Annual Report 2007

In 2007, the tesa Group was once again able to match the positive development of the previous year. Sales rose by 6.4%, thus growing significantly faster than the market, and at 10.3%, the EBIT sales margin achieved a two-digit figure for the first time. We can therefore look back on a successful business year for the seventh consecutive time.

The facts prove that tesa has developed as an enduring, competitive, innovative and profitable enterprise. What is particularly encouraging is that based on this positive development, we were able to develop further technology components during 2007, as well as increase the number of our employees and create more than 130 new jobs.

2007 was another successful business year for the tesa Group

In particular, we invested in areas that will ensure corporate success in the long term: our research and development in Hamburg and Asia, as well as the expansion of sales structures in the growth regions of Eastern Europe and China. It is and remains our goal to continue to enhance our innovation performance, tap into new areas of application and expand our global network, while retaining our distinctively high level of product and service quality. In addition, we proceeded with our work on the development and implementation of new solvent-free production technologies.

We regard it as an important part of our responsibility as entrepreneurs to play an active part in shaping the course of humane globalization, both now and in the future. We have therefore incorporated a clear commitment to social responsibility in our strategy and have underscored this with our membership in the UN Global Compact Initiative for ethical economic actions. For the first time, in 2008, a sustainability report published on the Internet provided information with respect to how we fulfill this commitment and what contributions we make to ensuring a livable environment, in many parts of the world. Another of our important corporate tasks is the ongoing qualification and training of our employees, with the objective of meeting the increasing requirements of our own environment and of new technologies.

We would like to thank all our employees around the world for their major joint contribution to the success of tesa. We would also like to express our thanks to our customers, business partners, and our shareholder Beiersdorf for their trusting cooperation.