Algol posts steady growth and good results in 2001

The accounting year of 2001 yielded encouraging figures in the recently
completed financial statements: the Algol Group´s total sales rose seventeen
per cent to EUR 218 million, net sales twelve per cent to EUR 157 million, and
the result of EUR 5 million was nineteen per cent up on the previous year.
Algol´s solidity continued to be excellent.

Managing Director Magnus Bargum considers the development gratifying,
especially since the point of comparison is 2000, a year distinguished by a
flourishing economy. In his view, the attainment of the result on a broad base
throughout the Group and its more even distribution between the different
business areas is a concrete sign that the current strategies for the Group´s
operation are along the right lines.

Of Algol´s market areas, it was in Finland in particular that the financial
year was distinctly divided. The flourishing economic situation that was still
strong in the first half of the year took a downturn in the autumn as a result
of the dramatic world events and rapidly declining general economic outlook.
The change was reflected the fastest in the raw materials and semi-finished
products trade. Finnish industrial production declined for the first time in
ten years, and the technical trade sector ended as a whole with zero growth.

Magnus Bargum considers that the strength of Algol´s diversity and product
range as an economic buffer is also evident in the figures in the financial
statements. Economic fluctuations are probably also levelled out to some extent
by the Group´s extended area of operation, since a steadily growing part of
Algol´s total result is made in the foreign subsidiaries, now accelerated in
particular by brisk development in Russia and the Baltic states. The Nordic
company Björn Fredlund, which joined the Group last summer, is included in the
new figures only for the final third of the accounting period.

Magnus Bargum describes the objectives for the new accounting period as
cautiously optimistic, albeit forecasting general economic development at the
turn of the two accounting years has been exceptionally difficult. After
starting out in low spirits, the economic year has recently been enlivened by
forecasts which estimate that an economic upswing has already begun in the
United States and see favourable signs in the Finnish economy.

[Key Figures]

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