Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our conference call regarding the succession of the Chairman of the Supervisory Board. I am pleased to announce three speakers today who will give an overview background of the change, the succession management process which took place over the last month, and future focus points of the supervisory board together with the managing board. We will not discuss any trading updates in this call today. Our speakers are Peter Johnson, the current chairman of the board, Peter Steiner, his successor as of January 1st, and Heimo Scheuch, our CEO. After their statements, we are ready to take any of your questions. Now I hand over to Peter Johnson. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Anna. Hello, everybody. May I add my thanks to you for joining us today. I took over as a transitional Chair of the Wienerberger Supervisory Board just over a year ago. I had two primary tasks. The first was to begin to bring the structure, practices, and behaviors of the Supervisory Board into line with best international practice, while still respecting the laws and traditions of its Austrian home. We recently carried out an independent review of the board and chair, which confirmed that good progress has been made. Those findings and the consultant's recommendations will be presented fully in next year's report and account. My second task was to ensure a professional and thorough process was put in place to identify my longer-term successor.
The supervisory board agreed the experiences, skills, and attributes it was looking for, and an independent board member led a process with headhunters based in the U.K. and Germany to identify potential external candidates. The leading candidates were interviewed and evaluated alongside our own colleagues on the supervisory board. It was clear to us all that Peter Steiner was the outstanding candidate. Not only meeting all the criteria we had established, but having considerable knowledge and understanding of Wienerberger and its markets. We were all delighted when Peter agreed to accept this role. I would like, if I may, to add a personal comment. I've worked closely with Peter over the past year. It is not only his experience and skills that have impressed me. He works hard. He's traveled to Vienna regularly through these past rather difficult months.
He doesn't think about himself, but is focused on what is right for the company, its shareholders, and indeed all its stakeholders. He works well with all his colleagues. I'm delighted to be passing this baton to someone with such integrity and professionalism. Peter, over to you.
Peter, thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for taking the time. It's not easy to say at all something at this early stage. I've not even taken seat of the Chair of Wienerberger, but I have a couple of remarks to make. First of all, this is not going to be the only opportunity to talk. Of course not. I intend to follow Peter's example to be available to analysts and investors whenever it seems to be appropriate. This is the first remark. The second one would be, I'm pleased that my colleagues at the supervisory board have come to me and asked me to follow Peter Johnson as Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Peter has, in his tenure, shaped the work style and the inner organization of our board and much improved its efficiency.
This is both a burden and an excellent basis to build on. The focus of the supervisory board, and so far my focus as well, for the immediate and medium-term future will be, we should support management on any effort to realize organic growth. We support performance enhancement, and we also support selective value -accretive acquisitions. The supervisory board will closely follow and add as much value as possible to come to best decisions possible. That's about the style which we work on, and I could almost say we are now used to work on. We use what are our tools. We use transparent KPIs, and we use agreements and commitments amongst management and supervisory board towards innovations, towards ESG. Also, I add that remuneration has been an important topic, particularly over the last 12 to 18 months.
We've worked on that topic a lot, and this is going to remain an important topic to us. The Supervisory Board and I, as its Chairman, will closely work with Heimo and his team, to grow Wienerberger, to make it and strengthen its position as leading building material solution provider in Europe and in North America. Again, I'm glad that Peter Johnson has decided to continue to stay on the Supervisory Board for some time. I have enjoyed so much working with him over the last month. We together have helped to move the whole thing really forward. Thanks again, Peter. This is a good opportunity to officially thank you, and on to Heimo. Thank you.
Thank you both. From my side, first of all, a big thank you to you, Peter Johnson, for making this happen. Obviously the last year was not the easiest of all the years with COVID and a lot of changes that took place throughout the business world. Again, I think we all showed the strong commitment to Wienerberger and that we also are ready to cope with such extraordinary situations. Well, on the business side, with the performance of Wienerberger in these difficult times, which is great and very satisfactory, but also on the corporate side when it goes with the cooperation between supervisory board and managing board.
