nmcL VE

Future

T h e N M C m a g a z i n e f o r e m p l o y e e s a n d b u s i n e s s p a r t n e r s

Old but not stuck in the past

p. 16-17

Tradition and modernity – in perfect harmony

p. 12-14

Tomorrow in sight p. 3-5

N o . 7 4 – 0 6 / 2 0 1 2

Dear Reader,

When I think about the future, personally it is my two children that first come to mind and I hope that they will be happy in both their personal and professional lives. My eldest daughter is currently sitting her final secondary school examinations and, over the past few months, has given much thought to which career path she would like to follow. Like many young people she has not found it easy. After some hesitation she has now made her decision and is working with great self-assurance, ambition and vigour to get a college place abroad and to prepare herself as much as possible for her future working life. As a father I hope to accompany my children on their path and in their development and to always have time for them when they need me.

As far as business is concerned, I would like to make NMC fit for the future and prepare for the next period of growth. In the past ten years we have doubled our turnover and employee numbers. The market positions that we have acquired must be safeguarded and if possible expanded further. Since the economic situation in Europe is not suddenly going to change, we can only expect a moderate development on our primary markets for our well-established products. This is why in recent years we have increasingly specialized in developing more customer-specific products and solutions for new applications.

Moreover, we are extending our business geographically and, through external growth, are purposefully getting closer to our customers. I am convinced that as a company and a team, we can only continue to work and expand successfully in the future if we can provide our customers with attractive and competitive offers from the point of view of quality, service and cost. Anything that does not help to do this must be called into question. Therefore, mixed task groups are now gradually checking individual work processes and simplifying them so that we can work in a more goal-oriented and efficient way.

I cannot predict the future and would not want to, but my approach is clear – we are making every effort to ensure that in ten years time we will still be an attractive employer and be just as reliable as a first-rate partner for our customers and suppliers. We are gearing up to face the challenges of the future. I see self-analysis, self-improvement and self-development as a responsibility for us all, for me as the head of a company and as a father, but also for each individual employee of NMC.

Yours,

Hubert Bosten, CEO

E D I T O R I A L

Being fit to compete in the here and now is more than ever a high priority for companies. The time horizon has extended accordingly. Customers are putting increasing emphasis on companies operating on a sustainable basis. In an era when energy and raw materials are becoming increasingly expensive, it is not only a question of responsibility towards future generations, but also a question of commercial success. This is why NMC is looking for opportunities to conserve resources throughoutthe company. Each individual business division, each site and each production step is under close scrutiny.

The main focus is on heat and electricity. NMC subsidiaries throughout Europe have started initiatives to use energy more efficiently. For example, because the winters are so cold in northern Europe, here there is considerable potential for saving heat. In Finland all the sites have recently modernized their heating systems. Insulation has also been looked into in detail – new roller shutters with a special electronic control system are helping to minimize drafts in the buildings of NMC Cellfoam in Laitila. Other Finnish sites have switched over from oil to the more efficient gas-fired furnace. NMC Cellfoam AB in Sweden has now opted entirely for district heating. Furthermore, NMC Sverige AB, which is also based in Sweden, uses the waste heat from production to heat the building.

Electricity consumption has also been dramatically reduced. For example, at the Swedish branch, a new energy management system optimizes the power balance – and thus avoids peak consumption periods. A growing number of NMC branches are replacing conventional electricity with renewable energies, such as hydraulic power. NMC Schäfer in Germany is already contributing to tomorrow's power supply with its own photovoltaic cells on the roofs of the production halls.

Tomorrow in sight

4- 5

Conserving resources is also a matter of using raw materials sparingly. Therefore, waste prevention and recycling are on the agenda Europe-wide, whether with regard to packaging material or with regard to production. For example, the plants in Poland, Great Britain and Belgium use almost 100 percent of polyethylene waste to make granulate, which can then be recycled. NMC in Belgium has set itself a further challenge. With a new type of cooling water circuit, the company not only reduces the surfactant content of wastewater, but also its own fresh water consumption. This protects the environment and is advantageous to the company. What is more, the facility will have paid for itself within only five years. This just goes to show that "the future" is not a distant horizon. At NMC the journey continues.

