BASF’s official wording for the justification of the impairments taken in Q3 is that they expect continued oversupply of basic chemicals and weaker demand from certain end-customer industries. We find the idea of preparing the company for a BASF 2.0 quite compelling. Nevertheless, Martin Brudermueller still has a long way to go as impairments could be only be a signal. The management could see the pandemic as an opportunity for a fundamental shift.
