| Thu 3 May 2012, 12:00 | | MND/MNP - Mondi Limited/Mondi plc - Annual General Meetings |
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MND MNP
MND MNP
MND/MNP - Mondi Limited/Mondi plc - Annual General Meetings
Mondi Limited
(Incorporated in the Republic of South Africa)
(Registration number: 1967/013038/06)
JSE share code: MND ISIN: ZAE000156550
Mondi plc
(Incorporated in England and Wales)
(Registration number: 6209386)
JSE share code: MNP ISIN: GB00B1CRLC47
LSE share code: MNDI
As part of the dual listed company structure, Mondi Limited and Mondi plc notify
both the JSE Limited and the London Stock Exchange of matters required to be
disclosed under the JSE Listing Requirements and/or the Disclosure and Listing
Rules of the United Kingdom Listing Authority.
MONDI LIMITED AND MONDI plc - ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGS
ADDRESS TO SHAREHOLDERS BY THE JOINT CHAIRMEN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Cyril Ramaphosa, Joint Chairman, speaking from Johannesburg:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the boards of Mondi Limited and
Mondi plc, welcome to the fifth annual general meeting of the Mondi Group. We
are delighted that you have been able to join us here in Johannesburg and there
in London. As is custom at our meeting, although we`re on separate continents
with the use of modern technology, David Williams and I, and our fellow board
directors, take great pleasure in being able to talk to you this morning, as
one.
As you know, we share the chair of the Mondi Group and David Williams and I
would both like to say a few words this morning about Mondi`s progress over the
last year. Your chief executive, David Hathorn, will then review the Group`s
performance and strategy in a little more detail as well as update you on the
Group`s interim management statement that we published earlier today. After this
we will be delighted, as a board, to take your questions. But first, let me
introduce you to your directors.
To my immediate left is Imogen Mkhize, an independent non-executive director.
Next to her is David Hathorn, your chief executive officer. And on his left is
Philip Laubscher, company secretary of Mondi Limited. Next to Philip is Andrew
King, your chief financial officer.
With David Williams in London, we have Stephen Harris, an independent non-
executive director and chairman of the DLC sustainable development committee.
Anne Quinn, our non-executive senior independent director and chair of the DLC
remuneration committee. And beside her Carol Hunt, company secretary of Mondi
plc.
To David`s right, we have Peter Oswald, chief executive officer of the Europe &
International Division and, finally, John Nicholas independent director and
chairman of the DLC audit committee.
For the benefit of our new shareholders I should point out that, although the
dual listed company structure means that Mondi Limited in South Africa and Mondi
plc in the UK are separate corporate entities, each with its own board and
shareholders, Mondi operates as a single corporate group, managed as a single
economic enterprise. The two companies have the same board members and the same
management team. The DLC structure means that shareholders in each company fully
share in the performance of the Group as a whole.
In 2011 the Mondi Group delivered record results set against a backdrop of
initially much improved market conditions but ending with some broader
macroeconomic weakness. This gave rise to some slowdown in demand and pricing
pressures across certain of the Group`s product areas.
The Group`s streamlined high quality assets performed very well throughout the
year, with the focus on low-cost production and high-growth emerging markets
again delivering positive outcomes for shareholders, despite the more uncertain
market conditions.
Mondi remains a strong Group with a robust strategy and operational model. As a
low-cost producer, we are fully integrated across the paper and packaging
process, adding value at every stage of the product chain, from forestry, pulp
and paper to the conversion of packaging papers into corrugated packaging and
industrial bags.
The strength of our financial performance in 2011, backed by our competitive
position and a strong balance sheet, gives us the confidence to recommend a
significant increase in the final dividend to 17.75 euro cents per share. If
approved, this will make a total dividend for the year of 26.0 euro cents per
share.
Before I hand over to David Williams, I would just like to highlight a few areas
in which we made particular progress last year.
At the end of 2011 Mondi employed twenty three thousand people at 82 separate
operating sites across 28 countries, with a particularly strong presence in
Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and South Africa. Often, we are the single
largest employer in the area in which we are located. This brings with it a
great responsibility, which we take very seriously. We want Mondi to be a
sustainable, socially-responsible business that makes a real and lasting
contribution to every community within which we operate.
