• Laundry & Home Care has substantially higher earnings
• Cosmetics/Toiletries continues very successful performance
• Adhesive Technologies shows strong recovery throughout the year
• Adjusted return on sales in Q4/2009 is 12.4 percent
• Net debt reduced by 1 billion euros
• Proposed dividends kept at prior-year levels

Henkel are working with their customers and the wider packaging industry to help drive awareness of the environmental benefits of solvent-free adhesives in Australia and New Zealand.

For centuries, water has been known for its therapeutic properties and it is now being incorporated into the world of colour with IGORA Vibrance Hydrocare. This new demi-permanent colour from Schwarzkopf Professional is infused with the purest water essence to re-hydrate porous hair and create flawless colour and beautiful, healthy shine

Henkel has improved the formulations of its most popular threadlockers – Loctite 243 and Loctite 270 – to meet the evolving industrial requirements and to enable use on an even broader range of substrates. The next generation of these general purpose products offers ultimate performance for new opportunities.

Weight-saving designs are essential in vehicle manufacturing in order to reduce resource consumption and costs. However, the new lightness of automotive being does have its price: noise in vehicle interiors is an undesirable consequence of this trend. With its new Terophon HDF, Henkel has developed a novel and highly efficient acoustic damping material specifically for the automotive and transport industries.

For more than 134 years, Henkel has been combining leading brand quality with responsibility toward people and the environment. And its performance in this field has been recognized by numerous awards along the way. Now, in the special category ‘Decision-makers’ Best Sustainability Brand’, Henkel has been honored with the ‘2010 Best Brands Award’.

Around the world, Henkel has an extensive commitment to motor sports where reliable performance must be delivered in the most extreme conditions. At the Porsche Mobile 1 Supercup Henkel’s Loctite brand is once again present as an Official Technolgy Partner in 2010. With it’s cutting-edge adhesives and sealants technologies Loctite guarantees exceptionally high standards of race vehicle construction and maintenance for achieving best performance.

It all starts with an idea. A sudden thought. A solution to a recognized problem. But that is not enough. Those wishing to qualify for the ‘Fritz Henkel Award for Innovation’ have to implement that idea in practice – and prove its commercial viability in the marketplace. These are the criteria against which, each year, Henkel confers this much-coveted commendation on three winning teams of employees for the best product innovations.

• 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

As market leader and fashion expert for colourations Schwarzkopf Brillance is setting new standards for colour. With Brillance Intense Couleur Schwarzkopf has developed three new shades of fascinating intensity – inspired by the glamorous world of Anna Netrebko the celebrated opera diva. Featuring 15% more colour pigments alongside the proven Diamond-Shine formula the new product line offers more colour intensity as well as longer lasting colour brilliance. The three new trend shades from Brillance Intense Couleur will be available in stores from August 2009.

From August 2009 opera star Anna Netrebko will be the face of “Brillance Intense Couleur“, the new subline of Schwarzkopf’s successful coloration brand Brillance.

With the new threadlockers Loctite 2400 and Loctite 2700 Henkel once again asserts its position as a technology leader. The latest innovations to come out of the company’s Dublin labs are a medium and a high-strength threadlocker with a “white” Material Safety Data Sheet.

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.

… and something else is crucial for the success of a product: a wafer-thin layer of adhesive film providing perfect bonding of a label. Henkel is a supplier of highly performing adhesives and intelligent system solutions for all kinds of labeling applications in the beverage industry. The company will present its latest product innovations at Drinktec 2009 in Munich, Germany.

Christian-André Weinberger, Corporate Senior Vice President und Global Chief Marketing Officer and Sustainability Council representative for the Laundry & Home Care business at Henkel explains why sustainability is a success factor, why performance – based on sustainability – is setting a new standard of quality, and why innovative, sustainable consumption can lead us out of the crisis.

Sustainability is more than environmental protection and social engagement. At Henkel, sustainable development starts with the selection of the raw materials for its branded products, involves manufacturing, distribution and communication, and takes the use phase and disposal into account as well, thus encompassing the entire value chain. At an information event on July 1, experts used practical examples to demonstrate how the company exercises its responsibility in its Laundry & Home Care business and why this is so important, especially in challenging times.

