The sixth time in a row the Henkel brands Loctite® and Teroson are official suppliers of Dakar Rally. On January 1, 2010 the starting signal for probably the most sensational rally raid will be given in Buenos Aires. This also marks the beginning of very busy times for the Henkel service team that is accompanying the drivers. Night by night their fast and efficient repairs ensure that the contestants will be able to make it to the starting line the next day.

Carsten Tilger, 42, will assume the position of Head of Corporate Communications at Henkel effective March 1, 2010. As Corporate Senior Vice President he will report directly to Kasper Rorsted, Chairman of the Henkel Management Board. Carsten Tilger will succeed Dr. Marcus Kuhnert, who is currently heading Corporate Communications on an interim basis in addition to his function as Chief Strategy Officer.

• Sales down 7.3 percent to 3,485 million euros
• Decline in organic sales reduced to 2.5 percent
• Operating profit up 191 million euros to 290 million euros
• Adjusted operating profit down 1.5 percent to 385 million euros

"In the third quarter, we were again able to continue our positive performance of recent quarters”, says Kasper Rorsted, Chairman of the Henkel Management Board. “We achieved excellent results at Laundry & Home Care, and our Cosmetics/Toiletries business sector was also able to once again exceed the very good performance of the previous quarters. There was also a further improvement in the results of the Adhesive Technologies business sector in the course of the year, albeit on a lower level than in the previous year.” Rorsted continued: “The encouraging results registered in this last quarter reflect both the stabilization in our markets and our programs on structural and cost alignment.”

Henkel’s Laundry & Home Care business sector is the winner of the 2009 Award for Excellence in Supply Chain Customization and Innovation. This General Industries Award is conferred by Boston Strategies International. The internationally operating consulting firm has conducted an in-depth global supply chain benchmark study in which diverse companies responded from all over the world.

Today, the Shareholders’ Committee of Henkel AG & Co. KGaA elected Simone Bagel-Trah as its new Chairwoman. Bagel-Trah takes over this office from Albrecht Woeste who has been a member of the committee since 1976 and became its Chairman in 1990. This coming Tuesday, Simone Bagel-Trah is also due to be elected Chair of Henkel’s Supervisory Board. This completes the transition from the fourth generation of the Henkel family to the fifth. The change at the top of these two supervisory bodies had already been announced at the Henkel Annual General Meeting of spring 2008.

International consumer goods manufacturer Henkel has once again been included as a leader in its sector in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index. The Index lists corporations that follow the principles of sustainable development in their business operations.

• Sales fall 5.0 percent to 3,485 million euros
• Organic sales decline 5.3 percent
• Operating profit increases from 113 million euros to 279 million euros
• Adjusted operating profit decreases 17.2 percent to 308 million euros

International consumer goods manufacturer Henkel has garnered honors in two renowned US communications competitions. For the fourth time in a row, the company received the highest accolade in the roll of the world’s best with the League of American Communications Professionals (LACP) conferring platinum on the 2008 Henkel annual report in the “Consumer Consumables – Household/Personal” category. And in the globally established Stevie International Business Awards, Henkel’s new training film explaining the company’s corporate branding strategy garnered gold.

Henkel has made a gain of 20 places in the annual survey of the world’s 500 highest-revenue companies published by the US business magazine Fortune. In the overall ranking, Henkel holds position number 448 compared to 468 last year. And for the first time, Henkel has also gained entry this year in the list of companies making the biggest jump in profits, taking 36th place in that ranking.

For more than 133 years, Henkel has been combining leading brand performance with responsibility toward people and the environment. In Cologne on May 19, Henkel received the 2009 Plus X Award – conferred as part of a major European technology competition – for its standing as an “Ecologically Committed Company”. Also recognized were the company’s new liquid laundry detergents marketed under the Terra Activ brand.

