Dear Friends:

Our Engel Companies began operations in 1952, and in its present form as F.H. ENGEL COMPANIES operating since 1979. However, the year 2005 will be a year that everyone will always remember within F.H. Engel Companies. After a long illness, our founder and Chairman F. Herbert Engel passsed away on December 4th. His departure caused deep pain and mourning to our family, employees, customers, suppliers and friends worldwide. As his son and only member of the family involved in the business I would like to express my appreciation on behalf of my family to all who joined us at this difficult moments.

Today, we are a group of several companies, there are importers, distributors, logistics and retail, among the most relevant. We define ourselves as a company that constantly moves to diversify, adding new products to its range, as is the case of Matusalem rum for retail . In raw materials we focused on the business as nonwovens for filtration, reinforced plastics, emulsions for the construction industry, chemical for adhesives and water treatment, essences for the detergent industry. In the food industry added raw materials such as pectin, inulin, omega 3 and sorbitol from tapioca. In wine area we strongly entered on enzymes and yeasts and also we entered the area of functional and heath food markets, where we foresee a great future.

We continue to work several areas of E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Co. Inc. in the chilean market. As it is well known, in 1996 E.I. DuPont de Nemours decided to establish in Chile after having been represented by F.H. ENGEL S.A. for 44 years. Since then we have been years of continuity in several business lines as they continue entrusting us, especially in regard to the sales of its products in the local stock.

As we have pointed out in previous opportunities, our business vision aims not only in achieving a relevant sales level for each product or project we execute, but to get a return on what we do. For this reason, in recent years we have decided to drop some business units or representations which involved risk and/or too low margins.

We always hope to contribute our grain of sand to the development of the country, contributing jobs, taxes and our FOUNDATIONS, whose success has been an honor for the family and for our employees.

Finally, I want to thank on behalf of all the Engel family and company employees, the support that our customers, friends and principals gave us both my father and us during the last years of my father's life Mr. F. Herbert Engel.

Personally I would like to thank my father, first and foremost as his son, and then the 20 years we worked together. He taught me to respect, leadership and hard work. He was a leader and an example to follow, and although everyone is different, in many acts with or without realizing it I think and act as he would have done. Undoubtely his comments, suggestions and advice, I do miss.

Thank you.

Claudio Engel
President
F.H. ENGEL COMPANIES