Change

Achieving our medium-term ambitions

Strategic ambitions


Outgrow our markets: Delivered

  • Improved market share in many key mature and high growth markets
  • Opened our new €275 million Specialty Chemicals site in Ningbo, China
  • In Performance Coatings, acquired the powder coatings activities of the Dow Chemical Company, and Changzhou Prime Automotive Paint Co., Ltd (to support our mid-market car refinishes business in China)
  • In Decorative Paints, signed an agreement to become the primary paint supplier to Walmart in the US.

EBITDA margin > 14 percent: Delivered early

  • Continued to manage gross margin percentage through pricing and procurement actions, despite challenging raw materials environment
  • Completed delivery of €340 million of ICI synergies and almost all initiatives in our broader €200 million restructuring plan
  • Achieved our 14 percent EBITDA margin target on an annual rolling basis in the second quarter of 2010.

Revenue growth in %

Revenue growth (bar chart)

EBITDA margin

EBITDA margin (bar chart)

OWC improvement of 0.5 p.a: Delivering

  • Delivered strong credit control, despite the financial crisis
  • Continued to consolidate suppliers and harmonize terms and conditions to ensure sustainable improvement in days of payables
  • Continued roll-out of SAP in Decorative Paints, which will enable further substantial improvements in inventory management
  • Implemented a best practices reference guide to enable future reductions in OWC levels.

Top quartile safety: Continued improvement required

  • Demonstrated improvement, but not enough to reach our target
  • Continued to roll-out behavior-based safety (BBS) program in a disciplined manner
  • Implemented a full roll-out of safety leadership training.

Operating working capital as a % of revenue

Operating working capital improvement (bar chart)

Total reportable injuries per million hours

Total reportable injuries (bar chart)

Top three Dow Jones Sustainability Index: Delivered

  • Ranked in the top three in the Chemicals index for the fifth year
  • Demonstrated continued strong performance in risk and crisis management, Code of Conduct and environmental policy and management systems
  • Improved in innovation management
  • Future improvement required in operational eco-efficiency (i.e., carbon, water, waste) and people development aspects.

Step change in people development: Continued

  • Implemented a full and reinvigorated training schedule
  • Set stretching targets for executive diversity; will roll-out diversity and inclusion training for all employees from 2011
  • Launched an externally benchmarked employee engagement survey to assess baseline performance
  • Began to implement HR country organizations to harmonize procedures and facilitate intra-company capability transfer.

DJSI position Chemicals sector

DJSI position Chemicals sector (table)

Employee engagement performance as percentile

Employee engagement performance (bar chart)
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