An outstanding year in a difficult context through strong cost management, commercial excellence and a decisive response to the crisis.
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New Ways
Our four divisions are our connection to the market. Each of them aims at leadership within carefully selected business segments.
Led by Patrick Balemans, New Ways aims to shape the future of construction by offering high-tech, lightweight, factory-assembled panel and modular solutions. The division’s companies in Europe and Latin America, offer an extensive portfolio of solutions featuring timber and steel framing technologies and engineering consultancy, ranging from engineered studs and tracks to fully designed and engineered houses and buildings.
“A challenging starting point – but a promising finish.”
Do you agree that 2020 was quite a tough year to launch a new division?
In hindsight, it’s true that starting a new business at the beginning of 2020 wouldn’t have been our first choice! But despite the pandemic, we managed to move forward with our ambitious strategy, enter new markets and even progress with a number of acquisitions.
Especially complex was the fact that everything we did was achieved from our home offices around the world. Results varied depending on the level of maturity of each of our businesses, but I am proud to say that we were able to successfully shape our business model, and even grasp new opportunities in some markets, like Brazil. Younger, less experienced companies, such as our Chilean joint venture with Arauco, E2E, were more difficult to keep running remotely.
Was the acquisition process influenced by this context?
It was certainly a challenge, working virtually – but we never considered setting our M&A strategy aside. We had to put in a lot more effort to make progress, but we successfully completed the acquisition of Tecverde in early 2020 and, more recently, we have secured a majority stake in French offsite construction company e-Loft. These are crucial steps forward that will increase the international footprint of New Ways.
What were the overall impacts of COVID on the division’s business activities?
After we made big advances at the beginning of the year, COVID pressed pause on most of our project ambitions. Our customers were impacted themselves, and not in the position to consider launching the new projects that were planned before the pandemic hit.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, we successfully built up a robust pipeline of very interesting projects in all of our big markets. And of course, our customer-centric R&D efforts never stopped!
OUR OTHER DIVISIONS
Neil Ash
Head of Building Performance
Michael Fenlon
Head of Exteriors
Steven Heytens
Head of Industry
We used the COVID context as an accelerator to drive change.
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Despite extremely tough conditions for our markets, we never lost sight of our strategic execution.
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