Buzzi Unicem and Schwenk Beteiligungen GmbH & Co. KG have entered today into an agreement to further increase Buzzi Unicem's interest in Dyckerhoff AG 's capital stock. According to the agreement, Buzzi Unicem has issued a "put" option in favour of Schwenk on no. 2,400,981 Dyckerhoff AG's ordinary shares and no. 364,770 preference shares; at the same time, Schwenk has issued a "call" option in favour of Buzzi Unicem on no. 2,400,981 ordinary shares and no. 364,770 preference shares as well. The agreement is subject to the approval of all relevant antitrust authorities.

The "put" option, and the relevant share transfer, will be exercisable by Schwenk in the time period from January 1, 2004 through January 15, 2004. Failing this, the "call" option can be exercised in the time period from January 16, 2004 through January 31, 2004. Payment and shares transfer will take place in February 2004.

In either case, the cost to Buzzi Unicem would be €86 million, against an additional 11.6% of ordinary stock capital and 1.8% of preferred stock capital, equal to 6.7% of total capital.

Please note that on March 14th Buzzi Unicem granted Holcim a "put" option on 5.3% of ordinary stock and Holcim granted Buzzi Unicem a call option on 5.3% ordinary stock as well; the options are exercisable respectively in January 2004 and February 2004.

It is known that in November 2002 Buzzi Unicem granted IMI Investments S.A. a "put" option on a 24.2% of the ordinary stock exercisable in December 2004, with share transfer and payment in January 2005. Should all the existing put options be fully exercised upon their maturities Buzzi Unicem would hold 90.4% of Dyckerhoff AG's ordinary stock capital and 6.7% of preferred stock capital (48.7% of total share capital).