For a warm future

Summer is the time when people love to sit outdoors until midnight and when the mild weather evokes memories of their last vacation in southern climes. Winter seems to be forgotten. However, foresighted homeowners are now thinking about the next period of cold weather. As heating costs are rising further, better heat insulation for the home can pay off. This topic affects millions of households across Europe. In France alone every other building is in need of energy-saving renovation. The interest in saving energy is growing. Therefore, according to the "Mur Manteau" association, around 150 million square meters of facades of both old and new buildings were insulated in Europe in 2011, a figure that corresponds to around one million detached houses.

It is not just the growing cost of heating that is mobilizing home-owners, but also government policy. In Germany for example, the new energy saving regulations (EnEV) have been in force since 2009. If an owner modernizes more than ten percent of his house, it will then consume around a third less of primary energy than before. The building envelope should be around 15 percent better insulated. Older houses have a lot of energy weak points – a further opportunity for NMC. DOMOSTYL® profiles are one of the most recent innovations of our insulation specialists. They are the only product on the market to reliably insulate window ledges, a problem area of facades that has been neglected up until now. DOMOSTYL® profiles offer plenty of freedom of design. Special profiles made of expanded polystyrene (EPS) can be painted in any color you wish. As of summer 2012 NMC wants to close another gap in the cladding of houses by expanding the range to include

additional insulation elements for window reveals. A lot can also be done to improve energy efficiency inside a building. For example, if you replace your floors and clad the heating pipes underneath them with ExzENTROFLEx® COMPACT insulation – you get optimum footfall sound insulation at the same time. Pipe insulation reduces heat loss under the floors by up to 80 percent. An increasing number of owners also improve their energy efficiency by using solar heat. NMC INSuL-TuBE® SOLAR pipes can be attached directly to the heating circuit. They are lagged ex-works with high temperature resistant rubber (EPDM) and therefore do not need to be insulated before installation.

To round off the list, the indoor temperature also needs to be right. Versatile NOMA®room insulation provides solutions to meet every requirement. The selection ranges from insulating wallpaper, to heat/cold stop plates for separating hot and cold areas, to sound absorbing foam sheets and rolls, in order to create a personalized all-round sense of well-being.

In addition to insulation performance, owners also take into account the quality and safety features of insulation products. They need to absorb sound, stay dimensionally stable in the long term and present no health risks. NMC products comply with the latest standards. Since April the company has been compliant with the CE guidelines of the Eu, which will replace national quality criteria in August. With such reliable insulation, homeowners can recapture the feeling of summer – for warmth brings enduring well-being.

8 - 9

Year upon year companies send an increasing amount of goods around the globe. Valuable and fragile goods need to be protected and therefore light, space-saving padding, profiles and packing materials are more in demand than ever. However, practical criteria are not the only determining factors. As protecting the environment becomes more important for consumers, companies and customers of NMC also want to ensure that their products are packaged in a way that conserves resources.

With regard to sustainability, NMC has been one of the pioneers of the industry, having stopped using CFCs in production 20 years ago. Recycling is another major issue – a large part of NMC's product range is 100 percent recyclable. Now the company is introducing its latest "green" innovation: NATuREFOAMTM, a biofoam mostly made from renewable raw materials.

Time for renewal

The material is the first biofoam in Europe and has been certified with a star for its sustainable properties by the international Vinçotte Institute. NMC premiered the new product in autumn 2011 at the Fakuma trade fair in Friedrichshafen, where NATuREFOAMTM was met with a great deal of interest by visitors. NMC is now preparing to launch the product on the market.

The first product line to be made of the material will be launched this year: NOMAPACK® Green packing profiles, which have very similar properties to the approved polyethylene products. Soon the new biofoam could become the packaging of choice in this emerging industry.

