Annual Report 2001 - Bohler Uddeholm materializing visions

Foreword from the
Chairman of the Management Board
10 BÖHLER-UDDEHOLM Annual Report 2001
The 2001 Business Year was a very special
year for us. In spite of a difficult operating
environment, BÖHLER-UDDEHOLM was able to
close a new record year and mark the tenth
anniversary of our founding on 10 May 1991.
Ten years are not a long time in the steel
industry. Particularly if you consider the fact
that Böhler can look back on more than one
hundred years of history in Austria and Uddeholm
has been a name in the Swedish steel
industry for over 300 years. However, the last
ten years have shaped and changed Böhler
and Uddeholm and all the member companies
of our Group more than the many decades
before.
What was our vision and goal when we
started to work on the structures of the present
BÖHLER-UDDEHOLM Group? We wanted to
create an international special steel company
and successfully gain a major position in a
small corner of the steel world.
What we did at that time — perhaps
somewhat instinctively — is now the foundation
of most corporate cultures. We created a
vision, and then developed an appropriate
mission and strategy. This vision was clear: to
become number one in our niches of the steel
world. Our mission was also easy to define:
work hard. The related strategy was then obvious:
we quickly learned that it is not possible
to produce steel for everyone. We had to concentrate
our production and focus our activities.
Two questions always accompanied this
process: what can we do better than our competitors
and how can we permanently detach
BÖHLER-UDDEHOLM from the ”classic“ steel
cycle?
A DIFFICULT START.
At the start, our problems were wideranging.
We were faced with the need to gradually
merge two different corporate cultures,
reduce the workforce, and close a number of
production units. The steel sector economy was
then at a historical low, and we were forced to
reorganise the Group. And the major challenge
was still ahead — the initial public offering of
BÖHLER-UDDEHOLM.
If you compare a number of today’s indicators
with 1991, it is easier to see the transformation
of the Group over the last decade.
In 1991 BÖHLER-UDDEHOLM was active in 11
business fields with sales of approximately
1.3 b€. After a consolidation process that reduced
sales to roughly 1 b€, we are now active
in only four selected core segments and recorded
sales of 1.5 b€ in 2001.
In 1991 we had 12,608 employees, today
there are 9,298. Ten years ago value
added per employee was 57.6 k€; today it
is 92.9 k€ or 61% higher. In 1991 profit on
ordinary activities totalled –41 m€; in the 2001
Business Year this figure reached 106.9 m€.
Since 1994 BÖHLER-UDDEHOLM has recorded
solid positive earnings without interruption.
Today BÖHLER-UDDEHOLM is neither an
Austrian nor a Swedish firm, but an international
group headquartered in Austria. Our
Company is the international market leader
in tool steel and many other niches. BÖHLER-
UDDEHOLM enjoys high recognition in the steel
industry, has an excellent reputation with customers
and the confidence of capital market
investors. We are especially pleased that a
group of private Austrian investors acquired