We evaluate the economic and social impact of each of our operations on its
local community. This enables us to build tailored programmes that bring
tangible benefits to those communities. In 2011 we invested over 17.3 million
euros in charitable donations and community projects with a focus on health and
education.
Here in South Africa, we continue to be a supporter of the government`s policy
of broad-based black economic empowerment, which influences many of our
employment and procurement practices. We also play an active role in helping to
reduce the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in communities and through routine counselling
and testing of our employees.
But one of the most significant developments for us in South Africa was the
continued progress we made on land restitution. To date we have concluded eleven
land claims and reached agreement on the settlement of all outstanding KwaZulu
Natal claims. Critical to Mondi`s approach is to ensure that land claim
beneficiaries receive meaningful and sustainable benefits and that sources of
fibre are both assured and sustainably managed into the future.
Over several years, we have taken steps to improve the working conditions in our
forests including reducing the extent to which employees are exposed to high-
risk and heavy manual tasks and making improvements in education and training,
transport, accommodation and our feeding schemes which ensures that workers get
a nourishing meal every day.
All of these developments and more are covered in detail in our annual report
and sustainability summary review, additional copies of which are available
today - or you can download these from our web site.
With that, I`d like to hand over to my co-chairman, David Williams, in London.
David.
David Williams, Joint Chairman, speaking from London:
Thank you, Cyril. As Cyril said, although Mondi is a dual listed company
domiciled on two continents, it is a single Group with a unified management.
This means that the boards comprise the same directors, with independent non-
executives in each, and those boards remain independent of the executive
committee, led by David Hathorn, which manages the Group on a day-to-day basis.
This enables your boards to exercise the highest standards of financial and
operational control and to ensure that the key risks and performance criteria of
the business are diligently scrutinised and reviewed on your behalf.
Although Mondi is less than five years old as an independently listed Group, I
am pleased to report that the boards are functioning at a high standard. Your
directors provided guidance throughout the year, applying their skills and
experience in support of the executive team. The board committees were
effectively led and did valuable work during the year.
We continue to strive to maintain the highest standards of governance practice.
The operation of the boards and committees is regularly reviewed and the
performance of the directors in 2011 was evaluated, producing a clear action
plan for further improvement in 2012.
Safety remains paramount to us across the Group and we continued to reduce
accidents in the workplace. However, despite the improvements made in many areas
of the business, we deeply regret that two people were fatally injured during
the year, one in the US and one in South Africa. The Group`s policy of zero harm
remains our target and thorough investigations were undertaken after each
incident to ensure that we continue to refine the safety measures, including
training programmes necessary to keep all our employees and contractors safe.
Safety is a key item on the agenda at every DLC board meeting and we have tasked
management with finding new ways to further entrench safe behaviour throughout
our business.
We are pleased that in 2011 a number of our operations were very successful in
their pursuit of zero harm, with eleven out of 20 mills and forest areas
reporting more than a million lost time injury free hours.
Our focus on safety, of course, is only one part of our commitment to
sustainability across the Group. Every one of our sites is monitored against our
integrated sustainable development management system and the DLC sustainable
development committee, now under Stephen Harris`s chairmanship, receives timely
and accurate data.
We are particularly pleased with our progress on sustainable forestry, the
increased use of renewable energy sources and emission reductions. All our
forests in Russia and South Africa have retained forest stewardship council
certification.
We have reported significant progress in reducing and optimising our resource
usage, in particular water and energy. More than half of our energy usage comes
from biomass a renewable energy source.
At the end of 2010 we concluded our first five-year commitment period. We were
pleased that all our sustainability commitments set in 2005 were met or
exceeded. In 2011 we set revised sustainability commitments for the next five
years. Our environmental commitments are particularly thorough and include
reducing our carbon intensity and emissions, as well as our water consumption
through conservation, reuse and recycling.
The positive role played by sustainably managed forests has been recognised in
the international climate change debate and we again participated in the carbon
disclosure project`s 2011 greenhouse gas emission and climate change survey.
