BERLINFRANKFURT, Jan 19 Reuters BASF investors said that oil and gas business Wintershall Dea39;s exit from Russia, though painful, clears the way for plans to take it public and for BASF to focus on its chemicals operations.

BASF late Tuesday flagged a 7.3 billion euro 7.9 billion writedown on Wintershall Dea WD, as the energy business, in which Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman39;s investment firm LetterOne owns a 27 stake, pulls out of Russia.

Portfolio manager Arne Rautenberg of mutual fund company Union Investment, among the 10 largest BASF shareholders, welcomed BASF drawing a line.

Noone in the market has ascribed any more value to the Russian activities, Rautenberg told Reuters, adding that the remainder of WD had been boosted by high oil and gas prices.

The way to an IPO, which has long been in the making, has now been paved, he added.

It took the company much longer than other oil companies to face up to the loss of its Russian operations, with Wintershall Dea CEO Mario Mehren saying last year that the company could not just allow assets to fall into the hands of the Russian state. BASF had explored selling the assets to jointventure partner LetterOne, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters in May, but LetterOne quickly ruled itself out as buyer.

Oil majors like BP or TotalEnergies are flush with cash after Russia39;s attack on Ukraine inflated global energy prices, even after taking billions of dollars in impairments in their Russian…