ASHLAND INC

Ashland Inc. is a Delaware corporation, with its headquarters and principal executive offices at 8145 Blazer Drive, Wilmington, Delaware 19808. Our common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol “ASH”. The terms “Ashland” and the “Company” as used herein include Ashland Inc., its predecessors, and its consolidated subsidiaries, except where the context indicates otherwise.

Ashland is a global specialty additives and materials company with a conscious and proactive mindset for sustainability. The Company serves customers in a wide range of consumer and industrial markets including, architectural coatings, construction, energy, food and beverage, personal care and pharmaceutical. With approximately 3,200 employees worldwide, Ashland serves customers in more than 100 countries.

Ashland’s reportable segments include: Life Sciences; Personal Care; Specialty Additives; and Intermediates. Unallocated and Other includes corporate governance activities and certain legacy matters.

Life Sciences is comprised of pharmaceuticals, nutrition, agricultural chemicals, diagnostic films (formerly known as advanced materials) and fine chemicals. Pharmaceutical solutions include controlled release polymers, disintegrants, tablet coatings, thickeners, solubilizers and tablet binders. Nutrition solutions include thickeners, stabilizers, emulsifiers and additives for enhancing mouthfeel, controlling moisture migration, reducing oil uptake and binding structured foods. Customers include pharmaceutical, food, beverage, hospitals and radiologists and industrial manufacturers. The nutraceuticals business was sold in August 2024.

Personal Care is comprised of biofunctionals, microbial protectants (preservatives), skin care, sun care, oral care, hair care and household solutions. These businesses have a broad range of natural, nature-derived, biodegradable, and high-performance ingredients for customer-driven solutions to help protect, renew, moisturize and revitalize skin and hair, and provide solutions for toothpastes, mouth washes and rinses, denture cleaning and care for teeth. Personal Care supplies nature-derived rheology ingredients, biodegradable surface wetting agents, performance encapsulates, and specialty polymers for household, industrial and institutional cleaning products. Customers include formulators at large multinational branded consumer products companies and smaller, independent boutique companies.

Specialty Additives is comprised of rheology and performance-enhancing additives serving the architectural coatings, construction, energy, automotive and various industrial markets. Solutions include coatings additives for architectural paints, finishes and lacquers, cement- and gypsum-based dry mortars, ready-mixed joint compounds, synthetic plasters for commercial and residential construction, and specialty materials for industrial applications. Products include rheology modifiers (cellulosic and associative thickeners), foam control agents, surfactants and wetting agents, pH neutralizers, advanced ceramics used in catalytic converters, and environmental filters, ingredients that aid the manufacturing process of ceramic capacitors, plasma display panels and solar cells, ingredients for textile printing, thermoplastic metals and alloys for welding. Products help improve desired functional outcomes through rheology modification and control, water retention, workability, adhesive strength, binding power, film formation, deposition and suspension and emulsification. Customers include global paint manufacturers, electronics and automotive manufacturers, textile mills, the construction industry and welders.

Intermediates is comprised of the production of 1,4 butanediol ("BDO") and related derivatives, including n-methylpyrrolidone. These products are used as chemical intermediates in the production of engineering polymers and polyurethanes, and as specialty process solvents in a wide array of applications including electronics, pharmaceuticals, water filtration membranes and more. BDO is also supplied to Life Sciences, Personal Care, and Specialty Additives for use as a raw material.

Unallocated and Other generally includes items such as certain significant company-wide restructuring activities, corporate governance costs and legacy costs or activities that relate to divested businesses that are no longer operated by Ashland.

Available Information - Ashland’s Internet address is http://www.ashland.com. On this website, Ashland makes available, free of charge, its annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and any amendments to those reports, as well as any beneficial ownership reports of officers and directors filed on Forms 3, 4 and 5. All such reports are available as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with, or electronically furnished to, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). Ashland also makes available, free of charge on its website, its Corporate Governance Guidelines, Board Committee Charters, Director Independence Standards and Global Code of Conduct that applies to Ashland’s directors, officers and employees. These documents are also available in print to any stockholder who requests them. Information contained on Ashland’s website referenced here or elsewhere in this Annual Report is not part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K and is not incorporated by reference in this document. The SEC maintains an Internet site (http://www.sec.gov) that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC.