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July 10, 2007
BASF Board of Executive Directors appoints new members Press release
In its July 6 meeting, the Supervisory Board of BASF Aktiengesellschaft, Ludwigshafen, appointed two new members to the Board of Executive Directors: Dr Harald Schwager and Dr Wolfgang Buchele.
The appointments will take effect on Jan 1, 2008. In addition, the contracts of two current members of the Board of Executive Directors - Dr Kurt Bock and Dr Andreas Kreimeyer - were extended until the Annual Meeting in 2012.
As a result of these changes, the Board of Executive Directors has decided to reassign responsibilities within the Board. Following the transformation of the German BASF Aktiengesellschaft into a European company, Societas Europaea (BASF SE), these changes will be made stepwise until the next Annual Meeting on Apr 24, 2008.
Effective from Aug 1, 2007, the Board of Executive Directors has appointed Chief Financial Officer Dr Kurt Bock as Chairman and CEO of BASF Corporation in the United States in addition to his current duties.
These new appointments to the Board were necessary due to the retirement of three current members.
Eggert Voscherau, who has been a member of the Board of Executive Directors since 1996 and is its Vice Chairman as well as BASF's Industrial Relations Director, will retire following the next Annual Meeting on Apr 24, 2008.
Peter Oakley, a member of the Board of Executive Directors since 1998 and responsible for Agricultural Products & Nutrition, Specialty Chemicals Research and BASF Plant Science, will leave the company at his own request to pursue a new business opportunity following the transformation of BASF Aktiengesellschaft into BASF SE.
Klaus Peter Lobbe, who has been a member of the Board of Executive Directors since 2002 and is responsible for North America and the Catalysts division as well as being Chairman and CEO of BASF Corporation, Florham Park, New Jersey, will retire from BASF for health reasons, effective Jul 31, 2007. Chief Financial Officer Kurt Bock will assume Löbbe's US-based responsibilities in addition to his current duties.
Harald Schwager will succeed Voscherau. He is a chemist and has been Verbund Site Manager Ludwigshafen since February 2006. Schwager started work at BASF in 1988 in polypropylene catalyst research. After positions in technical service for polypropylene, and marketing and sales for polyvinyl chloride (PVC), he became head of the Polyvinyl Chloride business unit headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, as well as managing director of the European companies of Solvin S.A. in Brussels. In 2003, he was appointed head of BASF's Inorganics division.
Wolfgang Buchele is also a chemist and has been responsible for the Fine Chemicals division since October 2005. He joined BASF as a researcher in 1987 and subsequently headed a research group for industrial catalysts.
After working as head of regional marketing for catalysts in Asia and head of global marketing for cosmetics ingredients, he was made responsible for business management in Fine Chemicals Europe. Buchele subsequently headed the Eastern Europe, Africa, West Asia regional division before being appointed head of the Performance Chemicals division in 2003. He is a member of the Verbund Site Executives Team in Ludwigshafen.
With the new appointments, the number of Board of Executive Directors members will be reduced from nine to eight. Responsibilities on the Board will be organised as follows and will be effective at the conclusion of the Annual Meeting on Apr 24, 2008:
Further information on BASF is available at: www.basf.com |
