BASF targets Frankfurt exchange for agricultural business listing

BERLIN (Reuters) -German chemicals giant BASF said on Tuesday that it was targeting the Frankfurt Stock Exchange as the listing location for its Agriculture Solutions business.

BASF, which also presented a new management board for the business led by Livio Tedeschi, said the decisions mark key steps towards its ongoing push for business to be ready for an initial public offering by 2027.

BASF's CEO Markus Kamieth is pushing to exit or separate businesses that are not closely integrated and physically connected within the group's sprawling chemical plants across the globe.

Under that scheme, BASF moved last month to sell a 60% stake in its coatings business to private equity firm Carlyle and the Qatar Investment Authority, for a 5.8 billion euro ($6.76 billion) cash payment, allowing it to bring a share buyback programme forward.

BASF has said that the agriculture unit, competing in seeds and pesticides with Bayer, Corteva and China's Syngenta, would be IPO-ready by 2027 with BASF eyeing the sale of a minority stake.

The company said on Tuesday it would have the legal designation of a European company, or Societas Europaea.

A unit known as ECMS, which makes catalytic converters and trades in metals that go into them, had also been earmarked for separation from the core group but BASF opted to hold on to if for now.

($1 = 0.8575 euros)

(Writing by Miranda Murrayand Ludwig Burger, Editing by Friederike Heine)