Ms. Kumlien: Pergo was once a part of Perstorp, which is a chemical group based in Sweden. They were listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange at one point, but were bought out by risk capitalists two years ago; basically, at the same time as we were listed. Their portfolio consisted of chemical and laminate products. At the end of the 1970’s, however, their market share for the laminate products began to decline as the laminate market started to lose out to other materials. So, as a result, they began looking for new applications for the use of laminate. As it happened, somebody came up with the idea of using the laminate for floors. And it really developed from there. It took a couple of years to fully develop, but by the beginning of the eighties we were selling laminate flooring. Throughout the 80s the business expanded in Europe, and a particular milestone was in 1989 when the trademark Pergo was launched; in the beginning the floor was marketed in a name that basically translated into “Perstorp renovation floor”. Another milestone was in 1994 when Pergo launched the products in the US and the expansion progressed very satisfactorily over there also. In 1996, for example, we opened up a factory in North Carolina, expanding it in 1998. In 2000, we acquired 25 percent of a direct laminate flooring producer in Germany called Witex and the reason behind that was to get access to products at a lower product cost. At the same time also we were focusing heavily on product development and design because we had actually lost some of our competitive edge by the close of the 1990s. To further that focus, we inaugurated a new development center that year. Then, as I mentioned, Pergo was then [spun] out to shareholders and listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in June 2001. In 2002, we made a new rights issue because we had financial difficulties. Since July last year we have been listed on the [Attract] 40 List on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, which is a list that promotes companies that could be of interest to amongst others markets outside of Sweden. And then, to bring you up to date, in January we finally signed a binding agreement whereby Pergo is to acquire the rest of the shares in Witex. That is obviously subject, amongst others, to some antitrust issues and also approval of a directed share issue from the annual general meeting of the shareholders, since Pergo is mainly paying for the Witex-shares with own shares.
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