Strategy & Policy - Investor Message
The NSG Group is a company founded on technological innovation in glass, and invests in sustaining this technology to create value for our shareholders. Our mission is to be the global leader in innovative high-performance glass and glazing solutions, contributing to the conservation and generation of energy, working safely and ethically.
1. Our management policy and long-term mission and strategy
Our Strategic Management Plan, announced in November 2010, sets the course for the NSG Group over the next three years. It replaces the Medium-term Plan issued in November 2006, which is now coming to the end of its term. The new Plan covers FY2012 to FY2014, but implementation is already underway.
The objective is to take the NSG Group to the next level of its development, building on progress on our ‘Phase 1’ priorities and leveraging our technology into growth opportunities. Since my appointment, I have been working with the senior team on a major strategic review, designed to sharpen the Group’s operational focus and ensure we capture all available synergies across the Group. We identified important growth opportunities, particularly in emerging markets and value-added products addressing climate change. Early investment opportunities were identified in a number of key projects with 12 to 24-month development timescales.
We took quick action to secure funding for these through the Share Offering we announced in August 2010. Funding from the share issuance will allow us to seize these important investment opportunities, leverage our competitive position and strengthen our balance sheet. In Building Products, our growth priorities are expansion in Solar Energy, low-e glass and South America. In Automotive, we will expand in South America, Eastern Europe and Mexico. The priorities for Specialty Glass are ultra-thin glass for displays, lens arrays for office machinery and battery separator technology. I have no doubt that more new growth opportunities will come from our R&D technology pipeline.
My aim is to create a thriving, innovative global enterprise. The Group is particularly well placed to leverage its global footprint, reduced cost base, technology and brands to meet growing demand for environmental and other value-added products. We regard the Strategic Management Plan as a ‘dynamic document’ and we will update our shareholders annually on progress.
2. Sustainability
We continue to make good progress on Sustainability and our new Group Vision statement, ‘Making a difference to our world through Glass Technology’, reflects the role our products can have in conserving and generating energy. Over the past year, we have further strengthened our Sustainability governance, with the appointment of Nick Shore as our first Director of Sustainability. Nick chairs the Group Sustainability Committee, which reports into the Board.
I personally attach great importance to the development of a sustainable company in all senses of the word. Our new Strategic Management Plan places a great deal of emphasis on Sustainability, with increasingly tough targets for the organization, particularly in our own energy saving and waste management. We also aim to capitalize on growing demand for our products that help save and generate energy. Our aim is to make a positive environmental contribution to the key value chains in which we operate. Our objectives are further to embed Sustainability throughout the organization in all our policies. Commercially, we aim to ensure that we contribute to and benefit from current environmental trends.
Glass has a unique role to play in helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the effects of climate change. The ‘energy balance’ between manufacture of high-performance glazing products and their use means that the energy used and CO2 emitted in manufacture are quickly paid back through the lifetime of the products. The Board have recently approved clear Sustainability targets for the Company, to be achieved by 2015, in the following areas:
Economic, Health & Safety, Energy, Product development, Recycling and Waste, Supply Chain and People. Full details of the targets and our progress toward them will be covered in our annual Sustainability Report and in the Sustainability section of the Group’s corporate website. Our 2010 Sustainability Report will be published in early 2011.
3. Prospects
Over the long term, growth in demand for glass has consistently exceeded economic growth and I expect that to be the case again. Our products have always been crucial to construction, automotive, office equipment and mobile devices and that is not going to change fundamentally.
Our objective is to be our customers' preferred supplier, the preferred place for our employees to work and of course the preferred investment for our shareholders.
4. Dividend Policy
The Group's policy is to secure dividend payments based on stable business results.