Press Release

December 19, 2007

World Chess Championship to be held in Germany:
Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik battle for the highest
chess title in October 2008

When: From October 11 30, 2008
Where: Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn
Overall Prize fund: 1,5 Million Euro
Patron: German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrck
Main sponsor: Evonik Industries AG

Dortmund. The World Chess Championship will be held from October 11 to 30, 2008 in
the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn, between
Viswanathan Anand (India) and Vladimir Kramnik (Russia).

The match will consist of twelve games, played under classical time controls, in the period
from October 11 to October 28, 2008. If there is a tie at the end of these games a tiebreak
will be played on October 30, 2008. The prize fund, which will be split equally between the
players, is 1,5 million Euro (approximately 2,1 million US Dollars) including taxes and FIDE
licensee fees.

Viswanathan Anand (37) and Vladimir Kramnik (32) are the two outstanding personalities in
chess today. The world championship match between them is keenly anticipated by chess
fans all over the world. It is part of a 120-year tradition of chess history, which includes
matches like Capablanca-Alekhine, Fischer-Spassky, Kasparov-Karpov and Kramnik-
Topalov.

The reigning and undisputed World Champion Anand won his title in September 2007 at the
World Championship tournament in Mexico City. Kramnik, who was undefeated in his three
world championship matches, became second in this double round robin event.

The World Chess Championship 2008 takes place under the patronage of the German
Finance Minister Peer Steinbrck, who is himself an enthusiastic and ambitious chess player.

The main sponsor of the World Championship is Evonik Industries. This industrial enterprise
is located in Essen, Germany, and was the exclusive sponsor of the 2006 World Chess
Challenge between Vladimir Kramnik and the chess program Deep Fritz.

The World Chess Championship 2008 in Bonn will be organized with the full cooperation of
the World Chess Federation FIDE and its President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. FIDE has its main
office in Athens, Greece, and is the head of 161 national chess federations with 40 million
active chess players, making it one of the worlds largest sporting organizations.

The organizer of the World Championship 2008 is Universal Event Promotion (UEP), which
is located in Dortmund (Germany) and has received all rights for the event from FIDE. UEP
staged the World Chess Challenge between Vladimir Kramnik and the chess program Deep
Fritz in 2006, an event that drew worldwide media attention and was very successfully
commercialised.


Official World Championship web site of the organizer:

www.uep-worldchess.com

Press contact:

Rolf Behovits
Universal Event Promotion
Press Officer
Tel.: +49-170-2317139
Email: rolf.behovits@uep-worldchess.com


Links:
World Chess Federation FIDE: www.fide.com
Evonik Industries AG: www.evonik.com
Home page of V. Anand: www.tnq.in/vishwa.html
Home page of V. Kramnik: www.kramnik.com
Federal Art Hall Bonn: www.kah-bonn.de

Evonik Industries: company information
Evonik Industries is the creative industrial group which operates in three highly profitable,
promising business areas: Chemicals, Energy and Real Estate. Evonik is a global leader in
specialty chemicals, an expert in power generation from hard coal and renewable energies,
and one of the largest private residential real estate companies in Germany. The strengths of
Evonik are creativity, specialization, continuous self-renewal, and reliability.
Evonik is active in over 100 countries around the world. In fiscal 2006 around 43,000
employees generated sales of 14.8 billion and an operating profit (EBIT) of over 1.2 billion.
Evonik plans to enter the capital markets in the first half of 2008.
Press contact Evonik Industries:

Sabrina Herich
Evonik Industries
Tel.: +49-201-177-2225
Email: presse@evonik.com