The company first came to life under the name "Gesellschaft fur Chemische Industrie", and eventually settled on an acronym of Chemische Industrie Basel sometime after 1920. Part of the merger agreement of 1997, between Ciba Geigy and Sandoz, was that the former's industrial chemicals business would be spun off as a separate business, leading to the formation of Ciba Specialty Chemicals plc. In 2004, Ciba bought
paper chemical manufacturer Raisio Chemicals from
Raisio Group. In 2006, Ciba divested its textile dyes and chemical auxiliaries business in a sale to
Huntsman Corporation. In 2007, the company announced the intention to adopt the name Ciba Inc. Ciba's
board of directors agreed to a
€3.4 billion takeover offer from
BASF, the world's largest chemicals company, on 15 September 2008. In 2009, the parent company changed the name to BASF Performance Products Limited – BASF group. ==References==