Ashland to Separate into Two Independent Publicly Traded Companies

Ashland Inc.

today announced that its board of directors has approved proceeding with a plan to separate Ashland into two independent, publicly traded companies. Today's announcement follows a comprehensive strategic planning review by the company's global leadership team to better understand Ashland's markets, customers and the opportunities for each business to create the most value for shareholders, customers and employees. It also represents the final step in Ashland's more than decade-long transformation from an oil refiner and marketer to a specialty chemicals company, during which the company completed dozens of acquisitions and divestitures. "Ashland is fortunate to have two strong, but distinctly different, business platforms with attractive growth opportunities and experienced leadership teams," said William A. Wulfsohn, Ashland chairman and chief executive officer. "We believe that separating into two industry-leading public