BASF buys out Takeda stake in vitamin JV
Japanese vitamins business that it jointly owned with Takeda
Pharmaceutical.
Takeda has owned a minority 34 per cent of the sales and marketing joint venture that was set up in January 2001 when the drug company began its exit from the vitamins market.
BASF took over most of the rest of the firm's global vitamins business at this time including manufacturing technology and patents related to the vitamins B1, B2, B6, C and folic acid, as well as Takeda's subsidiaries in Germany, the US and Singapore.
However Takeda, Japan's largest pharmceutical maker, still owns the vitamin production plants that supply the Japanese joint venture and supplies BASF with about 12,000 metric tons of vitamin C under a special agreement.
The amount paid by BASF for Takeda's shares in the Japanese joint venture was not disclosed and was predetermined when the business was initially created. The German group had an option in the original agreement to take over the business when Takeda put its shares up for sale.
The joint venture is thought to have made sales of about Y7 billion in 2005.
In a statement Takeda called the venture 'one of the leading suppliers of bulk vitamins, premixes and pharmaceutical excipients in Japan'.
"We believe that BASF Japan will maintain the leading position in bulk vitamin business in Japan with enough competitive business foundations," said Yasuchika Hasegawa, president and COO of Takeda.
