Transcontinental - 2006 Annual Meeting of Shareholders

Tim Smith / Calgary
“Rémi Marcoux's values - that's why I work for this corporation.”

Andrea Giordano / Philadelphia
“Everybody agrees that the corporation really does believe what it says about its values and the three pillars. They walk the talk of investing in their employees.”

Nicole Desloges / Toronto
“When we’re hiring for management positions, applicants often want to know more about Transcontinental’s culture. I’m proud to tell them that at Transcontinental, we really act on our values!”

Ray Williams / Calgary
“Kaizen technique is awesome. We developed a bunch of toolboards on the press and cut back on a lot of wasted time.”

Tamara McClintock / Toronto
“Organic sales growth has been exciting for us over the past few years. The cross-selling has worked very well, and I'm looking forward to more of that.”

Martin Godcher / Gatineau
“Mission: Leadership showed the company’s determination to invest in its people. The managers are more than willing to help you and provide guidance and advice. At the end of the line, it’s a source of pride to have a career at Transcontinental.”

Ian Grady / Owen Sound
“Horizon 2005 helped our company. It's given everyone a positive attitude, that's the big thing. We get more team commitment than we had before. I think Evolution 2010 will do the same thing.”

Thank you Tim, Andrea, Nicole, Ray, Tamara, Martin and Ian.

It’s now my turn to welcome you to our shareholders’ meeting. I’d also like to welcome everyone across North America who is following this meeting on our Web site.

You’ve just heard from some of our people. They are what makes Transcontinental different: their dedication, their commitment to always doing better and their innovative thinking. Employees who are trained and work in teams headed by leaders: that’s what will keep us growing in an industry that’s going through a major transition.

And that’s why I wanted our reporters, press operators, sales people, office employees and managers all across North America to have a direct say in my review of 2005, which will basically summarize the achievements of Horizon 2005 and outline our new project, Evolution 2010.

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Few companies can say that they have a stimulating and motivating business project. Horizon 2005, which wrapped up in November 2005, was such a project and it was a great success from every point of view. Let me give you a quick overview.

Most of our approximately 14,000 employees have taken the Phil — The Three Pillars course designed to instill Transcontinental’s values, objectives and new ways of doing things. Those who haven’t yet taken it will do so in 2006. The goal is to extend the culture of participation and continuous improvement to every part of the company.
About 200 Kaizen workshops have been completed to date and more than 3000 employees have taken part. A wide range of administrative and production processes have been streamlined in our three operating sectors and at head office. The Kaizen continuous improvement technique has now been integrated into the day-to-day life of our business units.
To be able to count on employees who are motivated, trained and work as a team, the momentum and example must come from the top. And that’s why we launched the Mission: Leadership program, which will train 1500 of our managers so that they can provide better leadership. We are now on the third of six modules.
On the standardization front, we have implemented enterprise resource planning software in about a third of our printing plants. As well as making us more efficient, it allows our customers to truly deal with one company. Over the next three years the software will be rolled out to all our business units.
Major North American corporations are cutting back on the number of suppliers they deal with by consolidating their spending on print products and advertising. In response, we reorganized our sales force and set up 13 specialized market teams; we also greatly increased our cross-selling initiatives.

All these measures are aimed at making us more efficient, reducing our costs and simplifying things for our customers. But Transcontinental has always been and always will be a growth-oriented company.

Since Horizon 2005 began, we have invested close to 700 million dollars in the acquisitions of 14 companies in our strategic niches, namely newspaper publishing in Canada and direct marketing in the United States. In terms of our brands, we have launched new products, such as the Métro daily paper, and in 2005 we relaunched major titles such as Coup de pouce, Canadian Living and the Halifax Daily News.

Plus, since August 2001, we have spent half a billion dollars on property, plant and equipment. In 2005 alone, this figure was 155 million dollars. I thought you’d like to hear some specific examples of our results to date.

Last year we told you that we had signed a 10-year contract to print The New York Times daily paper for the Ontario and Upstate New York markets. That involved investing 10 million dollars to buy a new press line for Transcontinental Interweb Toronto. What you are seeing on screen are images of the first issue of The New York Times being printed on November 28, 2005. It’s the first time this prestigious paper has been printed outside the United States. We recently heard again from the New York Times management that they are delighted with the results. Congratulations to François Olivier, Ted Markle and the team at Transcontinental Interweb Toronto for their outstanding achievement! We hope to soon have new developments to announce about outsourced newspaper printing in North America.

Last June, we started building our new book printing plant in Louiseville, Québec, which required an investment of 20 million dollars. The main stages of construction are being tracked on our Web site and the plant will officially open this spring. In the meantime, here are some recent images of our 153,000-square-foot ultramodern plant. Our customers will be very proud of the quality of their products and with the plant’s flexibility and printing speeds. Congratulations to Gaston Marcoux, the project manager, and to Richard Lafrenière, the general manager.

I’ll let Jacques Grégoire, senior vice president of the Book Group and one of our most dynamic leaders, situate this investment within our overall strategy.

Jacques Grégoire / Louiseville
“We’ve been hearing a lot about the impact of the exchange rate and competition from emerging countries. And this is our answer: a brand new state-of-the-art printing plant in a niche — short run books in black and white — where we have a competitive edge over the U.S. market and over China.”

