- A
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Additive
A substance added to products in small quantities to achieve certain properties or to improve a product.
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Adsorbents
Usually solid substances which are able to selectively accumulate certain substances from adjacent gaseous or liquid phases.
- B
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Business Area
For the financial reporting, Clariant grouped its businesses in three core Business Areas: Care Chemicals, Catalysis, and Natural Resources.
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Business Model
The business model illustrates how a company draws on various capitals as inputs and converts them into outputs, such as products and services, through its business activities. The company’s activities and outputs lead to outcomes that affect the capitals, thus impacting the company and its stakeholders.
- C
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Cash flow
Economic indicator representing the operational net inflow of cash and cash equivalents during a given period.
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Catalyst
A substance that lowers the activation energy, thereby increasing the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed by the reaction itself.
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Clariant Excellence (CLNX)
Clariant Excellence is an initiative launched in March 2009 with the aim of establishing a culture of continuous improvement. The four elements of Clariant Excellence are: Operational, Commercial, People, and Innovation Excellence. Clariant is adapting and refocusing its organization post divestments, Clariant Excellence will no longer exist in its current composition.
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Compliance
Compliance is a key element of Corporate Governance. It refers to compliance with the law and directives as well as with voluntary codes within the company.
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Customer to Cash
Core business activities that create additional value are structured into three value creation phases at Clariant. Customer to Cash encompasses planning to balance demand and supply, optimizing sourcing for spend effectiveness, constantly monitoring production for high efficiency, and delivering finished goods on-time and in-full as required by the customer.
- E
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EBIT
Earnings before interest and taxes.
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EBITDA
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
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EBITDA margin
The EBITDA margin is calculated based on the ratio of EBITDA to sales and shows the return generated through operations from sales before depreciation and amortization.
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Exceptional items
Exceptional items are defined as non-recurring costs or income that have a significant impact on the result, for example expenses related to restructuring measures.
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Executive Committee
Management body of joint stock companies; at Clariant the Executive Committee currently comprises four members.
- F
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Financial Capital
The pool of funds available to the company for use in the production of goods or the provision of services. This can include funds obtained through financing, such as debt, equity, or grants, and funds generated by the company, for example through sales or investments.
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Free cash flow
Free cash flow is the cash flow from operating activities minus expenditure for property, plant, and equipment, and intangible assets.
- G
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Gearing
Gearing is an indicator of the indebtedness of a company and reflects a company’s ratio of long-term debt to equity capital.
- H
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Human Capital
The company’s staff and its composition, competencies, capabilities, experience, and motivation to innovate. This can include employees’ alignment with corporate values and their ability to understand and implement the company’s strategy.
- I
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Idea to Market
Core business activities that create additional value are structured into three value creation phases at Clariant. Idea to Market encompasses scouting global trends and ideas, scoping out customer needs, executing product development and commercializing, and monitoring product performance.
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IFRS
The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are international accounting standards.
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Integrated Reporting
Reporting that extends traditional formats of corporate disclosure in order to communicate the full range of factors that significantly affect an organization’s ability to create value through its business model. An integrated report provides insight about the resources used and impacted by the company – collectively referred to as »the capitals« – and their interdependence. It reflects and supports integrated thinking and decision-making that focuses on the creation of value over the short, medium, and long term.
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Intellectual Capital
Knowledge-based intangibles used and created by the company, often in collaboration with partners. This can include intellectual property, such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, software, rights, and licenses, and »organizational capital« such as tacit knowledge, systems, procedures, and protocols.
- J
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Joint venture
Joint ventures are all activities in which Clariant is involved with another partner. The accounting method applied for joint ventures depends on the specific conditions of the participation.
- M
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Manufactured Capital
Manufactured physical objects such as buildings, equipment, and products. These can include objects that are available to the company for use in the production of goods or the provision of services, or that the company produces for sale to customers or for its own use.
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Market to Customer
Core business activities that create additional value are structured into three value creation phases at Clariant. Market to Customer includes identifying market attractiveness, developing a clear value proposition and articulating it to the customers, and capturing the value created through relationship building and the sales process.
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Masterbatches
These are plastic additives in the form of granules with dyestuffs or other additives used to dye or alter the properties of natural plastic.
- N
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Natural Capital
Renewable and nonrenewable environmental resources and processes that support the past, current, or future prosperity of the company or are affected by it. Examples can include resources related to air, water, and land that are utilized or impacted by emissions.
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Net working capital
Net working capital is the difference between a company’s current assets and its current liabilities.
- P
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Clariant’s three brand values, under which the different capitals considered in integrated reporting have been categorized in this report: Performance (financial, intellectual, and manufactured capital), People (human and relationship capital), and Planet (natural capital).
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Pigment
Pigments are substances used for coloring; they are used in a technical manner, for example in the manufacture of dyes, varnishes, and plastics.
- R
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Relationship Capital
Key relationships, including those with significant groups of stakeholders and other networks. This can include shared values, the trust and willingness to engage, and related intangibles associated with the company’s brand and reputation.
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ROIC – return on invested capital
ROIC is the total return on assets or the return on capital invested by a company. It is calculated as the ratio of earnings before interest expenses, less adjusted taxes and invested capital (total capital employed). ROIC clarifies the return on capital with which a company is working.
- S
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Spin-off
A spin-off refers to the creation of an independent company through the divestment of a Business Unit from a company. Clariant was created through the spin-off and subsequent IPO of the Chemicals Division of Sandoz.
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Stakeholder
Stakeholders are people or groups whose interests are linked in various ways with those of a company. They include shareholders, business partners, employees, neighbors, and the community.
- V
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Value chain
The value chain describes the series of steps in the production process, from raw materials through the various intermediate stages to the finished end product.