What is sustainability? How can sustainability be measured in different brands such as Persil, Terra Activ and Somat? When is one solution more sustainable than another? The Henkel-Sustainability#Master of the Laundry & Home Care business sector gives answers to these questions. The computer-aided method developed by Henkel makes it possible to assess whether products and processes are more sustainable relative to a starting situation.

at the Holthausen site in Düsseldorf, Germany

The use of hotmelt adhesives is becoming increasingly popular in textile lamination. When deciding on new plant investments, manufacturers are tending more and more to opt for the hotmelt lamination alternative – simply because of the many advantages that this offers over conventional technologies.  As a world leader in the production of industrial adhesives, Henkel has a range of innovative product solutions for textile lamination to showcase at this year’s Techtextil trade fair in Frankfurt/Main, Germany.

This spring Henkel is launching two new products developed to meet the needs of a changing industrial society: The anaerobic adhesive Loctite 5188 and the anaerobic threadlocker Loctite 276 are a result of Henkel’s close co-operation with key players in the automotive and other industries. To harness the full power of the Loctite brand, the company is rumoured to be launching a massive advertising campaign soon in addition to the product launch.

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

In a remarkable breakthrough for underfill materials development, Henkel has engineered and launched a new underfill system that delivers on an unprecedented array of complex and demanding requirements, including room temperature fast flow, low temperature cure and reworkability. The new material, Hysol® UF3800™, has been specifically designed for use with today’s CSP and BGA devices and is particularly well-suited for handheld communication and entertainment applications.

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.

Henkel has brought the Guinness World Record^TM of the “heaviest vehicle lifted with glue” to a new level. Thanks to the performance of its record-breaking Loctite Superglue Henkel was able to lift a car with an overall weight of more than five tons.

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.

In order to support the production managers in their search for effective ways to maximise productivity while reducing costs, Henkel continues to deliver customer benefits through strategic innovation. Henkel’s AEROBOND system is one example which is substantially reducing process times and simultaneously improving efficiency in lamination in the paper and wood industries, now with 150 customers worldwide.

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.

As recession tightens, companies are putting expenditure into new equipment and systems on hold. But EASY-PAC, an all-in-one package sealing unit from Henkel requires no investment in equipment and guarantees to save money on energy bills and maintenance, making it the product that no packaging production line should be without – particularly in a credit crunch.

Hair Expo Australia and Schwarzkopf Professional have announced an exciting new alliance, which sees the brand becoming the exclusive sponsor of the renowned Hair Expo Awards and all connected events. 

The combination of materials is gaining importance in the light-weight construction of automobiles. In particular, aluminium sheet constructions are used for the weight reduction of car bodies. The corrosion protection in contact areas is a major challenge. Henkel has taken care of this issue in a joint project together with partners in industrial and institutional research, and has developed a new surface technology. Granocoat LT renders a corrosion resistance that was previously unachieved.

More than 400 international guests from media, industry and society accepted Henkel’s invitation to the large anniversary gala at the Wappenhalle in Munich and celebrated the 111th birthday of Schwarzkopf until the early hours of the morning. Top models such as Eva Padberg, Franziska Knuppe and Bojana Panic were among the glamorous guests that walked the red carpet. After the welcoming address by Hans Van Bylen, Executive Vice President Cosmetics/Body Care Henkel, Tina Müller, Corporate Senior Vice President, responsible for the worldwide hair, face and oral products business at Henkel, and Norbert Koll, Corporate Senior Vice President Schwarzkopf Professional, the guests let themselves be inspired by the 111-year long history and the numerous innovations of Schwarzkopf while enjoying cocktails and finger food. A large brand history exhibition showed not only the milestones from the past, but also the current new products and innovations of 2009. Video projections on the topic by media artist Dirk Bonn were met by enthusiasm from the audience and clearly set the international standard.

It was 111 years ago that the chemist Hans Schwarzkopf ran his small drugstore in Berlin. Today Schwarzkopf – one of the strongest brands of parent-company Henkel – handles with all products in the categories coloration, hair care and styling. Thanks to it’s extraordinary growth over the years, Schwarzkopf belongs to the market leaders. Alongside the retail brands (Schwarzkopf Retail) Schwarzkopf also includes professional products (Schwarzkopf Professional) in its brand portfolio. The company is dedicated to the development of innovative product technology and has up to now over 7,600 patents pending. With a finger on the pulse of innovation, Schwarzkopf has revolutionised the market with technical breakthroughs and innovations.

The first Henkel Innovation Letter in 2009 informs concisely about the different innovations made in the business sectors Laundry & Home Care, Cosmetics/Toiletries and Adhesive Technologies.