Annual Report 2011

INTRODUCTION FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Dear Shareholders andBusiness Partners, We experienced a difficult year in 2009, and 2010 may be described as a year of consolidation from Železiarne Podbrezová's perspective. We consider 2011 quite successful as we succeeded in meeting our expectations, i.e. the sales and financial plan. We could afford to review our employees' salaries as well as invest in modernisation. However, we also witnessed a moment that will go down in the Company's history. After thirty years, we experienced a fire in the cable areas of the seamless tube rollingmill.