13 – Equity

Authorized capital

The Annual Shareholders’ Meeting of May 2, 2014, authorized the Board of Executive Directors, with the approval of the Supervisory Board, to increase subscribed capital by issuing new registered shares up to a total of €500 million against cash or contributions in kind until May 1, 2019. The Board of Executive Directors is authorized, with the approval of the Supervisory Board, to exclude shareholders’ statutory subscription rights in the cases specified in the authorizing resolution. To date, this option has not been exercised and no new shares have been issued.

Conditional capital

By way of a resolution of the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting of May 12, 2017, the Board of Executive Directors was authorized, with the approval of the Supervisory Board, to issue, on a one-off basis or in portions on more than one occasion, bearer or registered convertible bonds and/or bonds with warrants, or combinations of these instruments, with or without maturity limitations up to a nominal value of €10.0 billion until May 11, 2022. The notional interest in the share capital attributable to the BASF shares to be issued in connection with the debt instruments issued under this authorization may not exceed 10% of the share capital.

In this connection, the share capital was increased conditionally by up to €117,565,184 by issuing a maximum of 91,847,800 new registered BASF shares. The conditional capital increase will only be carried out to the extent to which holders of convertible bonds, or warrants attached to bonds with warrants issued, exercise their conversion or option rights. This authorization has not been exercised to date.

Authorization of share buybacks

By way of a resolution of the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting of May 12, 2017, the Board of Executive Directors was authorized to buy back shares until May 11, 2022, in accordance with section 71(1) no. 8 of the German Stock Corporation Act (AktG). The buyback cannot exceed 10% of the company’s share capital at the time the resolution was passed and can take place via the stock exchange, a public purchase offer addressed to all shareholders, or a public invitation to the shareholders to submit sales offers. This authorization has not been exercised to date.

Retained earnings

Transfers from other retained earnings increased legal reserves by €52 million in the first half of 2018.

Payment of dividends

In accordance with the resolution of the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting on May 4, 2018, BASF SE paid a dividend of €3.10 per share from the retained profit of the 2017 fiscal year. With 918,478,694 qualifying shares, this represented total dividends of €2,847,283,951.40. The remaining €282,560,220.29 in retained profits was recorded under retained earnings.