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Solvay shares
The Solvay shares are either bearer shares (in denominations of 1, 10, 100 or 1 000 shares) or registered shares, at the shareholder’s choice. Shares may be converted through a simple request to the company, accompanied by the shareownership certificate. This possibility of changing bearer shares into registered shares is particularly attractive in the context of the dematerialization of bearer shares from January 1, 2008 onwards :

Service Actionnaires,
rue du Prince Albert 33,
B-1050 Brussels (Belgium),
T. +32-2-509.63.09
e-mail : pascal.hubinont@solvay.com

Each share entitles its holder to one vote whenever voting takes place (except for the shares held by Solvay S.A. itself, the voting rights for which are suspended). All shares are equal and common. The share is listed on Euronext Brussels.

At December 31, 2007, the capital of Solvay S.A. was represented by 84,701,133 shares, including 2,571,460 shares held by Solvay itself to cover the stock option program.

Stock options plans
In December 1999, the company introduced a new annual stock option program for Group executives worldwide. This program is covered by own shares purchased by Solvay S.A. on the stock exchange. Authorizations of this new system have been granted several times by extraordinary Shareholders’ Meetings for 18-month periods each time. The extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting of May 9, 2006 renewed this authorization for a further 18 months.

Since January 2007, the covering program has been taken over by Solvay Stock Option Management S.A., a subsidiary of Solvay S.A. Voting and dividend rights attached to these shares are suspended as long as they are held by the company.

In 2006, the annual program of stock options (exercisable from February 13, 2010 to December 13, 2014) was offered to around 300 Group executives, at an exercise price of EUR 109.09 per share. This price represents the average closing price of the Solvay share on Euronext during the 30 days preceding the offering of options. 97.2% of these stock options were accepted by these executives.

In 2006, stock options representing a total of 1 446 600 shares were exercised as follows (it should be noted that options are in principle exercisable over a period of 5 years after being frozen for 3 years):

• 1999 stock option plan:384 300 shares
• 2000 stock option plan:435 200 shares
• 2001 stock option plan:350 300 shares
• 2002 stock option plan: 276 800 shares