Group Management Report Products Safety Environment Human Resources Social Commitment Consolidated Financial Statements 67
Subsequent Events
At the end of January 2017, ALTANA signed a contract
to acquire the U.S. and German PolyAd companies by means
of a share deal. The additive solutions business for the
global plastics markets will be integrated in the BYK Additives
& Instruments division.
In February, ALTANA acquired a novel metallography
technology from the Israeli Landa group. The new activities
are being integrated in ALTANA’s ACTEGA division.
Expected Developments
Future Orientation of the Group
We do not plan on making any fundamental changes to the
Group’s strategy or organizational structure in the next
two years. The focus on specialty markets and the offer of
innovative chemical solutions will continue to drive our
business development.
We do not expect our entry into new market segments
or application areas to lead to any significant changes in
our sales structure in the medium term. We also expect the
balanced regional sales distribution to basically remain
stable.
Acquisitions, however, could lead to changes in our sales
and market structures. Bolt-on acquisitions and particu-
larly the integration of a new business division could result in
a shift.
Economic and Industry Outlook
Global economic growth is expected to increase slightly in
2017. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts an
increase of 3.4 % in world economic output, slightly higher
than the 2016 level (3.1 %).
This development should be driven both by stronger
growth momentum in the emerging countries and further
growth in the established industrial nations. The highest
momentum is again forecast for the emerging Asian economies.
The IMF estimates that the growth rates in China
and India will remain very high (6.5 % and 7.2 %, respectively).
Increased growth is forecast for the U.S. (2.3 % in
2017 compared to 1.6 % in 2016). The IMF expects that the
recession in Brazil will end in 2017 and that the economy
will stagnate compared to the previous year. In Europe, the
stable development of economic output is expected to
continue in 2017. Economic output of 1.6 % is anticipated
for the whole euro zone including Germany.