Novartis shares are listed and traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange (Valor No. 001200526, ISIN CH0012005267, symbol: NOVN.VX) as well as on the NYSE in the form of American Depositary Shares (ADS) (Valor No. 567514, ISIN US66987V1098, symbol: NVS).

ADR stands for American Depositary Receipt. ADS stands for American Depositary Share. An ADR is a receipt for a number of shares of a foreign-based corporation held in the vault of a US bank, entitling the shareholder to all dividends and capital gains.

Key Novartis share data
(calculated on average number of shares outstanding)

Key data on US American Depositary Receipts (ADR) program

¹The depositary, JP Morgan Chase Bank, holds one Novartis AG share for every American Depositary Share (ADS) issued.

You may use the interactive stock chart tool under our share information section to find the closing share price on a specific day.

For residents of Switzerland, France, Liechtenstein and the UK, you can deposit them through SIX SAG, and for people in the US, you can deposit them through the ADS direct plan.

SIX SAG is an affiliate company of the SIX Group AG. Its business activities include share register and deposit administration as well as the organization and staging of shareholder meetings. For additional information, please contact:

Novartis Direct Share Purchase Plan
c/o SIX SAG Ltd
P.O. Box
4609 Olten
Switzerland
Phone: +41 62 311 61 99
Fax: +41 62 311 61 98

More about the Direct Share Purchase Plan on the SIX SAG website

The AGM took place on February 24, 2009.
The next AGM will take place on February 26, 2010.

The date for the 2008 dividend was February 27, 2009. The date for the next dividend has not been set yet; the dividend will be declared by the Novartis Board of Directors for consideration by shareholders at the Annual General Meeting on February 26, 2010.

The Novartis dividend has increased steadily since 1996.

Cash dividend per share

A summary in German of our Annual General Meeting (AGM) is available on the AGM section of our investors web pages.

Basic earnings per share are calculated by dividing the net income attributable to shareholders by the average number of shares outstanding during the year. The average number of shares outstanding excludes treasury shares.

Novartis shares are widely held. As of December 31, 2008, Novartis had approximately 153000 shareholders (2007: 154000) registered in its share register.

Based on the Novartis AG share register, approximately 49% (2007: 51%) of the Novartis AG shares registered by name were held in Switzerland and 36% were held by approximately 800 holders in the US (2007: 37% and 800 holders, respectively).

These data are not representative of the actual number of beneficial owners located in Switzerland or the US since certain shares are held by brokers or other nominees.

Approximately 13% of the shares registered in the share register were held by retail or individual investors, while 87% were held by institutions such as banks, nominees, insurers, pension funds and investment funds. A total of 23% of the Novartis AG shares were not entered in the share register.

No person or entity shall be registered with the right to vote for more than 2% of the share capital as set forth in the Commercial Register. The Board of Directors may allow exemptions from the limitation for registration in the share register. Based upon information available to the Group, shareholders owning 2% or more of Novartis AG’s capital at December 31 are listed in the table below:

Novartis uses the 12-month calendar year, ending December 31, as its fiscal year.

You can review quarterly and full-year historical financial information in the sales and results or presentations and events sections.

Novartis transacts business in many currencies. As a result of the Group’s foreign currency exposure, exchange rate fluctuations have a significant impact on its income statement, in the form of both translation risk and transaction risk. Translation risk is the risk that the Group’s consolidated financial statements for a particular period may be affected by changes in the prevailing rates of the various currencies of the reporting subsidiaries. Transaction risk is the risk that the currency impact of transactions executed in currencies other than the subsidiary currency may vary according to currency fluctuations.

The Novartis Group ("Group" or "Novartis") consolidated financial statements are prepared in accordance with the historical cost convention and comply with the standards formulated by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and its predecessor organization, the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC), and the following significant accounting policies. The preparation of financial statements requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Actual outcomes could differ from those estimates. In our quarterly earnings statements, we provide information to reconcile IAS (international) to GAAP (US) for key financial measures.

You will find recent or past annual reports in the order and download center of our newsroom.

Because Novartis is a Swiss firm, we do not file some SEC documents (e.g., Forms 10-K and 10-Q). Instead, our results are reported to the SEC in the Form 20-F. View or download the 20-F report.

Novartis has created a user-friendly tool called the virtual body to provide key financial and general information related to our top 20 pharmaceutical products. View the virtual body. For more information, please visit our Products section.

Please check the Novartis investor relations reporting dates on Sales and Results, Quarterly results.

Other investor relations events are listed on our calendar.

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