28 – Leases

Leased assets

Property, plant and equipment include assets that are considered to be economically owned through a finance lease. They primarily concern the following items:

The increase in leased assets is due primarily from the additions related to the acquisition of significant parts of Bayer’s seed and non-selective herbicide businesses and its vegetable seed business.

In the current business year and in the previous year, no additional lease payments exceeding minimum lease payments were recognized in the income statement due to contractual conditions for finance leases. In 2018 and in the previous year, leasing liabilities were not offset by any future minimum lease payments from subleases.

In addition, BASF is a lessee under operating lease contracts. The resulting lease commitments totaled €1,482 million in 2018 (2017: €1,410 million) and will become due in the following years:

Future minimum payments from operating lease contracts included €144 million for companies in the oil and gas disposal group as of December 31, 2018.

Future minimum lease payments from subleasing contracts based on existing agreements amounted to €10 million in 2018 (2017: €10 million).

In 2018, minimum lease payments of €494 million (2017: €407 million) were included in income from operations. In 2018, conditional lease payments of €1 million (2017: €1 million) were also included in income from operations. Furthermore, sublease payments of €4 million (2017: €3 million) were included in income from operations in 2018.

BASF as lessor

BASF acts as a lessor for finance leases to a minor extent only. Receivables on finance leases were €25 million in 2018 (2017: €29 million).

In 2018, claims arising from operating leases amounted to €166 million (2017: €93 million).