Glaston’s IR Blog February 2020

You are reading Glaston’s first IR blog. The purpose of this blog is to communicate topical and current issues at Glaston, but don’t fit under the framework of press or stock exchange releases or any other “formal” format but that we feel could be of interest to investors, analysts, media and the general public. I of course hope, that this will raise interest and develop a more active dialogue between ourselves and our stakeholders. In this blog. We will discuss the impacts of the corona virus on our business, our sustainability agenda and the on-going energy efficiency debate and at the end 

So far limited impact of Corona virus on our business 

For the past weeks or so, we have all been following the development and spreading of the corona virus first in China but now also globally. Global capital markets have plunged, and the virus has consumed almost all media space for a longer period of time. The coronavirus epidemic that began in China still impacts mostly the business environment in China but as it is spreading it is now starting to cause uncertainty for the global market outlook. When it comes to Glaston’s operations in China, less than 10% of our sales in 2019 came from China, and the share of sourcing was even lower as we communicated in our Q4 conference. We currently see the impact of the epidemic on the business from China as limited and impacting mainly the first two quarters of the year. If the epidemic continues spreading uncertainty globally, affecting our customers’ investment willingness,  it might of course affect our development on a broader basis.  

Glaston’s sustainability agenda and environmental impacts defined

During 2019 Glaston has put extra emphasis on stakeholder discussions developed a sustainability agenda with clear targets. The agenda will be implemented and executed in the years to come. You can read more about it and Glaston’s sustainability in our report which will be published in week 11. The environmental impact of businesses  currently very much under the loop of, among others, investors. For us the topic has three dimensions; our own activities, the use of our equipment by our customers, and the end-product environmental impacts. The environmental impact of our own production activities is small, and the largest environmental impacts arising from the company’s own activities come from the energy consumption of our properties and from transport. Most of the impact on the environment from our operations arises when customers use our technologies. Improving the environmental performance is at the focus of our R&D and product development. As a frontrunner of our industry, we are also actively involved in developing the glass technologies of the future, such as smart glass solutions, and our Emerging Technologies unit provides consulting and engineering services for the production of smart glass and energy glass windows as well as solar energy applications. 

Double glazing and smart glass supporting the energy efficiency of buildings 

Europe’s Green deal and the energy efficiency discussion is a hot topic also at Glaston. Globally, some 35% of the total energy costs of average commercial buildings are spent on heating, cooling and ventilation. And the energy consumption of the built sector continues to grow. The energy efficiency of the buildings is critical to the reduction of our carbon load worldwide. Green building materials, and glass in particular, have an important part to play in the reduction of energy requirements for modern commercial buildings. In fact, In Europe, more than 100 million tonnes of CO2 could be saved annually if buildings were equipped with adequate energy-efficient glazing technologies (https://glassforeurope.com/the-sector/key-features/), insulating against the cold and keeping heat out in hot and sunny conditions. The potential for reducing energy consumption is big, and by replacing windows with double or triple glazing, the energy consumption and related emissions could be significantly reduced. Glaston has a strong offering, supported by the Bystronic glass acquisition last year and we see big potential for the demand of both our insulating glass equipment as well as among others smart glass technologies, currently under development. 

Events and reporting in the spring 2020

In IR, our purpose is to be as transparent, and provide equal access to management as much possible as well as meet retail investors on a regular basis. This is also why we have started to webcast our quarterly infos (in Finnish) and provide investors the opportunity to ask questions online during the conference. You can see our Q4 webcast here https://glaston.videosync.fi/2020-02-11-tilinpaeaetoestiedote?seek=1804

Upcoming events is the retail investor visit to Tampere on 3 March, Danske bank’s small & mid-cap seminar for institutional investors in Helsinki on 10 March, our Annual General Meeting on 2 April and of course the Q1 report on 28 April. All relevant dates are found in our IR calendar (https://glaston.net/ir-calendar/#ir-calendar). As we announced in January, our organizational structure changed at the beginning of the year, and we are currently putting together comparable numbers reflecting the new set up. They will be published well in advance before the publication of our Q1 interim report. 

 

Did this blog raise any questions? Please feel free to comment, ask or challenge me 😊 

 

Best regards 

Joséphine 

Head of IR, Glaston Corporation