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The company answers to its shareholders for its financial performance:
without their equity it could not exist. However, we recognise broader
responsibilities, and we aim to report on these with the same degree
of analysis as we do for our financial capital. This year, in the
section headed 'Investing in global
talent', we detail how we value our human capital, make progress
on health and safety, and meet our environmental obligations. We respect
the legitimate interest of customers, suppliers, employees and our
local communities in these topics.
The merger has doubled the number of people working for Smiths, but
there have been no significant cultural issues from bringing the two
companies together. We have worked hard to create an inclusive environment,
stepping up our internal communications by introducing a company-wide
electronic newsflow system. This lets employees know what is happening
more quickly, and supplements well-established methods such as open-forum
discussions with management. The success of Smiths is entirely the
result of the enthusiasm and commitment of our people, and I would
like to express here my appreciation of their support.
We took the opportunity to change the company's name slightly, taking
the view that 'Industries' implies factories rather than technologies.
It was done with minimal expense, and the new identity and presentational
style can be seen throughout this document. I trust you will approve.
The Board was carefully rebalanced following the merger, to combine
expertise from both TI and Smiths. There were two executive additions
from TI: John Langston joined to run Sealing Solutions, where his
prior knowledge will greatly benefit the essential restructuring;
David Lillycrop joined as General Counsel, and is also Company Secretary.
Three former TI non-executives also came across, bringing valuable
industry, government and city experience: Sir Colin Chandler, Sir
Nigel Broomfield and John Hignett. Colin is my deputy and Chairman
of the Audit Committee, and I chair the Nominations and Remuneration
Committee myself.
There are two strong features of this Board that I want to point
out. First, we six non-executives provide real balance and external
influence on Board deliberations, which
are always lively and constructive. Secondly, our executive directors
comprise the team with hands-on responsibility for the entire business.
This gives us great insight into how Smiths is performing, together
with a good grasp on future strategy.
The Chief Executive outlines our view of the prospects for the company
at the conclusion of his Review overleaf. As we prepared this Report
and Accounts, our uncertainty about which way the world's economies
would go was compounded by the dreadful terrorist attacks in the
US, which touched all of us. Even so, it should be clear to readers
of this Report that Smiths has a great number of actions under way
to improve our relative performance, and that shareholders will
quickly see the benefit of this.
Keith Orrell-Jones
Chairman
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