Ciba’s board of directors has installed BASF’s Michael Heinz as its new CEO as the additives company fully transitions to a BASF subsidiary. Heinz replaces Brendan Cummins who will step down as Ciba’s CEO but remain at the company as an advisor over the next few months. Heinz will continue to work on integration of Ciba into BASF, in addition to his new executive duties.

Hans-Juergen Seeger, who is currently managing director of BASF Services Europe GmbH, has been appointed as Ciba’s CFO. He takes over for Niklaus Meier who had been Ciba’s interim CFO since former CFO, Juerg Fedier, left the company at the end of 2008.

On April 9, BASF announced it had finalized its acquisition of Ciba, closing the deal with payment of the offer price to Ciba shareholders. Once the tendered shares were transferred to BASF, the company held a 95.8% stake. As of closing, BASF Board member Hans-Ulrich Engel became chair of Ciba’s Board of Directors, joined by fellow BASF representatives Hans-Walther Reiners and Jörg Buchmüller. All three were elected at a Ciba shareholder meeting held last December in Basel. All previous members of Ciba’s Board of Directors resigned.

BASF says it plans to fully integrate Ciba into itself, with the first step being a discovery phase, where joint BASF/Ciba teams will analyze the company’s business and look for the “optimal organization structure.” Based on these findings, the company plans to start the integration process in July 2009. —[email protected]