ANNUAL REPORT 2011 A.S. CRÉATION TAPETEN AG

GROUP MANAGEMENT REPORT
34
standards and certifications. It remains to be
seen whether this will ultimately even lead to
a free trade zone between the EU and Russia.
As mentioned before, the prices of commodities
and energy increased sharply in the past
fiscal year. According to the Hamburg Institute
of International Economics (HWWI), global
commodity prices (excluding energy) increased
by another 12.4%, while global energy prices
rose by 25.0% (on a euro basis), following
growth rates of 41.5% and 36.4%, respectively,
in 2010. The recession-related price declines
of the year 2009 have thus been more than
offset in the meantime, and the prices of the
main commodities and energy sources reached
their historic highs in the course of 2011. In the
wake of the economic slowdown mentioned
above, commodity and energy prices declined
moderately in the final quarter of 2011. However,
this decline was insufficient to offset the
increases of the first nine months, which means
that commodity and energy prices were up on
the previous year in the year 2011 as a whole.
This sharp price increase also affected the main
raw materials used by A.S. Création such as
PVC, paints, paper and non-wovens as well as
energy.
Conclusion: As had been expected, 2011 was
marked by a difficult economic environment.
On the one hand, economic growth in the markets
that are relevant for A.S. Création was
driven primarily by capital spending and exports
and not so much by consumer spending. Wallpapers
and furnishing fabrics being consumer
goods, A.S. Création was unable to benefit
from the economic trend to the same extent
as companies from other sectors. On the other
hand, the rising prices of commodities and
energies heavily weighed on A.S. Création’s
bottom line.
Industry-specific environment
The members of the Association of German
Wallpaper Manufacturers (VDT) reported a 7.4%
increase in sales revenues in 2011. In spite of
this growth, sales revenues, at € 445.6 million,
were still 6.6% below the € 477.2 million
reported in 2008. This means that the German
wallpaper industry has not yet fully recovered
from the crisis of the year 2009.
In Germany the VDT members expanded their
sales revenues by 3.1%, which means that, as
in the previous years, wallpaper sales increased
at a higher rate than consumer spending,
which picked up by only 1.5% in Germany
in 2011. This comparison shows that wallpaper
is a product that enjoys great popularity and
is very much en vogue. In the management
reports for the years 2009 and 2010, the
Managing Board already reported that trend
researchers have identified a trend towards