Kansas City, Missouri
June 7, 2002

- Agreement puts key market players in alliance
- Strong growth in lawn and garden market is goal
- Increased Value in market will benefit retailers

Bayer CropScience has formed a strategic partnership with United Industries that paves the way for Bayer to significantly strengthen its position in the consumer lawn and garden market.

The alliance between these two key players gives Bayer a minority stake in United Industries, grants United access to certain proprietary Bayer technology, and provides Bayer with access to United's award-winning in-store retail service for the Bayer Advanced(R) line of consumer lawn and garden products.

"This alliance represents an important step for Bayer Environmental Science, the new business group with responsibility for lawn and garden markets within the recently formed Bayer CropScience," stated Emil Lansu, Regional Head of Bayer CropScience for NAFTA. "With this agreement, we foresee significantly greater market penetration for our Bayer Advanced product line through superior in-store service from the best service provider in the industry. We achieve far broader reach among consumers for our innovative product line. And we strengthen our long-term commitment to the industry through our partnership stake in United Industries."

Lansu said that the agreement adds up to stronger market positions for both companies, greater value overall for the lawn and garden market and, very importantly, greater business success for their valued retailer customers who serve that market. "If we meet the business needs of our customers, the retailers, we will have created a win-win situation for everyone involved," he stated.

Just into its third season in the consumer lawn and garden market, Bayer CropScience has emerged as one of the industry's leaders through the popular Bayer Advanced Lawn(R), Bayer Advanced Garden(R) and Bayer Advanced Home(R) line of products. Available at major retail outlets nationwide, Bayer Advanced is the innovation leader in all categories in which it competes.

"From the start, our key to success has been to provide for consumers innovative solutions for lawn and garden problems," said Dr. Helmut Schramm, Global Head of the Consumer Products business for Bayer Environmental Science. "We achieved that by creating highly effective products based on Bayer proprietary technology, building on the widely recognized Bayer brand, and cutting through the retail shelf confusion with attractive consumer-friendly packaging and labels," he added. "Customers respond to this combination, further strengthening the presence of the Bayer Advanced brand in retail outlets.

"We look to significantly build on that success by working with United Industries," Schramm added. "We believe we can strengthen consumer demand by coupling our popular advertising and promotion campaigns with the superior in- store service that United can provide. With this combination, we foresee significant benefit for consumers, retailers and both Bayer CropScience and United."

The Bayer Advanced line, Schramm explained, is supported by a strong Bayer CropScience R&D pipeline. "Many of these molecules are suitable for lawn and garden usage, further evidence of our long-term commitment to this market and to our retailer customers."

The Bayer Advanced product line is managed by the Bayer Environmental Science business group, which is headed by Pascal Housset. This business is among the worldwide leaders in the professional turf & ornamental and pest and vector control industries, as well as the consumer lawn and garden market.

"Our Environmental Science products already have strong positions in the European consumer lawn and garden market," Schramm noted. "Our partnership with the premier U.S. in-store service provider in the industry, United Industries, will enable us to achieve the important strategic goal of significantly strengthening our consumer lawn and garden business in this country."

Bayer CropScience was formed through Bayer AG's acquisition of Aventis CropScience, which now is being integrated into Bayer's existing worldwide crop protection business. With the theme, Your Partner for Growth, the new company will market a combined portfolio of products from the former Bayer Crop Protection and Aventis CropScience businesses.

Bayer CropScience researches, develops, manufactures and sells a broad range of innovative crop science products for the crop protection, biotechnology and seed markets; the turf & ornamental and professional pest management markets; and the consumer lawn and garden markets. Bayer CropScience, with worldwide headquarters in Monheim, Germany, is a business area within the worldwide Bayer Group.

Bayer is an international, research-based group with core businesses in health care, crop science, polymers and specialty chemicals. It employs some 117,000 people throughout the world. In 2001 Bayer had sales of EUR 30.3 billion and net income of EUR 965 million. Capital expenditures amounted to EUR 2.6 billion, R&D spending to EUR 2.6 billion. The Bayer Group stock is a component of the DAX and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: BAY).