“In the first quarter of 2019, BASF Group sales rose by 3% year on year to €16.2 billion,” said Dr. Martin Brudermüller, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE, at the company’s Annual Shareholders’ Meeting held at Congress Center Rosengarten in Mannheim, Germany. Compared with the first quarter of 2018, income from operations (EBIT) before special items declined by €549 million to €1.7 billion. “As expected, this is primarily due to the considerably lower contributions from the Materials and Chemicals segments. In these segments, we had exceptionally high isocyanates margins and strong cracker margins in the first quarter of the previous year,” said Brudermüller. EBIT before special items also declined considerably in Other and the Nutrition & Care segment, while earnings matched the level of the previous first quarter in the Surface Technologies segment. By contrast, the Agricultural Solutions and Industrial Solutions segments recorded a considerable improvement in earnings.
At €26 million, special items in EBIT were positive overall in the first quarter of 2019, compared with minus €18 million in the prior-year quarter. Special income from divestitures in the Agricultural Solutions and Industrial Solutions segments exceeded integration costs, special charges from restructuring measures and other charges.
Sales of €2.6 billion in the Agricultural Solutions segment were 53% higher compared with the first quarter of 2018. This was primarily attributable to portfolio effects from the acquisition of significant businesses and assets from Bayer in August 2018. BASF also achieved a higher price level in the legacy business while sales volumes were considerably lower year on year, mainly due to weather-related factors.
