Business Combinations and Portfolio Measures
Acquisitions play a key role in ALTANA’s long-term value
creation. In recent years, we have continually advanced the
Group strategically due to acquisitions. At the same time,
we cleansed our portfolio of those activities that were not in
line with our strategic aims and for which there were
no long-term value-creation perspectives within the Group.
In the future, we intend to continue to boost our
growth by acquiring businesses and activities. This is an essential
prerequisite for us to achieve our strategic growth targets.
Should opportunities arise in the future that exceed our
expectations, these new activities could help us strengthen
our market positions and open up new market segments. This,
in turn, could help us achieve our strategic targets more
quickly.
Synergies
The ALTANA Group is decentralized to a large extent. Still,
in some areas of the value-creation chain and in certain
management functions, central units support the divisions
and play a coordinating role. To the extent that we man-
age to push forward the networks within the Group more
strongly than expected, this may spawn further potential
to improve efficiency.
The Management Board’s Overall Statement
on the Anticipated Development of the
Group Including Its Overall View of the Risk
and Opportunity Situation
For 2020, we expect global economic growth to be somewhat
stronger than in the previous year, especially in the second half
of the year. In this environment, we expect ALTANA to achieve
operating sales growth in the low single-digit percentage range
with slightly lower earnings profitability. The acquisitions already
agreed upon will lead to additional sales growth, but will temporarily
weaken the key performance indicators for value-oriented
management.
We believe that the risk of burdens from a development of the
global economy that is worse than we expected or even recessive,
or in important core regions, continues to exist. In addition,
considerable risks to our short-term sales and earnings performance
are posed by the higher price volatility on the raw-materi-
als markets, by impairments for intangible assets acquired
within the framework of acquisitions, and by short-term exchange-
rate fluctuations.
Overall, we have not found any risks that could endanger the
continued existence of the company. The risks we face are set
against opportunities that could enable us to achieve sales and
earnings performance surpassing our forecasts.
80 Expected Developments