BASF reaches participation of more than 94.5 percent of Ciba shares

* Preliminary final result of tender offer
* Ciba to hold General Meeting on December 2

Ludwigshafen, Germany – The additional acceptance period for BASF’s [BAS, BFA, AN] public tender offer to shareholders of Ciba Holding AG [CIBN], Basel, Switzerland, ended on November 14. During the offer period, a total of 53,350,051 Ciba shares have been tendered to BASF. Together with the 1,011,536 Ciba shares that BASF held before the publication of the pre-announcement, the 9,021,802 Ciba shares that BASF bought from the Spanish Bestinver Group outside the public tender offer and the 1,918,547 own shares held by Ciba, this results in a participation of 65,301,936 Ciba shares. This corresponds to 94.55 percent of all issued Ciba shares. This result is preliminary and subject to the final analysis of the tender declarations of Ciba shareholders submitted during the additional acceptance period. BASF will publish the definitive final result on November 20.

“We would like to thank all Ciba shareholders who tendered their shares and thus established an important step towards the complete acquisition of Ciba by BASF. We are confident of successfully completing the transaction as planned,” said Dr. Jürgen Hambrecht, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE.

The next step in the acquisition process will be to remove the voting rights and registration restrictions in the articles of association of Ciba Holding AG. The extraordinary General Meeting required to amend the articles of association will be held on December 2, 2008. Following the General Meeting, a second trading line is to be opened on the Swiss stock exchange for the tendered Ciba shares. This will allow the shares to be traded up to the settlement date. The shares remain tendered and are automatically transferred to BASF on the settlement date irrespective of the share owner on that date. The transfer of shares to BASF and the payment of the offer price will take place on the settlement date, which is expected in the first quarter of 2009.

All information about BASF’s offer, including the offer prospectus, is available on the Internet at www.basf-info.com.

About BASF

BASF is the world’s leading chemical company: The Chemical Company. Its portfolio ranges from oil and gas to chemicals, plastics, performance products, agricultural products and fine chemicals. As a reliable partner BASF helps its customers in virtually all industries to be more successful. With its high-value products and intelligent solutions, BASF plays an important role in finding answers to global challenges such as climate protection, energy efficiency, nutrition and mobility. BASF has more than 95,000 employees and posted sales of almost €58 billion in 2007. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchanges in Frankfurt (BAS), London (BFA) and Zurich (AN). Further information on BASF is available on the Internet at www.basf.com.

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