Following approval of the Shareholders’ Committee of Henkel KGaA, Henkel and Akzo Nobel N.V., Arnhem, The Netherlands, have signed an agreement on a back-to-back transaction on August 13, 2007. Under the terms of this agreement, Henkel will acquire the adhesives and electronic materials businesses of National Starch and Chemical Company, Bridgewater, N.J., USA. National Starch is a subsidiary company of ICI plc, London, UK. The back-to-back transaction is conditional on the takeover of ICI by Akzo Nobel. If this takeover will be accomplished, is still uncertain.

The transaction value of these businesses is 2.7 billion GBP (close to 4 billion euros). The National Starch businesses to be acquired realized sales of about 1.26 billion GBP (about 1.85 billion euros) in 2006.