Henkel also feels the effects of economic downturn

At the beginning of the new financial year, Henkel has also felt the long-term adverse effects of economic environment. Henkel’s business units had mixed results for the first quarter of 2009.

The detergent and household cleaners business and Cosmetics performed well (0.4 and 3.5 percent increase). However the Adhesive Technologies have suffered major difficulties (18.2 percent decline). Revenues of the company increased with 3.1 percent to 3,258 million euros, due to the buying of the business areas of National Starch last year. The organic turnover decreased by 7 percent. The adjusted operating profit decreased by 26.1 percent to  235 million euros. Henkel expects that the difficult market conditions for the entire 2009 year will remains the same. The company has introduced a number of measures, from which they hope to see more vigorous growth and expects a positive effect on the drop in commodity prices.