ebitda
—
FY 2026
official guidance
BASF SE
Last · —$52.33+0.91 (+1.77%)live · yahoo · 1h ago
Market cap——
P/E · TTM21.7fwd — · eps —
Beta—vs S&P 500
Div yield—annual · TTM
52w range
——
Volume—session
| Revenue | €33.2B |
|---|---|
| Net income | €5.1B |
| Free cash flow | €-1.6B |
| Net margin | 15.3% |
| Return on equity | 6.0% |
| Period | 2026 |
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OpenFilings analyst
Our analyst
Agentic read of the latest earnings call — recommendation updates when we process a new transcript. Research synthesis, not investment advice.
Strong BuyBuyHoldSellStrong Sell
Improving self-help is offset by weak cash conversion and unresolved structural competitiveness risks.
BASF is a hold after a cautious 2026 outlook:
EBITDA guidance has a €6.2 billion lower bound, while Q1 is expected to decline year over year and free cash flow is guided to only €1.5–2.3 billion, despite a €12 billion shareholder-distribution commitment. China volumes, restructuring, the Geismar MDI expansion and a potentially stronger European policy backdrop are the bull case, but weak pricing, FX, European structural-cost disadvantages and limited cash coverage of dividends keep this from being a clean buy.
Themes
- 2026 Guidance
- European Competitiveness
- Ets Costs
- Shareholder Distributions
- Free Cash Flow
- Zhanjiang
Near term
Q1 EBITDA is likely below the prior-year quarter due to FX, cracker and vitamin turnarounds; management rejected an analyst’s estimate of a €300–400 million decline but gave no quantified Q1 guidance.
The €1.5 billion first buyback tranche is expected to finish by June 2026, but management has not decided whether a second tranche will begin immediately.
PGM price and volatility normalization, plus the absence of a large 2025 government-grant benefit, create downside risk to Surface Technologies.
China volume growth and early Zhanjiang operations are positive, but Zhanjiang is still expected to contribute up to €100 million of negative EBITDA in 2026.
Longer term
Restructuring and productivity programs are accelerating, including shifting some high-cost European service work to lower-cost locations such as India; however, management acknowledged existing programs will not fully solve the cost problem.
The Geismar MDI expansion should benefit from U.S. trade barriers that make Chinese imports less competitive, supporting BASF’s domestic U.S. position.
European competitiveness remains a structural thesis risk: BASF already incurs low-triple-digit-million-euro annual ETS costs, with materially higher costs possible as free allowances decline.
Chinese chemical demand is growing strongly in volume terms, but 40 months of producer-price deflation and excess capacity threaten pricing and returns across the industry.
The weak 2025 result at the BASF-Sinopec joint venture and the still-negative Zhanjiang ramp-up make the earnings payoff from BASF’s China strategy dependent on a difficult pricing recovery.
Red flags
Bank of America highlighted that midpoint free cash flow, excluding Wintershall Dea compensation, is only slightly above €1 billion—less than half the dividend—despite very low capex; management did not provide a clear normalized cash-coverage bridge.
Management declined to launch another strategic review despite Chemicals EBITDA margins of roughly 8% and implied low-single-digit returns on capital, relying instead on riding out the trough and operational adjustments.
Nutrition & Care’s projected earnings growth rests on steep volume recovery and fixed-cost absorption even though vitamin prices are lower and analysts cited customer-share losses and pricing pressure; the upside was not quantified.
The lower end of the EBITDA range explicitly incorporates scenarios in which several 2026 risks go wrong, underscoring unusually high macro, trade and geopolitical uncertainty.
The claimed European policy upside is not quantified, while the current guidance already includes any expected regulatory easing and German stimulus; the immediate demand outlook remains slightly negative.
Forward outlook
Recommendation history
OpenFilings analyst view from primary-source filings and earnings calls — not investment advice.
Upcoming earnings
4:30 PM UTC+1
Period
Sep 2026
Est. EPS
$0.41
Est. revenue
15.4B
Earnings transcripts
Documents
FormReporting forFiledFlags