July 2009 - Moody's lowered Henkel's long- and short-term credit ratings reflecting concerns that Henkel's profitability and credit metrics are likely to remain under pressure at least throughout 2009. The outlook is stable.

An overview about the credit rating categories from Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s can be found here.

A Credit Default Swap (CDS) is a financial instrument for hedging credit risk. By buying a CDS, a market participant hedges certain risks arising from credit relationships in exchange for a premium, which is referred to as a CDS Level. The higher the level, the higher the default risk estimated by the market for the issuer.

The following graph shows the development of Henkel’s five-year CDS compared to the CDS index iTraxx Europe with the same maturity. This index encompasses 125 major European companies. Henkel’s default risk is estimated constantly lower than the average risk of these companies.