Chemicals giant BASF is about to get much bigger by acquiring Swiss speciality chemicals firm Ciba. But with that expansion will come an immediate trimming down – the take over will lead to a loss of around 3700 jobs by 2013, saving the company some 400 million Euros. BASF has around 97,000 employees and Ciba around 12,500.

“The combined businesses can be successful in the long term only if we optimize them and exploit the full potential for synergies,” said CEO Juergen Hambrecht (Bloomberg).

Hambrecht also admitted that this in “unfortunately not good news” for some of his employees (C&EN).

As well as job losses, the company is now deciding the fate of 23 of Ciba’s plants – which could be sold, or closed or restructured within BASF.

Meanwhile in China, BASF and the China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec) are set to spend an extra $500 million on their joint petrochemicals venture in Nanjing (Bloomberg), a move that is broght about by increased costs, and which triggered a jump in BASF’s share price (Reuters).