Business Overview

(in million pounds)

	FY ended Mar. 31, 2012	FY ended Mar. 31, 2011	Rate of change (%)	Factors
Sales
Net sales	12,023.2	9,984.8	20.4	-
EBITDA	576.2	489.4	17.7	-
Environmental Technologies
Sales	3,123.6	2,703.4	15.5	1)

Factors
1)
Emission Control Technology: ECT
-Emission Control Technologies' sales grew by 21% to 1,470 million pounds, due to mainly Heavy Duty Diesel (HDD) catalysts' robust growth.

<Light Duty Catalyst>
-Sales at the light duty catalyst business, which represented 66 percent of ECT's sales, increased by 10 percent from the previous year's result to 969 million pounds.

Europe
-Light duty catalyst sales increased by 8%, ahead of the growth in vehicle production which was only up 0.5%. Its sales benefited from growth in the proportion of diesel vehicles produced in Western Europe which represented 55% of light vehicle production. Sales also benefited from the full fitment of diesel particulate filters (DPFs) to light commercial vehicles in Western Europe, completing the process of fitment of these products to all light duty diesel vehicles in the region.

Asia
-Despite the challenges presented by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the floods in Thailand and slower growth in China, its Asian light duty catalyst business grew strongly with sales up 20% to 201 million pounds. Light duty vehicle production in the region in 2011/12 grew by just over 1%. However, its sales grew at a much faster rate as the result of growth in its market share in many parts of the region and a strong recovery in its Japanese business in the second half with robust demand from the original equipment manufactures in Japan once their factories were back on line.

North America
-The light duty vehicles production in the region rose nearly 10% in its fiscal year. Its sales grew at a slightly lower rate, up 8% to 180 million pounds, as its North American Japanese transplant customers, where the Company has a higher market share, were impacted by supply chain issues following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami and flooding in Thailand.

<Heavy Duty Diesel Catalyst>
-Sales of the heavy-duty diesel catalysts grew strongly again this year, up 48% to 438 million and operating profit more than doubled.

-Sales increased since the production of heavy duty diesel trucks in North America continued to grow robustly throughout the year, increasing by 50% to 452,000 vehicles as trucking companies replaced their aging fleets, and that in Europe, truck sales recovered last year from the global downturn and production growth this year remained robust at 7%.

Plant Closure

-In January 2011, the Company announced ECT had entered into statutory formal consultation with the employees at its Brussels facility regarding the closure of its manufacturing plant. The plant ceased production in July 2011 and all production was transferred to other ECT sites with annual cost savings of approximately 18 million pounds per year.

R&D Expenditure

(in million pounds)

	FY ended Mar. 31, 2012	FY ended Mar. 31, 2011	FY ended Mar. 31, 2010
Overall	128.6	109.8	91.7

R&D Structure

-Its group technology center is a central resource which conducts strategic R&D on behalf of all the Company's businesses. It operates across two sites in the UK (Sonning Common and Billingham). In addition, the group's businesses also have its own dedicated R&D and technical centres around the world which focus on the delivery of shorter term business specific projects.

-More than 1,200 people engage in research and development activities, of which 61 percent work at the environmental technology segment.

R&D Facilities

-The Company has group technology centers in Sonning Common and Billingham, UK.
-The Company has R&D centers in 8 countries;

• USA
• UK
• Germany
• Sweden
• Japan
• China
• South Korea
• Brazil

Capital Expenditure

(in million pounds)

	FY ended Mar. 31, 2012	FY ended Mar. 31, 2011	FY ended Mar. 31, 2010
Environmental Technologies	97.1	90.1	93.8
Precious Metal Products	31.6	26.1	15.9
Fine Chemicals	15.8	16.0	22.0
Eliminations	-	-	-
Corporate capital expenditure	5.1	5.7	2.7
Total	149.6	137.9	134.4

-The Company anticipates that capital expenditure will rise substantially during 2012/13, to around 230 million pounds.

Investment

Environmental Technologies
<Emission Control Technology>
-Projects as bellow will provide additional capacity for the high technology products required for tighter European light and heavy duty diesel legislation, commencing in 2014;

• Towards the end of the year ECT commenced a major expansion project at its plant in Macedonia that will double capacity at the site.
• ECT increased its DPF production capacity at Royston, UK.

-During the year the HDD business has added capacity in China for upcoming HDD requirements and expanded its plants in India and Malaysia to serve growth in car production in India and South East Asia.