BASF AG (HQ: D-67056 Ludwigshafen) is pulling out of the magnetic tape business, which has been making heavy losses, for good: the whole magnet product business – audio and video cassettes, recording tapes for television and radio, disks and computer cartridges – is being sold to the Turkish group RAKS. In 1995, BASF Magnetics GmbH (D-67001 Ludwigshafen) achieved a turnover of DM 1.2bn last year.

The question of whether RAKS will maintain BASF Magnetics' former production sites is still completely open. The group had a turnover of DEM 400m in 1995, mainly from audio and video cassettes as well as Cds and CD-Roms. Its other activities include electrical household appliances, its own music and film production as well as its own television channel. "For us", said Pulat Ipliki, representative of the RAKS group in Germany (RAKS Electronic GmbH, Mainzer Landstr. 46, D-60325 Frankfurt), "the purchase of BASF's magnet product business heralds the start of a new era". This acquisition, together with the RAKS group's competence in technology and management, will form "the basis for our future-oriented and internationally successful activities".

RAKS also has other interests in the plastics business. Together with the American company Nypro Inc, it is to set up a factory for the manufacture of plastic and medical products in Cerkezköy / Turkey for USD 10m. RAKS hit the headlines in 1992 after the purchase of Magnetband GmbH, Dessau, due to its alleged failure to meet investment commitments worth millions of marks.