Monday, August 24, 2009

BASF as a hostile takeover target?

To have BASF as a takeover candidate certainly surprised me, but then I suppose nothing should anymore. (Maybe it's a sign that I'm not really that old after all. Maybe not.)

This would be a huge entity to acquire, run and try and improve upon. € 62 billion in annual sales is quite an bit of change, and while the profits, € 2.9 billion, are modest even by chemical industry standards, I think anyone hoping to scoop it up, make cuts (they always make cuts, don't they?) and improve on the picture is a pretty good candidate for the loony bin despite the size of their wallets. Money can't buy happiness and it can't by sanity or good business sense.

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