Competence Profile, Diversity Concept and Objectives for the Composition of the Supervisory Board

One important concern of good corporate governance is to ensure that seats on the responsible corporate bodies, the Board of Executive Directors and the Supervisory Board, are appropriately filled. In December 2017, the Supervisory Board agreed for the first time on objectives for the composition, the competence profile and the diversity concept of the Supervisory Board. These objectives and the competence profile have since been continuously updated in the implementation of legal requirements and further developed, taking into account the recommendations of the German Corporate Governance Code. The guiding principle for the composition of the Supervisory Board is to ensure qualified supervision and guidance for the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE. For the election of shareholder representatives to the Supervisory Board, individuals shall be nominated to the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting who can, based on their professional knowledge and experience, integrity, commitment, independence and character, successfully perform the work of a supervisory board member at an international chemical company.

Competence profile

The following requirements and objectives (as amended in December 2022) are considered essential to the composition of the Supervisory Board as a collective body:

• Leadership experience in managing companies, associations and networks
• Members’ collective knowledge of the chemical sector and the related value chains
• Appropriate knowledge within the body as a whole of finance, accounting, financial reporting, risk management, law and compliance
• Appropriate expertise within the body as a whole on sustainability issues that are of key importance for BASF
• At least one member with special knowledge and experience (special expertise) in accounting, including sustainability reporting
• At least one member with special knowledge and experience (special expertise) in the annual audit, including the audit of sustainability reporting
• At least one member with in-depth experience in innovation, research & development and technology
• At least one member with in-depth experience in the areas of digitalization, information technology, business models and start-ups
• At least one member with in-depth experience in the areas of human resources, society, communications and the media
• Specialist knowledge and experience in sectors outside of the chemical industry

The status of implementation of the Supervisory Board’s competence profile is shown in the following qualifications matrix.

• More information on the Supervisory Board’s competence profile

Diversity concept

The Supervisory Board strives to achieve a reasonable level of diversity with respect to character, gender, international represen­tation, professional background, specialist knowledge and experience as well as age distribution. It takes the following composition criteria into account:

• At least 30% women and 30% men
• At least 30% of members have international experience based on their background or professional experience
• At least 50% of members have different educational backgrounds and professional experience
• At least 30% under the age of 60

Further composition objectives

• Character and integrity: Members of the Supervisory Board must be personally reliable and have the knowledge and experience required to diligently and independently perform the work of a supervisory board member.
• Availability: Each member of the Supervisory Board ensures that they invest the time needed to properly perform their role as a member of the Supervisory Board of BASF SE. The statutory limits on appointments and the recommendations of the German Corporate Governance Code must be complied with when accepting further appointments.
• Age limit and period of membership: Persons who have reached the age of 72 on the day of election by the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting should generally not be nominated for election. Membership on the Supervisory Board should generally not exceed three regular statutory periods in office, which corresponds to 12 years.
• Independence: To ensure the independent monitoring and consultation of the Board of Executive Directors, the Supervisory Board should have an appropriate number of independent members on the board as a whole and an appropriate number of independent shareholder representatives. The Supervisory Board deems this to be the case if more than half of the shareholder representatives and at least eight members of the Supervisory Board as a whole can be considered independent. The Supervisory Board’s assessment of independence is based on the assessment criteria in the current respective version of the German Corporate Governance Code. Among other things, this means that members of the Supervisory Board are no longer considered independent if they have been a member of the board for 12 years or longer. The Supervisory Board has additionally defined the following principles to clarify the meaning of independence: The independence of employee representatives is not compromised by their role as an employee representative or employment by BASF SE or a Group company. Prior membership of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE does not preclude independence following the expiry of the statutory cooling-off period of two years. Material transactions between a Supervisory Board member or a related party or undertaking of the Supervisory Board member on the one hand, and BASF SE or a BASF Group company on the other, exclude a member of the Supervisory Board from being qualified as independent. A material transaction is defined as one or more transactions in a single calendar year with a total volume of 1% or more of the sales of the companies involved in each case. In the same way, if a Supervisory Board member or a related party or undertaking of a Supervisory Board member has a personal service or consulting agreement with BASF SE or one of its Group companies with an annual compensation of over 50% of the Supervisory Board compensation, they do not qualify as independent. Furthermore, if a Supervisory Board member or a related party of a Supervisory Board member holds more than 20% of the shares in a company in which BASF SE is indirectly or directly the majority shareholder, the necessary independence is also not met.

Status of implementation

According to the Supervisory Board’s own assessment, its current composition meets all of the requirements of the competence profile: 11 of the 12 current members, of which six are shareholder representatives and five are employee representatives, are considered independent based on the above criteria.

Only the employee representative Michael Vassiliadis is no longer considered independent as he has been a member of the Super­visory Board since August 2004, and therefore for over 12 years.

• More information on the statutory minimum quotas for the number of women and men on the Supervisory Board
• The independent Supervisory Board members are named under Management and Supervisory Boards