You can read more about our achievements in the sustainability section of our
web site, where we report on all these areas in full.
The record set of financial results in 2011 was in no small part thanks to the
continued dedication of Mondi`s twenty three thousand employees across the
globe. We thank them all for their considerable efforts.
The Mondi Group`s stable strategic course in 2011 facilitated a robust
performance in an unpredictable year. Our strategic direction remains unchanged
and David Hathorn will comment further on our priorities over the coming months.
Looking further ahead, while the new year will no doubt continue to present
challenges and opportunities, we are confident in the ability of the business to
deliver sustainably strong cash flows. We will continue to assess the Group`s
product and asset portfolio to ensure maximum value is achieved across all our
operation regions, taking opportunities to strengthen these as appropriate. We
will also carefully consider selected value-enhancing growth opportunities.
Now I`d like to hand back to South Africa and to your chief executive, David
Hathorn, who will expand on our performance in 2011 and also take you through
the highlights of our latest interim management statement, released earlier this
morning. David.
David Hathorn, Chief Executive Officer, speaking from Johannesburg:
Thank you, David. As your chairmen have said, in 2011 Mondi Group had record
results despite the challenging market conditions in the second half of the
year. Supply side fundamentals for each of the Group`s core grades remain good,
while we enjoy limited exposure to grades suffering structural demand decline.
In the second half of 2011 broader macroeconomic weakness and destocking gave
rise to some slowdown in demand and moderate price pressures across certain of
the Group`s product areas. We responded by taking production downtime to manage
inventory levels and encouragingly, following recent improvement in orders, all
operations are now back at full production.
The Mondi Group is pleased to have delivered record results for the year, with
Group revenue of 5,739 million euros and underlying operating profit of 622
million euros, up by 36% compared to 2010.
Both recent major capital investments, the modernised Syktyvkar mill in Russia
and the new lightweight containerboard paper machine at Swiecie in Poland, are
running well and contributed significantly to the Group`s profitability in 2011.
Excluding major expansionary investments, the Group targets to maintain its
capital expenditure at between 60 and 80% of depreciation.
The Group has approved approximately 170 million euros in capital expenditure
for certain energy and de-bottlenecking investments across a number of its
operations. The energy projects are focused on improving energy efficiency and
self-sufficiency whilst providing opportunities to capture additional benefits
in the form of electricity sales.
Mondi Group further focused its strategic priorities when the demerger of Mpact,
previously Mondi Packaging South Africa, was approved by shareholders and in
July Mpact commenced trading as an independently listed entity.
Mondi is delighted to have had investment grade credit ratings confirmed by both
Moody`s Investors Service (Baa3 outlook positive) and Standard & Poors (upgraded
to BBB- outlook positive) during the period.
Going forward, we will focus on maintaining our investment grade credit metrics
and identifying selective capital investment opportunities, mainly around cost
optimisation. We will support dividends and will continue to be disciplined as
regards acquisitions and increase shareholder distributions. We also continue to
regularly assess our portfolio to ensure maximum value is achieved.
Our balance sheet remains strong with net debt at year end of 831 million euros,
or about 0.83 times EBITDA.
As you know, earlier today we released our Interim Management Statement. I would
like to take this opportunity to briefly summarise the main points of the
announcement.
Overall performance for the first quarter 2012 was in line with our
expectations. As anticipated, the generally weaker trading environment seen
towards the end of the prior year, continued into the early part of the first
quarter. The Group`s underlying operating profit of 120 million euros in the
period was below that achieved in the previous quarter and below that achieved
in the strong trading environment prevalent in the comparable prior year period.
Pleasingly, following the low levels of demand seen towards the end of the
previous quarter and into the early part of 2012, there was a clear trend of
improving demand and on average sales volumes were higher than the previous
quarter across all paper grades. Similarly, although selling prices across all
major paper grades were on average lower than those achieved in the previous
quarter, a trend of improving prices towards the end of the quarter was evident
on the back of improving demand and increasing fibre input costs. The benefits
of these improving prices are expected to be realised from the second quarter
onwards.
