Fortune Brands Chairman Norm Wesley Announces Retirement; To Be Succeeded by CEO Bruce Carbonari

    


Fortune Brands Inc



Fortune Brands, Inc. (NYSE: FO):

    --  Carbonari to be Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

    --  Wesley Remains a Director After 9 Years as Chairman

Norm Wesley, chairman of the board of Fortune Brands, Inc. (NYSE: FO), today
announced that he will retire after more than two decades with the company and
nearly nine years as chairman. Bruce Carbonari, currently president and chief
executive officer, has been elected chairman and chief executive officer,
effective October 1, 2008. Wesley, who also served as chief executive officer
from December 1999 through December 2007, will remain a member of the Fortune
Brands board.

"This completes the leadership transition we began more than a year ago when we
announced Bruce would become our CEO," said Wesley. "Bruce is a leader with an
intense focus on the consumer, operational excellence and creating value for
shareholders, and he is ideally suited to be our chairman. Over the years, I've
had the privilege of working with so many great people at every level of Fortune
Brands. I've worked with Bruce for nearly two decades, and I couldn't be more
pleased to pass the chairman's seat to him."

"Norm has been a tremendous leader of our company and I am honored to succeed
him as chairman," said Carbonari. "More importantly, I'm pleased the board will
continue to benefit from Norm's wisdom and experience. For the better part of
this decade, Norm led a remarkable realignment at Fortune Brands that sharpened
the company's focus on growth and returns, including the significant expansion
of our high-return spirits and home products businesses and the spin-off of the
office products unit. The entire Fortune Brands team looks forward to building
on his accomplishments as we position Fortune Brands for future growth."

Wesley joined Fortune Brands in 1987 as part of the acquisition of the company's
former office products subsidiary. For more than ten years he led the office
products unit, which Fortune Brands spun off to shareholders in 2005. Wesley
became CEO of the company's home and hardware business in 1997, president and
chief operating officer of Fortune Brands in January 1999, and chairman and CEO
of Fortune Brands in December 1999.

Carbonari has been a member of the board since August 2007 and president and CEO
since January 2008, when he succeeded Wesley as chief executive. An 18-year
veteran of the Fortune Brands leadership team, Carbonari previously served as
president and chief operating officer of Fortune Brands, led the company's Home
& Hardware subsidiary, and also led Moen, the company's largest single brand. He
earned a BA in finance and accounting from Boston College and a master's degree
in management sciences from Hartford Graduate Center, an affiliate of Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute. Carbonari currently serves as chairman-elect of the
policy advisory board of the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard
University, as well as on the board of RPM, Inc.

About Fortune Brands

Fortune Brands, Inc. is a leading consumer brands company with annual sales
exceeding $8 billion. Its operating companies have premier brands and leading
market positions in distilled spirits, home and hardware, and golf products.
Beam Global Spirits & Wine, Inc. is the company's premium spirits business.
Major spirits brands include Jim Beam and Maker's Mark bourbon, Sauza tequila,
Canadian Club whisky, Courvoisier cognac, Teacher's and Laphroaig Scotch, and
DeKuyper cordials. Home and hardware brands include Moen faucets, Aristokraft,
Omega, Diamond and Kitchen Craft cabinetry, Therma-Tru door systems, Simonton
windows, Master Lock padlocks and Waterloo tool storage sold by units of Fortune
Brands Home & Hardware LLC. Acushnet Company's golf brands include Titleist,
Cobra and FootJoy. Fortune Brands, headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois, is
traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FO and is included
in the S&P 500 Index, the MSCI World Index and the Ocean Tomo 300(TM) Patent
Index.

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Fortune Brands, Inc.
Media Relations:
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[phone]
or
Investor Relations:
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