Good credit ratings and solid financing

Rated “A1/P-1/outlook stable” by Moody’s and “A/A-1/outlook stable” by Standard & Poor’s, BASF enjoys good credit ratings, especially compared with competitors in the chemical industry. Rating agency Scope has also been evaluating our creditworthiness since September 2016. It rates BASF at “A/S-1/outlook stable.”

At the end of 2016, the financial indebtedness of the BASF Group was €16.3 billion. Liquid funds including marketable securities amounted to €1.9 billion. The average maturity of our financial indebtedness was 5.6 years. The company’s medium to long-term debt financing is predominantly based on corporate bonds with a balanced maturity profile. In 2016, BASF issued several bonds to finance, among other things, the acquisition of Chemetall. For short-term debt financing, BASF SE has a commercial paper program with an issuing volume of up to $12.5 billion. As backup for the commercial paper program, there are committed, broadly syndicated credit lines of €6 billion available; these are not being used at this time.

Analysts’ recommendations

Around 30 financial analysts regularly publish studies on BASF. At the end of 2016, 43% recommended buying our shares (end of 2015: 32%) and 39% recommended holding them (end of 2015: 40%), while 18% had a sell rating (end of 2015: 28%). The average target share price ascribed to BASF by analysts was €79.65 in December 2016.