On 1st September, Covestro, the leading global materials manufacturer, celebrated its first anniversary of successfully demonstrating its capabilities as an independent entity. Covestro which was formerly a part of Bayer Material Science officially separated from the Bayer Group last year, and has successfully established itself in the international capital market with a big stock market flotation.

Over the past 12 months, Covestro has completed a complex transformation process. Covestro's Chief Financial Officer, Frank Lutz, said the first year for Covestro as an independent entity has been busy with the materials manufacturer clocking a strong net year-on-year income growth of 51%.

On the occasion, he stressed upon the importance of India in the APAC growth strategy of Covestro. Lutz asserted that the recent Q2 results of the company have been satisfactory and that he was optimistic of continuing the growth in the coming quarters as well. "The continued dynamic core volume growth stood at 7.7% year-on-year. EBIDTA has also significantly improved by over 18% and all debts taken from the parent company (Bayer) have been repaid in full," he said.

(Continued on the next page)