10 - 11

The gift of a future

BE Twelve concerts in eleven different churches and abbeys, assembling, dismantling and transporting the stage design almost every day, the amount of space available always changing – a challenge even for seasoned stage designers. Nevertheless, Marc Guillaume has taken on this challenge for the "Action Père Damien" organization. The Father Damien foundation is a highly respected aid agency based in Belgium, which provides support to leprosy and tuberculosis sufferers worldwide. At the end of last year it organized a series of concerts, in which a total of 300 gospel singers performed. "The stage design needed to fit in with the historical Christian setting, and yet be modern at the same time", explains Guillaume. "Therefore we decided to construct large frames and project images onto them, the effect of which would be reinforced by the power of the music". The purpose of the series of concerts was to collect donations for the foundation's work so the images were used to show this work during the concerts.

More than 1,500 employees currently work for the Father Damien foundation and are involved in fighting tuberculosis and leprosy in 15 countries, including the Congo, India, Bangladesh and China. In order to visually enhance the frames for the photo installation, Marc Guillaume asked NMC to be a sponsor. "It quickly became clear thatARSTYL®decorative moldings would fit in with the ambience of the churches and abbeys. Furthermore, they are sturdy and easy to assemble, which is also an important factor in stage building."

NMC spontaneously pledged its support and provided the required quantity of decorative profiles for the series of concerts. ARSTYL® z40, z41and z42 ornamental plaster moldings stood in the center of the installation. "The delicate flowers, leaves and tendrils are arranged almost symmetrically, and the entire molding is characterized by an interplay of steps, convex arches and ledges.

As a result the frames looked simply amazing", says Marc Guillaume enthusiastically. He is now looking forward to being able to use them again, because the "Action Père Damien" organization is arranging another tour in Belgium from the middle of November. www.actiondamien.be

Tradition and modernity – in perfect harmony

On arrival the first thing most guests do is catch their breath. They have booked a room in a villa, but with its three-storey tower, balconies with pillar balustrades, romantic little dormer windows and classical style windows, Villa Reynaert looks almost like a 19th century castle. "Hardly anyone realizes that the villa was only built in the 1960s and that we renovated it to look like this", says its owner Peggy Thaens, as she shows us around the house. It took two and a half years to revamp the inside and outside, before Villa Reynaert was reopened as a 4-star Bed & Breakfast. "We chose a style that guests of all ages and from all walks of life would feel at ease with. From business people to hikers and cyclists to guests who want to go shopping in Maasmechelen Village. All the feedback we get now is positive", Peggy and her partner Paul tell us. This comes as no surprise, because when you set foot in Villa Reynaert you get even more of an impression of being in a castle. Chandeliers, paneled doors and ceiling decorations adorn the six guest rooms, all the communal rooms and even the kitchen.

The owners have revived the charm of past times through their clever choice of materials in a very sensitive way. Around 2,000 meters of WALLSTYL®decorative moldings and skirting boards have been used inside the house to create the perfect romantic atmosphere. A nostalgic look with modern building materials. Paul Jetten tells us that the use of NMC decorative moldings was an easy decision to make. "They can be applied very easily and resemble their architectural archetypes made of plaster down to the smallest detail. There is an enormous product range, so we were able to obtain a suitable design for all the areas from a single source. And of course, the good value for money for this sort of volume was also a very important factor."A worthwhile investment, as can be seen from the guests" reactions. After staying at Villa Reynaert they enthuse about the peace and quiet and relaxing atmosphere of the house, about the luxury and comfort and about the unforgettable experience of feeling so at home.

A foretaste of Villa Reynaert

Peggy Thaens is not only the perfect host, but also an outstanding cook and has even won the "Top Chef" television show in the Netherlands. You can take a bit of luxury home with you by cooking one of her favorite recipes: home-pickled salmon with Maasland herbs.

