Dow CEO promises an even better year

THE SAGINAW NEWS

MIDLAND -- Dow Chemical Co. investors impressed with last year's results haven't seen anything yet, its leader says.

Dow's success will continue, President and CEO Andrew N. Liveris told nearly 760 annual meeting attendees Thursday at the Midland Center for the Arts.

Topping 2004 will take some doing. Dow had a record year, tallying more than $40 billion in sales and consistently beating Wall Street expectations. Then, as if to show 2004 was no fluke, the nation's largest chemical company tripled its first-quarter earnings to $11.7 billion, compared with a year ago.

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Still, Liveris said rising energy and feedstock costs will make business conditions mixed at best. A sluggish economy also will pose a challenge, he said.

Throw in "demanding customers and tougher competitors" and the obstacles facing Dow are formidable, Liveris said.

Complaints abound

Shareholders voted against a proposal brought by Trillium Asset Management of Boston. The group represented a dissenting investor who wanted a full report on toxic chemicals Dow produces.

A legal ruling last month partly prompted the demand. The U.S. Supreme Court gave 29 peanut farmers in Texas the right to sue Dow Agrosciences. The growers blame the company for crop damage caused by its herbicides and say they weren't warned of the risks.

The court decision went through despite opposition from the Bush administration, which said the farmers' litigation unfairly would open the company to other lawsuits.

Other complaints lodged against Dow on Thursday involved dioxin and the deadly 1984 Bhopal, India, chemical leak.

Responding to calls for Dow to own up to dioxin contamination along the Tittabawassee River, Board of Directors Chairman William S. Stavropoulos replied that the company already is addressing the issue.

He said company executives hope that a cleanup agreement reached in January with the state Department of Environmental Quality will remedy the situation.

The plan requires immediate action in the most contaminated areas and calls for a long-range cleanup. It doesn't, however, wipe out a class-action lawsuit from residents living along the river in Midland and Saginaw counties who claim that Dow's dioxin releases are damaging their health and property values.

On the matter of Bhopal, Stavropoulos repeated the company's stance of the past few years -- that it is not to blame.

The toxic gas leak, which killed at least 10,000 people and sickened another 600,000 over the past two decades, occurred when Union Carbide Corp. owned the Bhopal plant.

Since Dow did not acquire Union Carbide until 2001, it is free from blame or responsibility for the spill, Stavropoulos said.

He also has said that Union Carbide's $470 million settlement with the Indian government ended the possibility of additional claims.

A shareholder urged board members to take the "PR" offensive rather than sitting back and taking abuse from environmental groups and others.

The investor advised Stavropoulos to use some of Dow's record profits from last year to fight those who seem to take delight in damaging the company.

He cited an example from 2004, when a man impersonating a Dow spokesman said the company would set up a $12 billion compensation fund for victims of the Bhopal tragedy.

Dow's agreement to finance an environmental project with Jean-Michel Cousteau -- eldest son of the famous late explorer Jacques Cousteau -- may buff the company's image.

Cousteau partnership

Jean-Michel Cousteau made himself available to shareholders in a booth highlighting the partnership, "Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Adventures," which will include a six-part PBS series next spring.

"We truly appreciate Dow's support in helping us educate the global public about the beauty and importance of our oceans," he said.

"The health of our oceans is directly connected to the survival of all life on Earth, and we must work together across communities, governments and industries to develop sustainable solutions."

Cousteau intends to research ways to fix environmental problems during at least the next year with Dow's support.

He said he doesn't find it ironic that a chemical company often dogged by environmental activists is funding his latest project.

"It is no different than any other company," he said. v

© 2005 Saginaw News. Used with permission