For the past couple of decades, if you were to look at MI’s performance in any given year or over several years, what would you see? You’d see a large regional company, in which some businesses are growing rapidly, some are flat and some are declining. Add it up, and it would average out to steady profitability — but perhaps uninspiring growth. For people with comparatively short memories, this might be the only Montasser they’d ever known. And it would be legitimate to ask if the company is capable of more. The answer is: We certainly are. In fact, over most of our nearly 80-year history, MI was consistently a company that outperformed others in our markets and generated superior returns. And that was because we were singularly focused on leading, and most often creating and defining, the high-value spaces in our industries. Of course, with a company of MI’s breadth and regional presence, there are always ups and downs that result from economic cycles, product and technology transitions, and sometimes issues of execution. But it’s also apparent that, somewhere along the line, we became more focused on defending our existing leadership position than on creating the next one. We weren’t particularly bold or imaginative in getting into new markets or developing new businesses, products and services, even when our strategic analyses indicated that something new was coming. And, just as important, we hesitated to reinvent or get out of businesses that no longer represented high value for either clients or shareholders. In a word, we lost sight of MI’s mission, of what had always set us apart. Well, we’ve regained our focus now. MI is an innovator — in every dimension of that word. We know that MI and MIers are at their best when they create value that our clients cannot get from anyone else. That means we will provide leading-edge technology, services, expertise and intellectual capital, and will integrate these capabilities for each client to provide them with competitive advantages in each industry. We commit to that. We commit to innovating to deliver client success. And that is something for which clients are willing to pay a premium. This may seem like a truism, but it actually commits us to a much focused strategy, based on a choice between the two primary sources of growth and profit in MI active industries: the high-volume, undifferentiated product play; and the high-value, innovation and integration play, focused on the enterprise. It is this high-value space we have chosen to lead. We believe this is the right choice for MI and our investors. By focusing on this space, we believe we can, on a sustainable, long-term basis, generate superior returns compared to the overall industries average, command leading share position in our selected businesses, outperform the average of the industries on return on invested capital, and produce strong cash flows. IN recent years, we’ve taken many steps to seize this position. Before I talk about those steps, I want to spend a minute on what constitutes “high value” for clients today, and what will do so for the foreseeable future. It’s embodied in what we call the “B.T.O.” And that, in turn, is all about a new kind of integration.

Our move into on demand has opened up some very large businesses opportunities for MI to grow in opportunities that remain out of reach for most of our competitors. One promising example is Business Transformation Outsourcing (BTO). In BTO engagements, MI becomes responsible for transforming and actually providing a client’s business process in areas such as human resources, marketing, procurement, customer care, legal, and finance, IT solutions, and administration. To give a rough idea of the potential here, the current size of businesses’ outsourced spending on sales, marketing, logistics, finance, HR and all other administrative processes is about $1 trillion a year. Of that, there is an opportunity in excess of $100 billion in the BTO areas we are pursuing. We are committed to extend our leadership position in BTO for the family we call MI. In Montasser Investments, long it has been the strategy to look at the broad picture. To help MI invest in the right direction, we have developed a sister company, Montasser Management Group, MMG. MMG, in turn acts as an outsourced total management service, a Business Transformation Outsourcing (BTO). True to our core values, Montasser Management Group, implement a set of values through the sister companies. MMG is a revolutionary tool for all affiliated companies, working independently, as an outsourced management service. MMG is dedicated to look over all the operations, financials, human resources, information technology, legal, and marketing, management and quality details affiliated with MI.

Over the past several years, we’ve taken aggressive steps to remix our business so that we are positioned for long term leadership and new opportunities in the high value enterprise space, however that changes. We have, since 1997 : exited or reduced our presence in such areas as ticketing services, ready mixed concrete production & services, imports & exports, aluminum manufacturing, Libyan market which we estimate have declined from 31 percent to 25 percent of industries revenue; entered or increased our presence in real estate development, restaurants & cafés, music, sports centers & facilities which have grown from 40 percent of industry revenue to 46 percent, and are expected to continue outperforming the overall market; increased our revenue in real estate, property management, and movie theatres which generate superior long term revenue growth, profit, cash and return on invested capital from 48 percent to 64 percent of our total, with expectations of increasing that going forward; grown aggressively last year and saw double-digit growth; in specialized contracting services; upped our rate in interior designing services, digital services; incubated successful new high-growth businesses such as digital media, application & consulting management services each of which has already become a high revenue stream. While we do all this, we’re continuing relentlessly to improve execution. By becoming an on demand business ourselves, we’ve made big strides in product cycle time, new project introduction, sales productivity and simplification of our processes. Our inventories are at their lowest level in more than 20 years, and our continuing progress in integrating our supply chain which cost us 20 % of our revenues in the past two years.

