"darling of the stock exchange" in the 1950s. In 1951, Cassella had already surpassed its prewar production. Pharmaceutical research was reestablished in 1949 , and a new laboratory was built. From 1949 the company focused increasingly on pharmaceuticals rather than its traditional primary focus, dyes. The company had around 2,000 employees by the early 1950s, and initially had the same shareholders as BASF, Bayer and Hoechst. In the mid 1950s BASF, Bayer and Hoechst bought the controlling majority with 25.1% each, while the remaining shares were owned by smaller shareholders. In 1970, Hoechst acquired the shares of BASF and Bayer. The company name was changed to Cassella AG in 1978. Cassella operated as a separate company until 1995, when it was integrated in Hoechst and the smaller Cassella shareholders bought out. The Cassella cosmetics department was discontinued and the Cassella cosmetics subsidiary Jade in Fechenheim was sold to L'Oréal. In 1999, Hoechst merged with Rhône-Poulenc to form the French-German company Aventis with headquarters in Strasbourg and the main research and production facilities in Frankfurt. In 2004, this company merged with Sanofi-Synthélabo to form Sanofi-Aventis, which was renamed Sanofi in 2011. Sanofi, headquartered in Paris, employs around 7,000 people in its Frankfurt office, which also includes Sanofi's largest research and development centre. Cassella and its subsidiaries had around 2,800 employees as of 1993. In 2012, AllessaChemie secured the trademark rights to Cassella and has been using the traditional brand logo again since December of that year as a neon sign on the roof of the Cassella building in Frankfurt-Fechenheim. The logo has a diameter of five meters and is equipped with 208 fluorescent tubes with a total length of 178 meters. Since October 1, 2012, the former AllessaChemie GmbH has been trading as Allessa GmbH. It has been part of the WeylChem group of companies since 2013. Bibliography References Pharmaceutical companies disestablished in 1995 Chemical companies of Germany Defunct companies of Germany Jewish German history IG Farben Sanofi German companies disestablished in 1995 German companies established in 1798 Manufacturing companies established in 1798