Welcome to Perspectives
Welcome to the first
edition of our new electronic magazine, Perspectives, which replaces our
previous printed newsletter, Fairey in Focus. In each of these quarterly
updates, we aim to bring you the latest headlines from around the Spectris
businesses. We will also focus on a specific technology or market in each
issue.
Spectris supplies precision instrumentation and controls to customers
worldwide for product and process improvement. Our strategy and drivers
for growth are outlined in the article Enhancing
productivity. As you will have read in our 2001
interim statement, sales and profits increased substantially
compared with the first half of 2000 and reflected a strong performance
in tough market conditions.
There have been a number of changes to the Board of Spectris this year.
At the AGM in May, Sir Robin Biggam stood down as Chairman of the company
and was replaced by John
Poulter, who was previously Chief Executive. At the same time,
I became Chief
Executive. James
Otter was appointed as an executive Business Group Director
in May, with responsibility for the operational control of a number of
the company's business units. In June, Andrew
Given joined the Board as a non-executive Director and became
Chairman of the Audit Committee in July, following the retirement of Ron
Williams.
Our broad market and customer balance, combined with wide geographical
coverage, is a real strength of the company. No market sector accounts
for more than 15% of sales, with no single customer accounting for more
than 1% of sales. In addition, we continue to invest steadily in new applications
and products to help our customers to reduce their costs. Some examples
of our latest technologies are discussed in
this issue. New applications for UV curing and the environmental
benefits this technology brings are explored in our
feature article.
I do hope that you enjoy reading Perspectives and I will be pleased to
receive any feedback you may have on our new format newsletter.
Hans Nilsson
Chief Executive