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In 2007, BASF bought back shares for €1.9 billion as part of their ongoing share buyback programme. A total of approximately 21.5 million shares were repurchased at an average price of €88.35. This corresponds to 4.3% of the company's share capital. The €3 billion buyback program is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008. Taking the shares bought back into account, the weighted average used for calculating earnings per share for 2007 is 488,892,917 shares.
Of the 21.5 million repurchased shares, approximately 9.2 million were canceled in July 2007. A further 1.4 million shares that were bought back in 2006 were canceled at the same time. As of this date, BASF has 490,485,000 shares in accordance with its Articles of Association.
The aim of buying back shares is to optimise BASF’s capital structure and increase earnings per share.