• Sales increase of 3.1 percent to 3,258 million euros
• Organic sales decline of 7.0 percent
• Adjusted operating profit fell 26.1 percent to 235 million euros
• Adjusted earnings per preferred share declined 39.2 percent to 0.31 euros

“At the beginning of this new financial year, Henkel too has felt the effects of the persistently adverse economic climate, with our businesses turning in a very mixed set of results for the first quarter of 2009,” commented Kasper Rorsted, Chairman of the Henkel Management Board. “Our two consumer goods business sectors, Laundry & Home Care and Cosmetics/Toiletries, continued to perform very well, while the Adhesive Technologies business sector suffered from the challenges encountered in major customer industries worldwide.” Rorsted continued: “We are dissatisfied with our start to fiscal 2009. However, we are convinced that, as a result of our early introduction of countermeasures and based on our solid financial position, we will emerge from this still difficult economic environment stronger than before.”

Henkel has once again received public recognition as a socially responsible company: for the second time running, the Ethisphere Institute and Forbes Magazine, both of the USA, have included Henkel in their list of the “World’s Most Ethical Companies”. Only two German companies have made it to this list. Among the selection criteria are corporate social responsibility, management style and innovative strength.

Today’s Annual General Meeting of Henkel AG & Co. KGaA in Düsseldorf provided around 2,500 shareholders with an overview of the company’s development and performance in fiscal 2008.

Albrecht Woeste, Chairman of the Supervisory Board and of the Shareholders' Committee of Henkel AG & Co. KGaA announced at today's Annual General Meeting of the company that he would be retiring from these offices in September 2009 and would be proposing to the members of both corporate bodies that they elect Dr. Simone Bagel-Trah as his successor. This handing-over of the corporate baton from the fourth to the fifth generation of the Henkel family was first announced last year.

U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart has selected Henkel to receive the “Wal-Mart Sustainability Award". Henkel was recognized as the one company demonstrating the most comprehensive approach to sustainability and making a substantial contribution to Wal-Mart’s sustainability strategy.

According to the annual survey conducted by the American business magazine Fortune, Henkel is Germany’s most admired company. The Fortune ranking of the “World’s Most Admired Companies” is one of the most renowned corporate rankings worldwide. On the international front, moreover, Henkel took second place behind Procter & Gamble in the “Soaps and Cosmetics” category.

People purchasing a branded Henkel product expect the highest quality. However, this is not the only demand satisfied by such products. For more than 130 years, Henkel has been combining leading brand performance with responsibility toward people and the environment. Last year, Henkel launched a broad-based, global sustainability initiative under the slogan “Quality and Responsibility”. Henkel is committed to open dialog in this regard – not only with the community of sustainability experts but with customers and consumers as well.

• Strong sales growth of 8.1 percent to 14.1 billion euros
• Organic sales growth of 3.0 percent
• Adjusted operating profit*: +9.1 percent to 1,495 million euros
• Adjusted earnings per preferred share*: +3.2 percent to 2.26 euros
• Sales in growth regions: +3 percentage points to 37 percent of total
• Proposed dividends kept at prior-year levels

Global competition is posing new challenges for all market players. In meeting these challenges, it is becoming increasingly important to combine product performance with responsibility toward people and the environment. Henkel has already been working toward achieving sustainable development for more than 130 years. The company sees its sustainability strategy – which encompasses the entire value chain – as an opportunity to set itself apart from its competitors and offer added value to customers and consumers.

Some things are just too amazing to be true. At least, that’s what some people think. Nevertheless, true they most certainly are! And at Henkel, the development hit list is constantly being replenished with product innovations that not only prove doubters wrong, but also occasionally turn the market on its head. Each year the “Fritz Henkel Awards for Innovation" are conferred for just that kind of “interference”. Named after the company's founder, appropriately these accolades are in recognition of the kind of genius and business acumen that he represented in his time and that Henkel’s employees are to this day encouraged to emulate.

Combining economic success with corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been a constant feature of Henkel’s business philosophy for over 130 years now. And in international terms, too, Henkel counts among the leading companies in this domain. So when it came to conferral of the first ever “European Corporate Responsibility Award” in Prague on February 5 this year, Henkel was once again among the finalists.

Energy efficiency and the climate compatibility of processes and products are among the key quality criteria of the future. Henkel has long been committed to maximizing energy efficiency in both production and the ensuing products. Now Henkel is also taking part in Germany’s “Product Carbon Footprint” pilot project with the aim of driving forward the development of appropriate methods for determining all climate-relevant emissions attributable to a product – reliable techniques that are capable of generating transparent and comparable results. The project participants have now presented a range of concepts for calculating and analyzing product-related green house gas emission balances.