SURTECO promotes international profile

SURTECO AG aims to counteract continued weakness in the domestic economy by strengthening activities in the export markets. The company primarily supplies the construction and furnishing markets with edging strips based on paper and plastics, and decorative surface foils. The Board of Management announced further expansion of the international network at the Annual General Meeting. The May opening of a dedicated sales subsidiary in Tokyo will be followed by a subsidiary in Moscow that is due to open in August. The company is currently also looking into the possibility of opening up its own corporate sales structures in India and Brazil. The opening of a dedicated manufacturing facility is also scheduled in China (mid-2005). This will enable us to serve the growing Asian market. SURTECO AG is the global leader with its sophisticated technical products. Once this modern production facility comes onstream in Taicang, the Group will have a global presence with 20 production and sales companies. Global alignment in the face of weak domestic market The Group bundles its activities in the two strategic business units "Paper" and "Plastics". Global orientation makes it more independent of the domestic market, which has been awaiting an economic upswing for some years. During the fiscal year 2003 (as at 31 December), 58 % of total sales of SURTECO AG amounting to 355 million euros (2002: 367 million euros) were already being generated abroad. While domestic business at 141 million euros continued to decline (-3 %), sales with the EU countries rose to a share of 27 % (2003: 26 %). The most important growth market for SURTECO AG is and remains the continent of America, even though sales there fell back by two percent to 60 million euros in 2003. However, this is solely due to currency losses. Dividend increased again SURTECO AG once again succeeded in significantly reducing its acquisition-related financial debts by 32 million euros to 148 million euros. The shareholders had made their contribution by agreeing to a cut in dividend in 2003 for the first time after nine dividend increases. This created the conditions for strengthening the capital base of their company. However, on the basis of the operating result for the previous year, amounting to 29.7 million euros, the Annual General Meeting again resolved to pay out a dividend increased by 5 euro cents to 70 euro cents per share for 2003. The shareholders are again seeing their confidence in the security rewarded. The share price increased by 41 % from the start of 2003 to the year-end and outperformed the DAX by around 13 percentage points. Outlook 2004 Even though sales and income indicators for the first quarter were above those for the equivalent year-earlier period and the second quarter will conclude with similarly improved results, SURTECO AG is projecting a result for 2004 that is only slightly above the figures for the previous year. Enhanced sales efforts are directed towards achieving export successes especially in North America and Asia, with the aim of compensating for the ongoing weakness of the domestic economy.