Our program for value creation and integration ended on December 31, 2005. We have already fully completed around three-quarters of all projects, and believe that STAR has been a major success: for more than three years, over 500 employees from various backgrounds, business divisions and business cultures worked together to achieve a common goal. As a result, the Group has become an international company. We have learned to combine our wide range of skills and knowledge to benefit our customers and shareholders. And we have kept the promise we made to the capital markets.

Our original goal was to increase consolidated earnings to €3.1 billion in 2005. Due to the successes achieved, we raised this target and forecast EBIT of at least €3.7 billion for the Group in 2005. And we were even able to slightly surpass this goal as well. In its final year alone, STAR contributed an encouraging €583 million to consolidated earnings, of which €159 million was generated in the last quarter. This means that the program’s accumulated contribution to earnings since its launch in November 2002 was €1,445 million.