Half Year 2023 BASF SE Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Jaideep Mukesh Pandya - On Field Investment Research LLP - Analyst : The first question is for you, Martin. On sort of the upstream side of things. If I was to say that you guys will get 10% more volume next year, would that make any meaningful impact on spreads given how low utilization is right now? Do you think that tightening towards 75%, 80% brings some pricing momentum? Or conversely, actually more volume means more pricing pressure because there's just so much competitive pressure in the system? And the second question is for Dirk, who you sound so similar to Hans, so I'm going to ask you a tough question. You -- currently BASF when they show up, you have basically EUR 6-ish billion of CapEx and EUR 3 billion plus of dividend outflow in a EUR 9 billion, EUR 10 billion world of EBITDA. So how prudent is it to keep dividend at the current level? Or conversely, at what point would you consider cutting the dividend for actually building a long-term future for BASF on a CapEx front if we don't see a meaningful recovery in the cycle?

Question: Jaideep Mukesh Pandya - On Field Investment Research LLP - Analyst : Just to say, you're comfortable with the net debt to EBITDA around 2? Or would you mind taking it even higher to maintain dividend?