President and CEO Pasi Laine in Annual Review 2022: Moving forward as a stronger Valmet

Feb 21, 2023

In 2022, we continued to move Valmet and our customers’ performance forward based on our well-proven Must-Wins and unique offering.

Valmet’s orders received increased by 10 percent to EUR 5,194 million, and our order backlog at the end of the year was EUR 4,403 million. Net sales increased by 29 percent and amounted to EUR 5,074 million. The comparable EBITA margin was 10.5 percent.

A major strategic milestone reached and offering complemented through acquisitions

In April, we reached a major strategic milestone when the flow control company Neles was merged into Valmet, and we welcomed 3,000 new colleagues to the company.

After the merger completion, Valmet today has a large stable business, and we provide our customers with a unique and competitive offering, covering process technologies, automation systems, flow control solutions and services. We are happy with the successful integration and strong start of the new Flow Control business line as part of Valmet.

In addition to the merger, we continued smaller-scale strategic acquisitions to strengthen Valmet’s offering and local presence in growth areas. In March 2022, we acquired the North American -based pulp and paper consumables provider Coldwater to strengthen our services business. In November, we entered into an agreement to acquire the process solutions business from NovaTech Automation in the USA. The acquisition was completed in early January 2023. We also strengthened our position as a metals and mining sector flow control solution provider by successfully integrating the Flowrox^TM offering into our portfolio.

During the year, we have succeeded on many fronts, moving Valmet, our work community and our customers’ performance forward.

Excellent progress based on the renewed Sustainability agenda

Sustainability is fully integrated into Valmet’s strategy and operations through the comprehensive Sustainability360° agenda. In 2022, we renewed the agenda to highlight the impact of Valmet’s sustainability work on its entire value chain and to cover all material environmental, social and governance aspects for sustainability.

We also progressed systematically in the implementation of our Climate Program – Forward to a carbon neutral future – covering our supply chain, our own operations, and the use phase of our technologies and services. During this first full year of the program, detailed roadmaps were created, and the implementation of the set targets continued. We are collaborating closely with our customers to enable carbon neutral production in their mills and plants, and we have successfully started to engage with the highest emitting suppliers in our supplier sustainability engagement program, where CO₂ emissions reduction is one of the key targets.

Furthermore, to support our customers in the green transition, we launched a new R&D and innovation program called Beyond Circularity. The program aims to further strengthen Valmet’s

R&D work to develop process technologies, automation and services to utilize renewable materials and recycled, waste and sidestreams.

In 2022, Valmet continued to receive recognition for the progress of its sustainability work in various sustainability ratings and was included for the ninth consecutive year in the Dow Jones World and Europe Sustainability Indices and received an A- leadership rating in CDP’s Climate ranking.

Good resilience and adaptation capability in a continuously changing world

During the year, we have succeeded on many fronts, moving Valmet, our work community and our customers’ performance forward. Together with our customers, we have truly made a difference.

The global turbulence due to the war in Ukraine and economic and political developments is expected to continue. Past years have shown that we at Valmet can adapt well to continuous changes and will also continue to remain resilient in the changing environment in the future.

I thank every Valmeteer for their excellent work and commitment in moving Valmet and our customers’ performance forward. I want to express my warmest thanks to our customers around the world for the trust you have shown. I am looking forward to our continued collaboration in 2023!

Pasi Laine
President and CEO