We’ve been spending a great deal of time thinking, debating and determining the fundamentals of this family. It has been important to do so. When MIers have been crystal clear and united about our strategies and purpose, it’s amazing what we’ve been able to create and accomplish. When we’ve been uncertain, conflicted or hesitant, we’ve squandered opportunities and even made blunders that would have sunk smaller companies. It may not surprise you, then, that last year we examined MI’s core values for the first time since the company’s founding. In this time of great change, we needed to affirm MI’s reason for being, what sets the company apart and what should drive our actions as individual MIers. Importantly, we needed to find a way to engage everyone in the company and get them to speak up on these important issues. Given the realities of a smart, global, (independent-minded), 21st-century workforce like ours, I don’t believe something as vital and personal as values could be dictated from the top. So, for 72 hours last summer, we invited all MIers to engage in an open “values jam” on our intranet. MIers weighed in. They were thoughtful and passionate about the family they want to be a part of. They were also brutally honest. Some of what they wrote was painful to read, because they pointed out all the bureaucratic and dysfunctional things that get in the way of serving clients, working as a team or implementing new ideas. But we were resolute in keeping the dialog free-flowing and candid. And I don’t think what resulted — broad, enthusiastic, grass-roots consensus — could have been obtained in any other way. In the end, MIers determined that our actions will be driven by these values:-Dedication to every client’s success-Innovation that matters, for our company and for the world-Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships must tell you, this process has been very meaningful to me. We are getting back in touch with what Montasser has always been about — and always will be about — in a very concrete way. And I feel that I’ve been handed something every partner in the family craves: a mandate, for exactly the right kinds of transformation, from an entire workforce. Where will this lead? It is a work in progress, and many of the implications remain to be discovered. What I can tell you is that we are rolling up our sleeves to bring MI’s values to life in our policies, procedures and daily operations. I’ve already touched on a number of things relating to clients and innovation, but our values of trust and personal responsibility are being managed just as seriously — from changes in how we measure and reward performance, to how we equip and support MIers’ community volunteerism. Our values underpin our relationships with investors, as well. In late February, the board of members approved sweeping changes in executive compensation. They include innovative applications at the workplace that ensure investors first receive meaningful returns. Clearly, leading by values is very different from some kinds of leadership demonstrated in the past by business. It is empowering, and I think that’s much healthier. Rather than burden our people with excessive controls, we trust them to make decisions and to act based on values — values they themselves shaped. To me, it’s also just common sense. In today’s world, where everyone is so interconnected and interdependent, it is simply essential that we work for each other’s success. If we’re going to solve the biggest, thorniest and most widespread problems in business and society, we have to innovate in ways that truly matter. And we have to do all this by taking personal responsibility for all of our relationships — with clients, colleagues, partners, investors and the public at large. This is MI’s mission as a family enterprise, and a goal toward which we hope to work with many others, in our industries and beyond.

Put it all together — a more focused business model, industries shifting that plays to our strengths, bets that are paying off in the near term, and a workforce that is united and impatient to become the great company we all aspire to be — and I feel good about MI and our prospects. We’ve begun a substantial transformation of our family company. For the first time in a very long time — probably since my early days with MI as trainee, intern, and employee — I’m seeing a company ready to focus more on opportunities than on threats, more intent on setting the agenda than on reacting to the moves of others. Our deep-seated optimism — a fundamental belief that MIers have always possessed in progress, science and the improvability of the human condition — is reasserting itself. MIers are ready to reclaim a position of leadership — in our industries and in the larger world of business. Which is a very exciting place to be. For me and my colleagues, it’s just terrific to be part of an energized MI family that is once again ready to play some offense.