NEW YORK, January 11, 2002 — Joseph Berkery, President of Berkery, Noyes & Co., announced yesterday that his firm represented Ariel Research Corporation in its sale to Eastman Chemical Company (NYSE: EMN).

The transaction was completed on January 9, 2002. Ariel Research, headquartered in Bethesda, Md., is a leading provider of worldwide regulatory information and software products that enable corporations to manage product safety and stewardship functions, including requirements for workplace, environmental and dangerous goods compliance. Its customers include major global corporations for chemical, pharmaceutical, consumer products, aerospace, electronics and telecommunications markets.

Ariel will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eastman Chemical Company. Ariel, which has about 35 employees, will continue to be headquartered in Bethesda, MD.

Eastman Chemical Company, headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, manufactures and markets chemicals, fibers, and plastics. The company has approximately 16,500 employees in 30 countries and had 2000 sales of $5.3 billion.

Berkery, Noyes specializes in investment banking for the information, publishing and communications industries. Among the most recent transactions completed by Berkery, Noyes are the sale of Mayfield Publishing Company to The McGraw-Hill Companies, The Thomson Corporation’s divestiture of Institutional Shareholder Services to Proxy Monitor, Inc., John Wiley & Sons’ purchase of selected higher education textbooks from Pearson Education, and the sale of R.R. Bowker LLC, a unit of Reed Elsevier Inc. to Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, L.P.

Berkery, Noyes & Co. clients range from small firms, often seeking a buyer, to most of the major international information companies, who use the firm’s expertise in locating, analyzing and negotiating with acquisition candidates, as well as in managing divestitures. The firm operates with a staff of twenty-two professionals serving the publishing industry from offices in New York, Boston, and San Francisco.