Ramirent made an important strategic turn in 2010. Due to the recovering rental industry, we changed our focus from safeguarding cash flow and profitability to capturing growth opportunities, while continuing to strengthen our balance sheet. The first quarter of the year was still challenging for our most important customer segments, i.e. construction and general industry. The order books in the construction industry started to strengthen during the second half of 2010, which worked in our favour.

Throughout the year 2010, we focused on working towards our strategic objectives. As the market development improved in many of our operating countries, we started to increase our capital expenditures gradually and made fleet investmentsto support organic growth. Our outlet network was expanded further during the year with several green field openings and the number of outlets is now at record high. In addition, we carried out two well-founded acquisitions and entered into significant equipment outsourcing agreements in many of our market areas. We also continued to develop the common Ramirent platform, which will help us to become more integrated as a group and thereby further enhance our competitiveness. As a part of the Ramirent platform development, we launched a renewed brand strategy and now all 13 countries are operating under the strong Ramirent brand. We also managed to make new inroads into growing our presence also in other customer sectors for whom renting is still rather uncommon in order to diversify further our customer portfolio and thereby reduce our dependence on the construction sector.

We successfully defended our market position in all of our operating countries during the year. Our competitive strengths continued to include our extensive and growing outlet network in all of our operating countries and our broad range of equipment. During the year we strengthened our offering with the development of new solutions concepts which will help us realise our mission to simplify business for our customers also in the future.

As I write this, the rental markets are experiencing positive growth in most of our operating countries and we expect the trend to continue and strengthen in 2011. We anticipate higher activity levels in infrastructure, residential construction and renovation construction in most of our countries. Increased construction activity, coupled with improving price levels, is expected to contribute to an improved result before taxes in 2011 for Ramirent. Our focus in 2011 will be on further reinforcing our businesses in line with our strategy and on profitable growth. We are primarily looking for growth in our existing market areas, which offer additional potential. We are also determined to further reinforce synergies within the company and development of our personnel, while maintaining the entrepreneurial mindset that is characteristic of Ramirent. In addition, we are well positioned with a strong balance sheet to take part in the consolidation of our industry and will actively search for acquisitions and equipment outsourcing agreements. We will also continue to increase our fleet investments to meet customer demand and to broaden our customer base. Both the public and the private sector offer additional potential for Ramirent.

My goal for 2011 is to achieve further internal integration within the Group, as well as to facilitate the profitable growth of the company. To conclude, I would like to thank our personnel for the excellent work they have done in developing Ramirent further throughout the year. I would also like to thank our shareholders and customers for their confidence in us during 2010.