In our Europe and International Division, the Uncoated Fine Paper business
continued to perform very strongly, albeit at somewhat lower levels of
profitability than in the comparable prior year period. Underlying operating
profit was in line with that of the previous quarter with higher sales volumes
being offset by lower average selling prices.
In the Corrugated business underlying operating profit was well below the
comparable prior year period and below that achieved in the previous quarter.
This was largely attributable to lower average containerboard selling prices and
some commercial downtime as a result of weak demand for virgin containerboard in
the early part of the year. The business successfully implemented price
increases during February and March. These have gone some way to recover the
price erosion seen towards the end of 2011. Further price increases for all
containerboard grades have been announced to take effect in the second quarter.
During April 2012, the tender offer to acquire the 34% non-controlling interest
in Mondi Swiecie was concluded, resulting in Mondi`s shareholding increasing to
93.2%. A process has been implemented to acquire the remaining shares from those
shareholders who did not respond to the initial offer.
In addition, Mondi Swiecie has acquired the power and heat generating plant
which provides most of its electricity requirements and all of its heat and
steam needs with effect from 2 May 2012, for an enterprise value of
approximately 100 million euros (subject to a claim of approximately 9 million
euros against the selling party, Polish Energy Partners S.A.).
In the Bags & Coatings business, underlying operating profit was well below the
comparable prior year period and at similar levels to that achieved in the final
quarter of 2011.
In the Kraft Paper segment, significantly lower prices were agreed on contract
volumes for the New Year, giving rise to lower average net selling prices in the
quarter than achieved in the final quarter of 2011. Furthermore, ongoing demand
weakness in the early part of the year, largely due to destocking led to the
business taking further downtime at certain operations to manage inventory
levels, albeit significantly less than in the fourth quarter of 2011. The
destocking process appears to have come to an end, with order books improving
more recently and operations back at full production. Price increases of up to
10% have been announced effective from June.
The Coatings & Consumer Packaging business continued to be impacted by weaker
volumes in certain industrial product segments, but order books are improving
and operating profit was higher than that achieved in the final quarter of 2011.
The South Africa Division`s underlying operating profit was well down on the
comparable prior year period and the final quarter of 2011. Lower pulp selling
prices severely impacted returns, although prices have trended upwards from
their lows in January 2012, which should contribute to an improved performance
in the second quarter.
Cash flow from operations remained strong with working capital levels maintained
within the Group`s targeted range (10% to 12% of turnover). Capital expenditure
was at similar levels to that incurred in each of the previous two quarters of
2011 and is expected to increase during the remainder of the year as expenditure
on the energy and debottlenecking investment projects start to ramp up.
As anticipated, first quarter performance was impacted by generally weaker
pricing and lower volumes, largely due to the continuation of the destocking
witnessed in the prior quarter. While macroeconomic uncertainties remain,
encouragingly, there are clear signs of an improvement in the trading
environment, with volumes recovering and positive pricing momentum witnessed in
most grades over the review period.
Now I would like to hand you back to our joint chairman David Williams.
ENDS
About Mondi
Mondi is an international paper and packaging Group, with production operations
across 28 countries and revenues of Euro5.7 billion in 2011. The Group`s key
operations are located in central Europe, Russia and South Africa and as at the
end of 2011, Mondi employed 23,400 people.
Mondi is fully integrated across the paper and packaging process, from the
growing of wood and the manufacture of pulp and paper (including recycled
paper), to the conversion of packaging papers into corrugated packaging,
industrial bags and coatings.
The Group is principally involved in the manufacture of packaging paper,
converted packaging products and uncoated fine paper (UFP).
Mondi has a dual listed company structure, with a primary listing on the JSE
Limited for Mondi Limited under the ticker code MND and a premium listing on the
London Stock Exchange for Mondi plc, under the ticker code MNDI. The Group has
been recognised for its sustainability through its inclusion in the FTSE4Good
Global, European and UK Index Series (since 2008) and the JSE`s Socially
Responsible Investment (SRI) Index since 2007. Mondi was also included in the
FTSE350 Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index for the second year.
3 May 2012
Sponsor: UBS South Africa (Pty) Ltd
Date: 03/05/2012 12:00:01 Produced by the JSE SENS Department.
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