Wrapping up year 2016

If you ask an investor to summarize the year 2016 in one word, you will most likely not receive the word ‘boring’. Instead you might receive words like ‘different’ and ‘volatile’ or just plain and simple ‘election’. Though it might feel like every year is ‘different’ and ‘volatile’, 2016 has, for sure, been a bit exceptional with elections and referendums, ranging from the Brexit vote to the US presidential election and the Italian Constitutional Referendum. As politics has clearly had an impact on investors and the markets in 2016, also investor relations teams around the world have gotten to feel the same effects. Somewhat unsurprisingly, a lot of investors have been asking about the effects of Trump’s policies, or whether Brexit is positive or negative for Valmet. At this stage it is difficult to estimate the effects, as the policies are somewhat unclear and the timing of the Brexit still open.

So far in 2016, Valmet has hosted one Capital Markets Day, organized two site visits, been on 28 roadshows and met with approximately 380 investors. The main themes of the meetings have naturally been the development and outlook of our different businesses, but especially the new financial targets – and how to reach them – have been a key topic in the second half of the year as the new financial targets were announced in June 2016. One of the themes of the Capital Markets Day was to provide information on how to reach the new financial targets, so don’t forget to watch a replay of the webcast or browse through the presentation material or other information on Valmet’s investor pages.

Also, investors have throughout the year been very interested in the Automation business, which was acquired in 2015. This business complements Valmet’s offering and we are now a technology and service company with full automation offering. The integration of Automation has been successful and the acquisition has been received very well by both personnel and customers. Additionally, Valmet made a few changes to its short-term market outlook when the Q3/2016 results were announced and the changes have naturally been of interest to investors. Valmet upgraded the short-term market outlook in Energy, and Tissue from satisfactory to good and downgraded the outlook in Paper from good to satisfactory, while the outlook in Services, Automation, and Pulp remained satisfactory. Valmet’s short-term market outlook is updated quarterly.

In 2017, Valmet’s IR aims to continue with the high level of activity, with site visits, videos, blogs and more. On the behalf of Valmet’s IR team, I wish you Happy Holidays and a successful New Year 2017!