Message from President & CEO
The NSG Group is one of the world's largest manufacturers of glass and glazing products for the building, automotive and specialty glass markets.
The financial year ending 31 March 2009 was a particularly challenging one for the NSG Group. The Group's results reflected the general global slowdown in international trade, with a sharp contrast between the outcomes for the two halves of the financial year. In the first half-year, we were able to announce that sales and profits were in line with the forecast, with further progress achieved on reducing debt. In the second half, all three of the Group's business lines were adversely affected by the unprecedented global slump.
Restructuring initiatives are currently underway to address the downturn and to improve profitability going forward. Good progress has already been made in implementing these initiatives. They are intended to cut costs, to reduce capacity and output around the Group to match the requirements of our customers, and to regain profitability. The overall objective of the program is to protect the business in the short term and to re-establish profit growth from FY2011 onwards.
The Group's 10-year strategy, published in July 2006, remains central to our long-term vision and the basic objectives remain in place. What will inevitably change is the timetable for achieving the Medium-term Plan targets, which were set for March 2011.
In the current global turmoil, it is important that we do not lose sight of the excellent progress that has been made by the Company over the past three years on our most important targets - integration and debt reduction. This provides us with a very robust platform from which to develop.
I have no doubt that we operate in an industry with a future. Over the long term, growth in demand for glass has consistently exceeded economic growth. Our products have always been crucial to a number of key industries, notably construction, automotive, printers and mobile phones - and that will not change fundamentally. We are also in a strong position to supply the emerging Solar Energy sector. Despite the current economic disruption, our new Solar Energy business unit has held up well. These factors provide confidence that the NSG Group is well positioned to succeed as an industry leader.