Three levers will continue to determine WACKER’s business strategy over the next two years: expansion into emerging markets and regions, innovations, and the substitution of existing products with WACKER products. The focal regions for further growth remain Brazil, China, India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Of these, China offers the greatest potential. We also see opportunities for sales growth in the USA, an established market.

In recent years, WACKER has invested substantial capital in expanding its global production capacities – especially major facilities for upstream products – in order to secure further growth and increase its worldwide presence. With the exception of the Tennessee production site, these investments have been completed. In the next five years, the strategic focus will be on improving profitability and generating a positive net cash flow. On the products side, we are concentrating on increasing the share of high-end products within the overall mix.

WACKER will drive forward its international expansion over the next two years. We will be transferring even greater operational responsibility to the regions. We intend to tailor our products even better to local requirements. We are expanding our network of technical competence centers and WACKER ACADEMY sites in a targeted manner.

In 2014, we will carry on with our intensive efforts to improve our profitability. We have drawn up a series of measures for that purpose. The principal aspects are the following:

Resource-Management Measures

The target capital structure for 2014 is thus 60 percent equity and 40 percent borrowed capital.