Coatings World - March 2014

Coatings World: How did the market for
paints and coatings fare overall in 2013?

Ton Büchner: All in all, 2013 was a year of two halves for AkzoNobel’s businesses. At the early start of 2013 we indicated that trading conditions would continue to be challenging for the year and that proved to be the case, particularly in the first six months. In the second half volumes picked up as we started to see signs of stabilization, but currencies became a challenge. In Decorative Paints, full-year volumes were up three percent while our Performance Coatings business saw flat volumes.

Charles Shaver: The overall market continues to rebound from the economic downturn, albeit at different rates of improvement in different segments and regions. One of the strengths of our customer base is its diversity, both in terms of products and geographies. We touch so many industrial segments, from automotive OEM and refinish and virtually every type of commercial transportation vehicle to oil and gas and architectural applications, for example. Also, we do business in more than 130 countries. That sort of diversity helped to offset weaknesses in any one customer segment or country, and will put us in a good position looking ahead as well.

CW: Did your company see its revenue
develop in 2013?

Büchner: For AkzoNobel as a whole, 2013 annual revenue
totaled € 14. 6 billion ($20 billion), down five percent in Euro
on 2012 as a consequence of adverse currency effects and di-
vestments. In our Decorative Paints business these effects led
to a three percent decline in revenues; the two percent impact
at Performance Coatings was
solely down to currencies. In
response to the uncertain and
turbulent economic environ-
ment we accelerated our com-
pany-wide improvement actions
and brought our performance
improvement program to a suc-
cessful conclusion a year ahead
of schedule and above target,
which delivered total savings of
around $750 million.

Shaver: Last year was a strong year for Axalta. As a privately held company we don’t report financial data. But I can tell you both our revenues and earnings grew last year. We were pleased with our ability to gain new business in our automotive OEM and refinish businesses where we made key inroads into the MSO segment in the U.S., for example, winning business with major players like Service King. Our refinish successes leveraged the strength of our flagship refinish brands: Spies Hecker, Standox and Cromax. But we listen to local customers

Coatings World has introduced a new yearly feature, the CEO Forum. The purpose of this feature is to give CEOs of major coatings and paint companies a platform to address the most important issues impacting our industry. This inaugural forum features insights from Ton Büchner, CEO and chairman of the board of management and the executive committee of AkzoNobel and Charles W. Shaver, chairman and CEO of Axalta Coating Systems.