Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, today announced that it has successfully completed its tender offer for shares of Nalco Chemical Company, a leading provider of water treatment services and products. The tender offer expired at 12 :00 midnight, New York City time, on Monday, November 8, 1999.

Based on preliminary information, 66, 195, 851.711 shares of common stock of Nalco and 316, 606.379 shares of Series B ESOP Convertible Preferred Stock of Nalco were validly tendered under the terms of the offer. All shares validly tendered were accepted for payment at a price of $53.00 per share of common stock and $1060.00 per share of Series B Esop Convertible Preferred Stock.

A General Assembly of the Nalco shareholders will be held within the next few weeks and following that, the shareholders who will not have tendered their shares will receive $53.00 per share of common stock they own. Upon completion of the public tender offer, Suez Lyonnaise will own 100% of Nalco.

Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux had launched at the end of June 1999 a public tender offer of $4.1 billion for Nalco, the world leader in water treatment services and products. The regrouping of Nalco, Calgon and Aquazur (a subsidiary of Degrémont) respectively number 3 and 5 of the water treatment sector gives birth to an entity characterized by revenues of $2.4 billion and a customer base of more than 60 000 industrial customers.