Despite a slump in earnings in the first quarter, the chemical company BASF has reaffirmed its full-year targets. "BASF has made a better start to 2023 than analysts had expected. And this in a stagnating and difficult economic environment," said CEO Martin Brudermüller on Thursday.

For the year as a whole, it continues to expect adjusted operating profit (EBIT) to decline to between €4.8 billion and €5.4 billion (2022: €6.9 billion). Sales are expected to fall to between 84 and 87 (87.3) billion euros.

BASF had already published preliminary quarterly figures on April 12. Adjusted operating profit slumped by 31.5 percent to 1.93 billion euros, but was still significantly better than analysts had expected.

Worries about the global economy

Sales fell by more than 13 percent to 19.99 billion euros due to lower demand. The development of the global economy is still subject to great uncertainty, and the momentum in industrial and chemical production remains subdued, BASF explained.

The Executive Board will answer questions from shareholders at the Annual General Meeting in Mannheim on Thursday. In his speech, fund manager Arne Rautenberg of Union Investment, the eighth largest shareholder in BASF according to Refinitiv data, criticized the company's share price performance and the weaker performance than the global chemical sector. "BASF is no longer the measure of all things in chemistry," he explained. "Get the sluggish tanker back on track so that BASF can once again become a success story on the stock exchange."

Brudermüller had announced in February a new austerity program, which is to kill 2600 jobs worldwide, almost two-thirds of them in Germany. Several energy-intensive plants at the main plant in Ludwigshafen are to be closed. Almost half of the investments are expected to flow into Asia in the next few years.

In China, the world's largest chemical company is currently building a new Verbund site in the southern province of Guangdong at a cost of up to ten billion euros. This is not only met with approval by Brudermüller. "The Russian attack on Ukraine has shown how quickly geopolitical nightmares can become reality," Rautenberg said, referring to the conflict between China and Taiwan.