Basell Polyolefins was a joint venture between BASF and Royal Dutch Shell. Leonard Blavatnik's Access Industries acquired it from the venturers for $5.7 billion in August 2005. In 2007, Basell merged with the privately owned US company Lyondell Chemical Company to form LyondellBasell, which went bankrupt in the US in January 2009.
Basell was the world's largest producer of polypropylene and advanced polyolefins products, the world's largest producer of polyethylene , and a global leader in the development and licensing of polypropylene and polyethylene processes, and a leader in catalysts.
Basell's heritage comes from many companies, including BASF, Hercules, Himont, Hoechst, ICI, Montecatini, Montedison and Royal Dutch Shell. However Basell, and then later LyondellBasell, had its origin in a joint venture between BASF and Royal Dutch Shell. Spurred on by the work of Nobel Prize-winning scientists Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta, these Basell predecessor companies were among the leaders of the polyolefin revolution that began in the late 1930s and 1950s. This transformation is still driving the petrochemicals industry today. In 2007, Basell acquired the privately owned US company Lyondell Chemical Company to form LyondellBasell, paying far above the market rate for the shares, so that Len Blavatnik could make a profit on his substantial stake in Lyondell. This drove the new company rapidly to file for Chapter 11 in the US in January 2009, from which it emerged in May 2010.
Once the new company emerged from Ch. 11, a most bizarre internal takeover took place, with Lyondell managers displacing Basell managers from most key positions, prompting observers to ask "who bought whom ?". Basell CEO, Volker Trautz, had made the mistake of leaving the majority of Lyondellers in place, ignorant of the risk they posed, and this established network proceeded to take control of the company.
New CEO, Jim Gallogly, introduced some landmark schemes, such as the focus on safety ("Goal Zero") and the visionary "Everyday Excellence" with its call to all staff to simply be brilliant at everything they do. Behind the scenes, the extermination of European managers was launched without fanfare by closing departments without reassignment, making staff re-apply for their existing jobs at several grades below their current level and making relocation to Rotterdam (in another country) a condition of acceptance. With expatriation packages pared down to near-nothingness, managers with school-going children were unable to afford international school fees in the Netherlands and were effectively forced to leave the company.
A creative new HR move involving announcing repatriation for existing expatriates only to suspend them without pay, and leave them without news or contact point within the company, backfired when LBI was forced to shell out 6-figure settlements. This practice, initiated in Germany and supported in France, ultimately cost several senior HR managers their jobs. The drive to shed staff without paying redundancy money goes on unabated, as LBI replaces experienced hands with cheaper but clueless youngsters, a far cry from what is normally understood under "Excellence".