Coatings World - July 2011

2011Industry State of the

Review

Executives reflect on the past year in coatings and look ahead to what the future might bring.

Charles Bunch, chairman and CEO, PPG
Industries

The strategic actions that PPG has undertaken over the past decade have served to transform our company from a diversified, North American-centric manufacturer to a global coatings leader. As a result, sales from our combined coatings businesses in 2010 accounted for 74 percent of the company. In addition, we significantly expanded our presence in emerging regions last year by 20 percent. These regions now account for about 27 percent of PPG, and the U.S. and Canada now represent less than 50 percent of our sales versus 75 percent ten years ago.

As we begin 2011, we expect the economic recovery to strengthen and broaden in most end-use markets and regions. However, construction in the developed regions and in Eastern Europe was depressed throughout 2010 and remains

Charles Bunch

challenging. We also experienced higher coatings raw material costs in 2010, particularly in the second half of the year. As a result, we raised our selling prices over the course of 2010 in all of our businesses, and we are in the process of implementing further pricing initiatives to offset this persistent inflation. So, our challenges are not behind us. Yet, based on the way we’ve managed through adversity in the recent past, I believe we’ll be able to overcome these obstacles.

Raimar Jahn, president, BASF Group’s Coatings
Division

We can be very satisfied with the course of the business year. We were able to improve significantly compared to the previous year with respect to our sales and our results, despite the increased cost of raw materials. We’re picking up our results from where we left off in 2007 – in other words, pre-crisis. Overall, all business units and all regions contributed to the positive results.

On the one hand, the markets have developed positively for us. Not only the improved market environment of the global automotive industry, but all work areas contribute to increase in sales.