Zurich, Switzerland, April 30, 2007 - Shareholders representing 401,005,549 shares are participating in ABB Ltd´s Dividend Access Facility (DAF), corresponding to 84 per cent of the VPC registered shares.
The DAF provides to shareholders tax resident in Sweden and holding VPC registered ABB Ltd shares, the possibility to receive dividend without deduction of Swiss withholding tax. The dividend will be a matter to be decided at the Annual General Meeting on May 3, 2007.
Shareholders participating in the DAF will temporarily be registered as shareholders without rights to ABB Ltd dividend. The shareholders will instead receive their dividend from ABB Ltd´s Swedish subsidiary ABB Participation AB. The participating shareholders will for each ABB Ltd share receive one ABB Ltd share without dividend rights (ABB Ltd U), and one dividend right separated from the share (SR1). The ordinary ABB Ltd shares will be re-registered on the shareholders´ VPC accounts on May 14, 2007. For shareholders participating in the DAF, the dividend payment date is planned to be May 15, 2007.
The ABB Ltd U share will be traded, in parallel with the ABB Ltd share, on Stockholmsbörsen/Nordic Exchange, Large cap, during the period April 30, 2007 through May 8, 2007. The ABB Ltd U share´s ticker symbol will be ABB Ltd U and the ISIN code is SE0000625568. Trading in dividend rights, SR1, will not be possible.
ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 109,000 people.