OPTIMISM IN THE SHADOW OF COVID-19 The past year was by no means what we had imagined. Covid-19 has long shadows all over the world, and thereby also over our business. Thanks to rapid adjustment, our employees' great flexibility and various relief packages, we managed to avoid a financial deficit. Unfortunately, however, we had to bid farewell to many talented employees. Nonetheless, our future outlook is optimistic. We now have a sharper organisational profile than before the crisis, and we have put sustainability even higher on our agenda. In the autumn of 2020, the largest and most important decision in our recent history was presented by the Board of Directors of the ege Group. After a number of years of successfully ope- rating four individual carpet brands, the time had come to merge the best aspects of each brand into one strong carpet brand. On 1 May 2021, the ege Group transitioned from a multi-brand to a single-brand organisation: Ege Carpets. The decision was made before Covid-19 hit the world. Since then, the pandemic has made it clear that this was the right decision. To ensure the best possible starting point for the new course, Rune Stephansen took over as new CEO 14 June 2021. He must with his vast ex- perience in organisational development run the business going forward. The new, simpler organisational structure represents a signifi- cant strengthening of our business. All of our sales teams can rely on the same palette of carpets from across the Group, for the benefit of customers all over the world, who can now find everything they need in the same place. This has also simplified our administrative functions significantly, which is necessary as a consequence of Covid-19 and the economic crisis. The aim of the corporate merger is to continue the best aspects of each brand in the new structure. We are pleased that the many dedicated employees from each brand are now gathered under the joint management of the new Ege Carpets. This gives us faith in the future as one of the market's strongest carpet manufacturers. Another key strength of the new structure is the very ambitious Sustainability Strategy adopted by Ege Carpets in 2019, which is now being rolled out at full speed throughout the Group. All of the 2030 goals will apply to all production units – making an even greater contribution to achieving the Sustainable Develop- ment Goals and creating a sustainable future. We have already commenced the task of Cradle to Cradle certification of all car- pets throughout the Group, so that this goal now applies to all production units, instead of only two production units as before. We now face the enormous task of ensuring that all production units contribute to the Sustainability Strategy after a turbulent year in which much of the workforce was furloughed. This does not mean that we have cut back our ambitions, but simply that we have been delayed by the prevailing circumstances. This is clearly apparent from this year's sustainability report. The report for 2020/2021 should therefore be viewed as a transi- tional status report on the current state of play, in our unpredict- able world, where we cannot know for sure what the next quarter will bring. This is a completely new situation for us, but to the best of our ability we are embracing the current reality to ensure that, going forward, our business will continue to contribute to a sustainable future, one carpet at a time. Herning, 2 July 2021 Rune Stephansen CEO 5
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