Preparation:

Remove any remaining bones from the salmon using tweezers. Rub the salmon with the salt, herbs and sugar. Wrap up the fish in plastic wrap, press down on it hard and leave it in the refrigerator for one day.

Mix the sour cream with the horseradish, fill a piping bag with it and put it in the refrigerator. Cut the cucumber into long thin strips using a peeler. Make a vinaigrette from the olive oil, aromatic vinegar, pepper and salt and mix with the cucumber strips. Cut the Granny Smith apple into thin strips.

Cut the salmon into ½ cm-thick slices. Serve with the cucumber and apple strips and garnish with the horseradish sauce.

Tip: The Maasland herbs can be replaced by dill.

Enjoy your meal!

14- 15

Peggy Thaens

Ingredients: 500 g salmon fillets with skin 2 tbsp. horseradish 100 cl sour cream 2 tbsp. cane sugar 2 tbsp. Maasland herbs 2 tbsp. coarse sea salt 1 Granny Smith apple 1 cucumber 3 tbsp. olive oil 1 tbsp. aromatic vinegar Pepper Salt

An open-air living room amongst the trees and shrubs, a place to gather for Sunday breakfast or games nights with friends. For many homeowners, a spacious terrace makes their dream garden just perfect. When the yearning to sit in the sun begins to grow in the first few days of spring, terrace builders start to get really busy. "Many customers just cannot get it fast enough", says Tom Aerts, a professional garden designer from Liers in Flanders. "As a craftsman I therefore recommend materials that are both visually pleasing and very practical. The easier it is to assemble, the more satisfied the customer." So that the terrace looks just as inviting tens years on as it does at the first barbecue, the professional terrace builder urges his customers to choose an alternative to teak, larch and Douglas fir – NOMAWOOD® synthetic floorboards from NMC. The building components look identical to real wood but also have another irrefutable advantage – they have a prefabricated punch hole and can therefore be laid much quicker and more accurately than before.

It was professional terrace builders such as Tom Aerts who initiated the innovation. "Measuring out the supporting laths to the millimeter and boring holes for the assembly can be very time-consuming", he says about the problem he used to have. This is why NMC has developed more fittings for the NOMAWOOD® range. Now measuring out is no longer required due to the pre-punched lower beams. Special connecting pieces are the second innovation. They make it possible for two floorboards fitted in a row lengthwise to be laid with closed joints. In the opinion of Tom Aerts, this connecting system creates a win-win situation: "We craftsmen save time and our customers save money." And because there are virtually no maintenance requirements, homeowners can enjoy their outdoor seating area to the full for many years to come. Due to the long lifespan of the boards, NOMAWOOD® terrace owners can look forward to sunny prospects for considerably longer.

Intelligently prefabricated

Old but not stuck in the past

It is a gem of an old building. Twenty-five rooms on five floors, in a Wilhelminian style with round-arched windows and sky-high ceilings. The owners love the charm of their apartment house and are convinced that old buildings have a future on the housing market – provided that the energy standard is high enough. Therefore, the owners are investing in a new heating and hot water system. Taking a look around the building, heating installer Werner Fried remarks that this will be quite a tough job. "Here we have some very old night-storage heaters, which we will replace with a central gas heating system. This means that new pipes will need to be laid through the entire house."

Tasks such as this are familiar territory for Werner Fried. The heating specialist has been bringing houses into compliance for almost four decades. As far as he can recall, one product has played a particular role in his work – CLIMAFLEx® pipe insulation. This year NMC is celebrating its 30th anniversary.

CLIMAFLEx® insulating materials ensure that as little heat as possible is lost on the journey from the central-heating boiler to the living room. With its outstanding physical properties, the pipe insulation was a pioneering product right from the start. In 1982 the polyethylene foam products were exhibited at the world fair in Knoxville, uSA, in a model energy-saving house. Since then NMC CLIMAFLEx® has constantly advanced and the range has been extended. For example, since the 1990s there have been sheet goods and rolled goods to insulate underfloor heating and large receptacles such as heat storage tanks. The developers have also constantly improved the core technical values such as insulation performance and fire safety.

