Today Wendel has seven subsidiaries and holdings; as we told the Group's general meeting of shareholders on June 9, they have solid positions in their markets.

As always, Wendel has the benefit of competence and dynamism in its management teams, and supports and accompanies its subsidiaries and holdings, which have been very active since the beginning of the year. Thus, in the first half of 2008, more than 24 acquisitions have been carried out or finalised for a total investment of €750 million.

- Legrand continues its expansion in emerging market countries this year, with 4 acquisitions in countries with high potential during the period. These acquisitions will strengthen the capacity for future organic growth within this Group, whose management has been accompanied by Wendel for the past 6 years.

- Bureau Veritas, where we have been the controlling shareholder for the past 12 years, has also carried out a number of external growth operations, in particular the very fine acquisition in Australia of Amdel, leader in tests of ores and minerals. Bureau Veritas has also increased its strength in South America recently, with the acquisition of Anasol in Brazil.

- Stallergènes, which we have accompanied actively for 15 years, received the authorisation to market its anti-allergy tablet, Oralair, in Germany. This is the reward for years of research and development, and offers Stallergènes a new opportunity to accelerate its development, first of all in Europe, and then in the United States.  The team is pursing its active search for a partner.

- The unlisted companies in our investment portfolio have also been very active, with a dozen acquisitions.  Materis made 7 acquisitions in 2008 for a total of €20m, extending its distribution network in the United States. Deutsch, one of the world leaders in the production of connectors for industrial vehicles and for the aviation, defence, transport and offshore industries, has been active in its operational reorganisation,  and has reinforced its activities in the United States and the United Kingdom. This company has also completed the sale of its Relays division to accelerate re-centering on its core competences, the production of electrical connectors. Oranje-Nassau has finalised the purchase of oil assets in the Gabon, announced last year. Finally, Stahl is continuing its commercial development in Asia, benefiting from the increase in production capacity of its new plant at Suzhou, in China.

- Lastly, Wendel finalised the sale of Editis to the Spanish publishing group Planeta at the end of May. The net proceeds of this sale for Wendel was €500 million.

Wendel systematically implements financial policies suited to its strategy of long-term investment, maintaining high levels of liquidity in order to meet possible market swings, and establishing long-term financing calibrated on the duration of its investments.

The Group's liquid assets as of presentation of the annual accounts stood at €1.3bn. We also dispose of an undrawn syndicated credit of €1.25bn, and our portfolio of listed companies – excluding Saint-Gobain – stands at €3.4 billion. These figures are the fruit of our constant efforts since 2006.

Since 2003 Wendel has taken care to establish bond financing specially tailored to our investments, whose principal maturities are staggered between 2011 and 2017; these borrowings have an average term of 6 years. The financing arranged for the acquisition of our holding in Saint-Gobain is no exception to this rule, and comes to term in 2012.

In today's downgraded market conditions, Standard and Poor’s rating agency has recently put Wendel's short and  long-term credit rating on Creditwatch with negative implications. This agency, of which we are clients, carries out studies that enable lenders and bond investors to assess the quality of our credit. The agency worked on the basis of instantaneous market values to estimate assets in which we are long-term shareholders. This surveillance by S&P has no impact on our current financings. The agency has also underlined the quality of the assets concerned, the solidity of  Wendel's activity profiles, and the level of our liquidity.

On the basis of our experience as a professional shareholder and our financial perimeter, we are very active in looking for and analysing investment opportunities both for our group and for its holdings and subsidiaries.

We exercise our role as a long-term professional shareholder by working with all the companies in our group. Thus, together with the directors of Saint-Gobain, we are seeking ways to amplify the potential of this great French industrial group, and to accompany them in the creation of value for all of us.  Bernard Gautier and Jean-Bernard Lafonta have just joined the board of directors of Saint-Gobain to represent the interests of all the group's shareholders. We are thus moving from the initial phase of dialogue, which has brought about our agreement on the governance of Saint-Gobain, to a second phase of implementation, which will enable us to participate actively in the Group's strategy.