PRESS RELEASE

Florence, 19th September 2011

Due to health reasons, the President of Menarini I.F.R., Alberto Aleotti, has taken leave of his duties as head of the Menarini Group. His daughter, Lucia (who will become the Group’s Vice President), and his son, Alberto Giovanni, announced the decision in a letter sent out this morning to all Company employees.

In the letter the Aleotti siblings trace the steps of their father’s outstanding entrepreneurial history in Menarini, highlighting how the total number of employees has increased from the original 180 to today’s 13,000 and how the Group’s territorial presence now covers more than 100 countries with a turnover exceeding 3 billion Euro.

The letter reads "It has been some months now since our father began to gradually pass on the decisional processes, even the strategic ones, to both us and the Group’s General Managers thus creating, with extraordinary intelligence, not a ‘One Man Company’ but a company capable of nurturing the talent of the men and women who work with us, a ‘school’ where one learns by example. A winning team."

"A team", the letter reassures, "which will continue to strengthen even further the philosophy based upon solid growth and development, far from ‘creative finance’ and speculation." A team which is able to not only face, but also successfully accomplish, all the new challenges that today’s market may place in front of a them – a company, the letter confirms, which will remain "totally independent".