LANXESS decides to buy back shares and strengthens pension assets

The Board of Management of specialty chemicals company LANXESS decided to make use of the authorization granted by the Stockholders’ Meeting on May 20, 2016 and to acquire own shares of up to EUR 200 million (excluding incidental costs) via the stock exchange. On the basis of the current share price (status: January 9, 2019), this would amount to around 4.9 percent of the share capital and would correspond to a number of approximately 4.5 million own shares.

The share buy-back will start on January 14, 2019 at the earliest and shall be completed on December 31, 2019 at the latest. The acquired shares shall be redeemed.

“With the share buy-back we are creating value for our shareholders in the currently challenging capital market,” said Michael Pontzen, Chief Financial Officer of LANXESS AG.

In addition, LANXESS has increased its German pension assets by EUR 200 million. At the end of the third quarter of 2018, the pension provisions of LANXESS amounted to EUR 1.247 billion, which are now reduced accordingly. As a result, the group-wide funding status of pension obligations increases from around 49 percent to approximately 58 percent*.

"The company pension scheme is an integral part of our corporate philosophy. By strengthening our pension assets, we are now making a significant contribution to securing their future," said Pontzen.

The contributions for both transactions come out of the proceeds from the sale of the remaining 50 percent interest in the rubber company ARLANXEO to Saudi Aramco, which brought LANXESS around EUR 1.4 billion.

*Pro forma: refers to the amount of provisions as of September 30, 2018.