"CLIMAFLEx®is still one of the best and most economical pipe insulation options", says Werner Fried. The products meet the strictest standards – including those of the current energy saving regulations. Pipe insulation alone reduces the CO2 output of an average European household by a good five percent. Heating installation specialist Werner Fried also recommended the latest innovation in the range to his clients – the CLIMAFLEx® SYSTEM. "It involves insulation caps and valves for all common heating installations. These places are otherwise often neglected, but should also be insulated as well as possible", he explains.

Even if the modifications temporarily turn the art nouveau house upside down, it will be worth it for the owners in the long term. Not only because the energy saving regulations stipulate that old night-storage heaters must be replaced by 2020 but also because in future the tenants will no longer have to watch out for additional costs. The value of the property will be maintained. And with regard to the pipes, the owners will have durable, flawless insulation and peace of mind.

18 - 19

Tamás Nagy

Who is Who?

True to the motto "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today", Tamás Nagy has devoted himself to the Eastern European business unit of NMC for 18 years. In 1994 Nagy joined NMC-Kenmore GmbH in Lorsch. At first he mainly dealt with introducing insulation products onto the Hungarian market. But as the Eastern European division of NMC expanded, so did his range of duties. Now Nagy is also sales manager of the decoration product range in Hungary, his home country, and throughout Southeastern Europe. The 59-year-old's goal for the future is to maintain and develop his good personal and professional relationship with customers and colleagues.

Originally trained as an automotive electrician, Nagy draws his strength from his family, but is also inspired by the peace and quiet of nature. Long walks and fishing trips give him time to relax and reflect on his personal and professional plans.

> What kind of music do you like?When on the move, I like to listen to classical music. Vivaldi and Brahms are my favorite composers. At home I like to relax to jazz or Csárdás, Hungarian folk music.

> Is there a book on your nightstand at the moment?You probably will not believe it but on my nightstand there is a Croatian-Hungarian dictionary. It interests me to find words that are used in both languages – a consequence of our shared history.

> What did you last see at the movies?The last time I went to the movies I saw the French movie "The Intouchables". The human solidarity and sense of humor of the two protagonists deeply moved me.

HU

> What makes you laugh?A good comedy makes me laugh, but also mistakes that I have made in the past.

> Do you do any sports?I cannot really call it a sport, but for the past 20 years I have been going to a Turkish thermal bath every Sunday morning. The quiet atmosphere, the cold healing water and the sauna are very relaxing.

> If you had three wishes what would you wish for?I would like to come up with feasible ideas and have the energy to put them into practice. I would also wish for more flexibility and of course good health.

> What would you like to be doing in ten years time?As far as I can answer that now, I would like to pursue my work further and, at the same time, be of more help to my family.

> Your hopes for NMC?I wish NMC further success for the future, good, loyal customers and partners and a leading place on the world market.

> Who would you like to have known personally?I would like to have known Winston Churchill. I appreciate his sense of humor and his outlook on life.

20 - 21

When a company grows it gets increasingly complex. Nevertheless, customers expect products and services to have the same high quality. NMC is getting fit for the future – with the DRIVE3 change program. CEO Hubert Bosten is convinced that "well structured and simpler processes bring many advantages". In an interview with nmc-LIVE, the head of the company explains what it is all about.

> nmc-LIVE: Hubert Bosten, companies are always pleased about growth. In what way is it also a challenge for NMC?

