In the LinkedIn professional network, as of Thursday, Markus Kamieth, 52, is ahead of Melanie Maas-Brunner, 54. He has almost 9,600 followers, she has almost 7,000. For months, both have been hot candidates to succeed Martin Brudermüller as CEO or CEO of the chemical company BASF. Or does it have to mean … “valen”, because like them Financial Times reports, the decision has been made. The British newspaper wants to know that Kamieth will replace Brudermüller at the 2024 Annual General Meeting. A company spokesman for the SZ says no decision has been made yet.
For a long time, Saori Dubourg was also traded as a candidate. But quite surprisingly, the board member left the group within a few days in February. The three-way battle turned into a two-way battle. Dubourg, it was rumored at the time, was far more critical of the major involvement in China than her fellow board members. The group is currently building a new location in Zhanjiang for ten billion euros. Despite the geopolitical tensions with China, BASF is sticking to it. The first system is already up and running. In the past few months, no one on the BASF Executive Board has been closer to the construction site than Markus Kamieth. He has been a member of the Executive Board since 2017 and has been based in China since early 2020.
He shares his enthusiasm for the country with Martin Brudermüller. Four months ago he posted a photo showing him at the construction site in Zhanjiang. On Linkedin he recommended as “Worth reading!” a guest commentary by former Beiersdorf manager Liu Zhengrong Handelsblatt, according to which the current picture of China is so distorted that it is dangerous. That’s how Kamieth sees it too. Brudermüller was also in China for a long time. A stay there for a few years now seems to be a mandatory criterion for the top position in the group.
Maas-Brunner also has a soft spot for China, and she was also in Hong Kong for BASF for a while. But that was a few years ago. And she has only been a member of the BASF board since February 2021. Kamieth a few years longer, he was there when Kurt Bock was still CEO, and he has been head of the Supervisory Board of BASF since the summer of 2020, so he leads the body that selects the CEO.
She is also being discussed: Melanie Maas-Brunner.
(Photo: Andreas Pohlmann)
Kamieth is a chemist, as is Maas-Brunner. Both are homegrown, they know the group inside and out. A long career in the group has so far been another qualification criterion for the post of CEO.
“We could live with both – with Markus Kamieth and Melanie Maas-Brunner,” says Arne Rautenberg from the fund company Union Investment: “One thing that speaks for Kamieth is that he has proven himself in Asia.” Rautenberg would have preferred it even more if BASF would also examine external candidates. “Someone from our own ranks signaled that things will continue like this,” said Rautenberg. “That’s fine when things are going well. But things aren’t going well at BASF.” When Brudermüller took office in May 2018, the share price was around 87 euros, and on Thursday the paper did not even cost 50 euros.
The reports from the chemical companies are warning shots for the entire economy
Last week, the group issued a profit warning for 2023, which it itself declared as an adjustment in its statement last week. In doing so, BASF will clearly miss the original forecasts. Other chemical companies such as Lanxess, Evonik and Wacker Chemie also had to part with their old annual targets. Because demand is weakening, the economy will not recover as quickly as originally forecast, says fund manager Rautenberg. Chemical stocks are leading indicators for the economy because they deliver what later ends up in products, such as paints and plastics. The reports from the chemical companies are warning shots for the entire economy. “Recovery is coming, but later and more slowly,” says Rautenberg.
It looks like Brudermüller, 62, will say goodbye next May with a moderate result. He has been leading the group since May 2018 and the streak of bad luck is almost as long. There was always something, and Brudermüller could only react: in the summer of 2018, the low water level on the Rhine meant that goods could no longer reach the Ludwigshafen plant. 2020 the corona pandemic. In February 2022, Russia attacked Ukraine. Rautenberg says that Brudermüller initiated a number of things: “But things also got in the way.” The planned separation from the fossil company Wintershall is due to the Ukraine war. Whether the investment in China was a good decision will only become clear in years, if not decades, according to Rautenberg. As of today, many are skeptical, including him.