious targets on a worldwide scale. The new target is to increase the proportion of women in leadership positions worldwide to 30% by 2030. BASF will continue to work systematically on expanding the percentage of women in its leadership team. To achieve this, global measures will be implemented and enhanced continuously

Shareholders exercise their rights of coadministration and supervision at the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting, which usually takes place within the first five months of the business year. The Annual Shareholders’ Meeting elects half of the members of the Supervisory Board (shareholder representatives) and, in particular, resolves on the formal discharge of the Board of Executive Directors and the Supervisory Board, the distribution of profits, capital measures, the authorization of share buybacks, changes to the Statutes and the selection of the auditor.

Each BASF SE share represents one vote. All of BASF SE’s shares are registered shares. Shareholders are obliged to have themselves entered with their shares into the company share register and to provide the information necessary for registration in the share register according to the German Stock Corporation Act. There are no registration restrictions and there is no limit to the number of shares that can be registered to one shareholder. Only the persons listed in the share register are entitled to vote as shareholders. Listed shareholders may exercise their voting rights at the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting either personally, through a representative of their choice or through a company-appointed proxy authorized by the shareholders to vote according to their instructions. Individual instructions are only forwarded to the company on the morning of the day of the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting. Voting rights can be exercised according to shareholders’ instructions by company-appointed proxies until the beginning of the voting process during the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting. There are neither voting caps to limit the number of votes a shareholder may cast nor special voting rights. BASF has fully implemented the principle of “one share, one vote.” All shareholders entered in the share register are entitled to participate in the Annual Shareholders’ Meetings, to have their say concerning any item on the agenda and to request information about company issues insofar as this is necessary to make an informed judgment about the item on the agenda under discussion. Registered shareholders are also entitled to file motions pertaining to proposals for resolutions made by the Board of Executive Directors and Supervisory Board at the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting and to contest resolutions of the meeting and have them evaluated for their lawfulness in court. Shareholders who hold at least €500,000 of the company’s share capital, a quota corresponding to 390,625 shares, are furthermore entitled to request that additional items be added to the agenda of the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2023 Annual Shareholders’ Meeting was held again for the first time as an in-person meeting, i.e., with the shareholders physically present at the meeting venue.

The 2023 Annual Shareholders’ Meeting resolved a series of amendments to the Statutes in connection with the format of the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting and the participation options. Accordingly, the Board of Executive Directors is authorized to hold the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting or an Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting as a virtual meeting without the physical presence of shareholders or their proxies at the venue of the meeting. This authorization for a period of two years is valid until May 8, 2025.

In a further resolution amending the Statutes, the 2023 Annual Shareholders’ Meeting authorized the Board of Executive Directors to provide for shareholders to participate in the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting or an Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting without being present at the venue and without a proxy and to exercise all or some of their rights in whole or in part by means of electronic communication (hybrid Annual Shareholders’ Meeting or Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting). This means that shareholders can also be enabled to participate in an in-person Annual Shareholders’ Meeting or Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting online in the future.

The third resolution amending the Statutes relates to enabling members of the Supervisory Board to participate in the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting or an Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting by means of video and audio transmission in cases where they would not be able to be physically present at the venue of the meeting or only with considerable effort. This also applies if the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting or an Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting is held as a purely virtual event.