> Hubert Bosten: Anyone who wants to progress needs to have a view of the whole. In line with our expansion we have opened up new fields of application for our technologies and developed many new innovative and ever more technically sophisticated products. Therefore, the number of product items and the general complexity have greatly increased and our work processes have become more complicated. As a company we must ensure that, under these conditions, we continue to operate at a profit in the future and that the employees can still identify with their work. For this reason NMC is putting its targets, results and processes to the test. DRIVE3 should

achieve more than just optimizing key figures. It will safeguard our future and, at the same time, ensure an employee-friendly environment. Our business model will become clearer and more comprehensible for all parties involved. I am convinced that if internal and decision-making processes are understandable for each individual employee, it will motivate employees in the long run. Incidentally, growing complexity has become a challenge for many companies. And every now and then one should go through one's closet and reorganize things.

> nmc-LIVE: Which company departments are the focal point?

> Hubert Bosten: The focus is on NMC SA, our main manufacturing plant, because this is where the variety of articles and technologies is the greatest. DRIVE3 applies to sales, production and management, but in principle it affects everyone who works here. It is very important to me personally that we shape change together. All employees are called on to nominate operational fields and make suggestions on how we can better structure, simplify and optimize our processes.

"Anyone who wants to progress needs to have a view of the whole"

> nmc-LIVE: Are there already some initial results?

> Hubert Bosten: Yes, in several areas. I want to give just a few examples. For instance, by using new operation methods, the employees of the polyurethane department have managed to halve production cycle time and reduce minimum lot sizes. In addition, our product managers have carefully examined the portfolio and established that not all products comply with the required quantities and margins. Our sales reps will now check these findings and discuss them with our customers. We also want to use our capacities more effectively in the warehouse. Our Funnoodle product occupies a sizeable area so employees from production, manufacture and planning have designed a new production process to more precisely coordinate extrusion and manufacture of the product. In this way we can reduce the quantities that need to be stored in the warehouse but can still react at short notice if there is a fluctuation in demand.

> nmc-LIVE: When will DRIVE3 be completed?

> Hubert Bosten: We are checking one operating process after another and implementing the improvements in each area as quickly as possible. We want to complete the initial analyses and plans in the summer and have them incorporated into the configuration of the new SAP system. However, since we wish to restructure quite a large number of work processes and this takes time, this is not a project with a start and end date, but rather a change process, which will accompany us over the next few years. By means of new processes and discipline we want to ensure that our closet stays tidy ready to face the future.

22 - 23

Several hundred people have already taken part in the academy's events and other competitions throughout Poland. So far the largest event for the stucco academy was the Łódź Design Festival 2011. It was based on the theme of "Stucco through the ages" and offered workshops for architects entitled "How does stucco keep pace with change?" NMC presented its latest products, the ARSTYL® and WALLSTYL® ranges and emphasized the endless options for their application in the most diverse styles.

Recently, it has been possible to promote the latest trends and developments beyond the usual borders using social networking sites. The stucco academy has a fan page on Facebook, its own YouTube channel and profiles on professional sites in order to attract an ever increasing number of decorative molding enthusiasts.

A modern tradition

When used correctly, decorative moldings and skirting boards make ceilings and walls look unbelievably attractive. Therefore, young architects and interior designers are also using them with modern interior styles. Although in the 70s and 80s stucco was partly plastered, it has undergone a further renaissance in recent years. Reason enough for interior designers and architects, but also visual arts students and all enthusiasts of historical ceiling decorations and modern design to bring the topic into the contemporary consciousness. The Polish stucco academy (Akademia SztuKaterii), founded in 2009, has risen to this challenge. Its creative director is the company Aniro, which has been marketing NMC decorative moldings in Poland for more than 15 years. "Our aim is to bring together people who are passionate about experimenting with design, space and ceiling decoration, who have creative minds and new surprising ideas", is how Anna Rejniak, CEO of Aniro, explains her company's goal. At the same time, the academy will build relationships with potential customers and come up with interesting solutions for interior design using NMC decorative moldings. Thematic training courses, workshops and competitions will also provide inspiration for new forms of interior design.

PL

f.l.t.r. Emilia Kołowacik, Łódź Design Festival Business Development Director – Anna Rejniak, CEO of Aniro

Central theme of the next nmc-LIVE: Beauty

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