GORENJE, d.d., Velenje

The Supervisory Board of Gorenje is supporting the Management Board measures against the crisis

The Supervisory Board of Gorenje has been Today informed about the performance at the beginning of the year 2009 as also about the Management Board measures against the crisis. The Supervised Board has positive and adequate rated the Management Board response on the continuous worsening in the industry and supported all activities taken by Gorenje to decrease the negative impacts on the market.

Considering uncertain conditions within the home appliances industry, has the Management Board of Gorenje prepared several scenarios for the year 2009 for the purpose of higher flexibility and adaptability, what enable quick respond on changing conditions and implementation of corresponding measures, what is in time of crisis crucial.

In the first two months of this year has the level of Gorenje orders decreased by 20 to 25 % in comparison with the same period last year. The estimation for the March is not final yet, as the orders are still collecting. The whole home appliances and other electrical and electronic devices market was in the last months falling, and this is the reason that the major part of the peers producers have performing loss in the last quarter of the last year. Due to the turmoil in the industry Gorenje is performing several activities, trying to overcome the negative consequences of such a low sales. These are focused on all business areas and on all business processes, above all on:

- costs of materials and raw materials (optimizing of inventories, commodity hedge, further development of the purchase sources from Asia and from the other USD based purchase markets and from the SE European markets, further rationalization of the costs of materials)
- Production area (flexible adaptation of the production regards to the level of customer orders, adaptation of the number of the working days regards to the orders, taking a leave and transferring the working days into the second half of the year)
- Purchase area (adapting the ordering of the materials to the current needs, making the short-term contracts, orders from low-cost-countries)
- Sales area (fostering sales, intensifying the relations with the customers, searching for the new business opportunities, decreasing the complexity)
- Costs of logistics (maximising the utilization of the vehicles)
- Investment area (approval of just vital investments, focused exclusively in the development of the new products)
- Marketing area (rationalization of costs at all markets and limiting costs on those linked to the direct marketing, focusing on the markets with possible higher output)
- Costs of services (Decrease of the managing and administration costs, adapting the costs to the level of sales, strengthen the controlling over costs)
- Assuring the positive cash flow (to gain new long-term loans, optimizing the receivables, assuring the liquidity)
- Decrease of the working capital (management of the inventories and receivables) and
- Labour costs (introduction of the 36-working hours, 10 % decrease of the employee salaries, reorganization of the organization and processes)

In detail analysis of measures and their expected effects will be presented after the Supervisory Board meeting, on Thursday, the 26th of February, when the Supervised Board will discussed also the non audited results for the year 2008.

The Supervised Board has positive and adequate rated the Management Board response on the continuous worsening in the industry and supported all activities taken by Gorenje to decrease the negative impacts on the market.

The Gorenje, d.d., is employing at the moment 5,200 employees, what is by 300 less than in the same period last year. In the last year we decreased the number of employees with the soft methods, natural fluctuation, pensioning off, with the agreeable lay offs and likewise we will decrease the number of employees further on.

At the same time the Management Board is actively following the situation on the market and will, as so far, adapt the type and the depth of the measures to the resulted situation..

Disclaimer: All announcements in English language are only for information purposes!

The information of this announcement will be available on the official web site of the company Gorenje, d.d., Velenje, Slovenia, gorenje.com, at least 5 years from the date of the announcement.

Date: 12. 2. 2009