The world's largest chemical company, BASF, ended 2005 with a record result. As the company announced, sales rose by 14 percent to 42.7 billion euros. The annual surplus increased by 50 percent to 3 billion euros. And BASF also sees itself well equipped for the current year.
Oh, yes, the profit in the field of nutrition and plant protection has a declining profit - well, the politicians will certainly provide BASF with record profits with an increasing trend with the seed regulation, if the industry has finally succeeded in tying farmers to their seeds, fertilizers, and poisons.
Also cute are the high profits in the oil and gas sector. Of course, the price increases in these areas are solely due to the high costs and have nothing to do with the fact that oil and gas companies want to increase their profits. (Yes, BASF is also busy in the natural gas sector - for example, through Wintershall, a company of the BASF Group).
What do the 3,600 BASF employees in Ludwigshafen, whose positions were cut in 2004, think of this corporate development? Especially those who were not pushed out through severance packages or partial retirement, but through transfer to a temporary employment agency?