Management Board
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In 2016, ALTANA again achieved profitable growth and at the same time paved the way
for a sustainable and successful future.
In an environment that was anything but easy, we generated operating growth of
two percent and, notwithstanding a divestment and negative exchange-rate effects, also
recorded nominal sales growth.
We did so with a healthy mixture of continuity and change. In March, we sold ACTEGA
Colorchemie, which can now develop significantly better within the Siegwerk group.
Conversely, in July we acquired Addcomp Holland B.V., adding two new sites to our BYK
division.
At the same time, we continued to invest above-average amounts in research and development
amounting to six percent of sales. Examples of the targeted expansion of our
innovation
activities are the doubling of the laboratory capacities of ACTEGA Rhenania in
Grevenbroich and the inauguration of our cross-divisional Printed Electronics center
at ELANTAS in Hamburg.
In the future, we will continue to rely on the innovative ability and other strengths that
characterize our company: our proximity to customers, our focus on leading positions
in growing specialty chemicals markets, and our corporate culture, which includes the
ability to change that ALTANA has successfully demonstrated time and time again.
To exploit ALTANA’s potential even better in the long run, we developed an agenda for
the future together with the Executive Management Team in the first months of 2016.
In the process, we took into account feedback we received from managers and employees
from the entire organization. Under the motto “Keep Changing,” our agenda depicts
the strategic thrusts that will be crucial for ALTANA’s further development in the next five
to ten years.