We have, in this year, again, established a clear roadmap for the next three years, and I'm glad obviously to work together and excited to work together with Peter Steiner to realize it, to implement it, because we say independently from any market development, Wienerberger will organically grow again in the next three years. Focusing, obviously, on optimization, on innovation, and also on the implementation of our very ambitious ESG targets. We are dedicated to these targets. We are ready to invest also considerable funds into the different projects and special CapEx especially, with about EUR 80 million a year and EUR 60 million into ESG. An important program that we have put together. We as the team, the new team, will make sure that Wienerberger grows throughout this period of time and obviously creates substantial value for its shareholders.
This is, I think, the good message that we have a strong team on the supervisory board and also here in the managing board to carry Wienerberger forward. I'm delighted that we have this sort of continuity and strength, in the managing board on the one side and also on the supervisory board on the other side, to make Wienerberger very successful in the years to come. Thank you for your attention, and I think we are ready, Anna, to take questions if there are any.
Yes, please, Jenny. You can go back to Q&A.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you are using speaker equipment today, please hit the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. The first question is Xintong Ouyang of On Field Investment Research. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi, can you hear me?
Yes, Xintong. Hello.
Yes.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon, and congratulations, Mr. Steiner. I have actually a very small question, is that when you were at the Board of Xella, when Xella acquired Ursa, were you still there, or actually it was after your tenure in Xella?
Oh, my tenure in Xella actually lasted from early 2014 to early 2017. I was hired by Goldman Sachs and PAI and helped them to sell it to Lone Star.
Okay. When they acquired Ursa in August, you weren't there anymore?
That's right. I left the chairmanship of Xella at closing when Lone Star took over, because I actually was on the seller side, yeah.
Okay, great. Thank you. That's very helpful. Thank you.
The next question is from Pam Liu of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Hello. Congratulations, Peter.
Hi.
I just want to check, in your view, and given your assessment of the business so far, what would you say are your top priorities out of the sort of support that you have given to the management team, and what do you think are the greatest risks that the business is facing and you would like to address?
Well, the focus really is naturally to take advantage of market development, which means that we dive into the individual geographies and create additional volume and at stable prices. This is my priority one. The situation around Corona has also led to weakening of competitors and has actually created activity. There are a number of opportunities to create consolidation in our market. Wienerberger has to be, in this situation, a consolidator. In so far, we are going to selectively take advantage of these situations that we are sure that they would create value. Those are the two growth through organic measurements and growth through external transactions. Those are both directions that we are heading at. On the other hand, it's really all about performance. Wienerberger has done a fantastic job over the last 24 months and improved the unit cost substantially.
There is more to do. We have already identified, our management has identified, and we as supervisory board follow that closely, additional room for improvement, which we will capture as quick as we can. Those are the directions we are heading at. If you ask me what are the threats that this company is facing right now? Well, it's really about at the beginning of the pandemic, we faced threats through closing borders, for example. The international workbench was partly interrupted. I don't believe that this will happen again. I believe people have learned. This actually led to a loss in EBITDA, which we are going to see at the end of the year, despite of actually a good recovery in our performance. What's gone is gone.
Actually, that's very much because of volumes that could not be shifted and delivered and supported to the end where it's supposed to be. The other threats or the challenges, let's call it challenges, are the ones that are typical to our sector, such as energy efficiency. All of these things that we would cover under our new ESG program.
Okay. Thank you very much.
There appears to be no more questions at this time.
Okay. I think we don't have anyone else in the line for the moment. I would like to close the call then. Thank you very much for dialing in today. As Peter Steiner said at the very beginning, we're always happy to engage at any later point, still this year or at the beginning of the year before the next AGM, if you have any follow-up questions. For today, I wish you a nice afternoon. Stay healthy, and thank you very much. Goodbye