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ness cycle. The Starrag Group is the only listed<br />
machine tool industry player that consistently<br />
reported positive results and paid its shareholders<br />
a dividend throughout the recent recession.<br />
In the interest of securing its long-term viability,<br />
Starrag Group is determined to maintain its<br />
profitable growth with an across-cycle average<br />
EBIT margin of 8%. While growth in the recent<br />
past has mainly been acquisition-driven, organic<br />
growth is to take priority in the coming years<br />
based on systematic exploitation of group-wide<br />
synergy potential. This strategy does not rule out<br />
individual acquisitions, meeting the basic requirements<br />
of strategic fit, attractive market and product<br />
portfolio, and cultural fit. Starrag Group relies<br />
in identifying opportunities on a tried and tested<br />
stringent system of analysis during the acquisition<br />
screening process.<br />
Internal and external flexibility<br />
needed<br />
Higher volatility and more pronounced market<br />
fluctuations are likely to occur in future. This<br />
calls for higher flexibility and more agile set-up of<br />
the industry.<br />
Internally, it means a relentless pursuit of continuous<br />
process improvement as a never-ending task<br />
to increase productivity and install leaner processes<br />
on an ongoing basis. A balanced distribution<br />
of revenue volumes among the various markets<br />
and regions helps the company to maintain a solid<br />
financial structure assuring the company’s future<br />
growth and innovation investments.<br />
Our group has already established strong market<br />
positions in Europe, Asia and North America.Geographically,<br />
markets will continue to shift toward<br />
Asia, which will probably be the final destination<br />
of more than half of the top end global machine<br />
tool output within the next years. Starrag Group<br />
intends to capture this growth trend by investing<br />
in local production assets in India and also by continuing<br />
to expand its marketing and service activities<br />
in the other leading industrial nations of Asia.<br />
Various major trends underline the further organic<br />
Starrag Group <strong>Annual</strong> <strong>Report</strong> <strong>2011</strong> 19<br />
––<br />
growth of our group in that part of the world: A<br />
growing need for mobility, increasing demand for<br />
renewable and conventional energy, the necessity<br />
to invest in infrastructure and the mechanization<br />
of agriculture, and booming demand for consumer<br />
goods.<br />
Starrag Group expects that the growth of the<br />
Asian market will exceed that of the entire<br />
European machine tool industry consumption in<br />
the medium term. Its basic strategy of leadership<br />
in all four of its target markets, i.e. aerospace,<br />
energy, transport and industrial engineering, will<br />
be maintained going forward.
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