$$ Dow’s Dividend

Have been saying for a while Dow’s last step in emerging from both the recession and the Rohm deal (this is of course recognizing the deal was VERY good for Dow and is a success) was the resumption of its past dividend policy. On today’s call we got some more color on it.

Bill Weideman – The Dow Chemical Company – EVP, CFO

This is Bill Weideman. Let me answer that. First of all, as you know that’s a Board decision, so I can’t speculate on what action
the Board may take.

However, if you look at our past practice, our historical, we’ve had a dividend payout ratio, which is dividend divided by net
income, of approximately 45%, and if you look at over the last five years, from 2005 to 2009, we’ve actually been 45.9%.

Now we recognize over the past year we’ve been a little bit below that, for good reasons, due to the recession and our leverage.
But the — and one of our top priorities continues to be to pay down debt. But as the economy continues to improve and as our
earnings continue to improve, we will continue to reward shareholders consistent with our past practice.

DOW Transcript 2010-10-28 (click to open .pdf)

Based on that, we can expect Dow to raise its dividend for next year to $.20-$.25 a quarter from the current $.15 as right now we are significantly below the 45% line (we are actually below that on a 9-month earnings basis, not even full year).