Thank you, Jacques.

I’d like to also mention that we have started the preliminary work for installing a highly sophisticated press line at our book printing plant in Beauceville. It will produce top quality books primarily for the U.S. market. With our market teams, we have also developed highly promising niches all across North America in areas where China is completely absent, such as road maps, atlases and short- and medium-run textbooks. The new press will be fully operational by June 2006.

In the book printing division we’re also considering establishing a physical presence in the United States at some point in the future.

Another niche where we intend to increase our ability to compete in the U.S. market is in the printing of short- and medium-run catalogues and magazines. That’s why we invested in two new Goss Sunday 4000 press lines with highly automated finishing equipment in 2005.

One was installed in our Transcontinental Boucherville plant, on Montreal’s South Shore. You can see it on screen. The running-in phase is just about over and our team is very enthusiastic about all the new possibilities. You can also see the general manager, Normand Préville, with his people. There is no doubt in my mind that this investment is in excellent hands.

This new ultramodern press line is now also fully operational at Transcontinental RBW Graphics, in Owen Sound, Ontario. Let me just mention that this is the first model of its kind in North America and it can print 90,000 copies an hour. Let’s hear from Brian Reid, our senior vice president of the Catalogue and Magazine Group, another one of our leaders:

Brian Reid / Owen Sound
“This state-of-the-art press line and new highly automated finishing equipment replace two older lines. This new press line affords increased format and paper-stock flexibility as well as decreased paper waste. This will also boost productivity in order to mitigate the negative exchange-rate effect on U.S. exports.”

Thank you, Brian.

Now let’s go to another investment we made in fiscal 2005.

Norrie Meth / Retail Group

“Luc, Luc…

Yes, Norrie.

With all due respect, I’d also like you to mention the power of our Canada-wide retail printing network. It’s the only fully integrated network in Canada. We’re the leaders on every level: we have state-of-the-art technologies, our services are top quality, and have great flexibility, and our people are very highly skilled. We offer a unique line of products and services, ranging from mass marketing to targeted marketing. And our offering is complemented by our distribution service. Not to mention the increasingly strategic role being played by our premedia platform. Should I go on, Luc?”

Thank you, Norrie, for reminding me. Norrie is our senior vice president of the Retail Group, with over 400 million dollars in annual revenues. Ask our competitors: he’s always ahead of the game! New investments will be made in this Group in 2006.

As you say, Norrie, premedia is strengthening our partnership with our customers. In this area we’re lucky to be able to rely on the leadership of Nicky Milner, vice president of the Premedia Group and a recognized authority in this field in North America. Nicky and her team have developed unique platforms and solutions that are already benefiting our customers. We’ve had a lot of successes in the past year, haven’t we Nicky?

Nicky Milner
“Yes Luc, indeed. In addition to providing the San Diego Zoo with premedia support services and technology services, two major Canadian retailers have recently chosen to outsource all their advertising design and premedia production to Transcontinental. When our customers entrust us with managing their digital services, you become an important link in their business process and systems.”

Thank you, Nicky.

Direct marketing in the United States is one of our strategic development niches. Direct marketing spending in the United States is expected to grow at a rate of more than 6% a year from now until 2010. The acquisition of JDM in February 2005 and CC3 in December 2003 set us an integration challenge for the greater Philadelphia area. So we decided to consolidate our seven plants into three. How’s the work going, Rob?

Rob Young / Warminster
"The consolidation is now complete, and, as you can see, we're fully operational. We have set up state-of-the-art processes that will make us much more efficient. With our facilities in Los Angeles and Dallas, we now have the capacity to really serve well and get a greater share of the fast-growing direct marketing sector in the United States."

Rob has been president of Transcontinental Direct in the United States since December 2005. In the past 20 years he has held senior management positions with several North American corporations. Welcome to Transcontinental, Rob! I’d like to also mention the excellent performance by our business units in Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth, where we have an exceptional leader, Alon Stephens. And, moving from Texas to Mexico, I’d like to also mention the excellent work by our team in Mexico under the leadership of Roberto Sierra.

The positive impacts of all these investments will be felt in the second half of fiscal 2006, culminating in 2007. In 2006, we plan to invest another 130 million dollars in capital assets, in addition to the 10 million on strategic spending in media under Evolution 2010. We’ll continue to invest in our growth and efficiency more than ever before.

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As interim president of the Media sector, I’d now like to talk about “my” sector. For the past two months I’ve had the chance to work closely with an outstanding team of managers: Francine Tremblay and Jacqueline Howe; Marc Ouellette; Pierre Marcoux; Gilles Lagarde; T.J. Flynn; Ginette Roy; Haig Poutchigian; Katya Laviolette. I must say that the team has been very patient in answering all my questions about their operations.

I’d like to add two other names: Yves Daoust, to whom we owe our first steps into digital media, including our partnership with the askmen.com portal and the future classified ad site that we announced yesterday; and Jean Paré, in charge of Éditions Transcontinental, who has just had a Canadian bestseller with the book by Stephen Jarislowsky called Investment Zoo. We’ll be giving you all a copy of this book as you leave, as a gift to mark the 30th anniversary of 30e in 2006.

With such a great team, it’s no surprise that our Media sector has excelled in its industry in Canada. I’d like to particularly mention the performance of our consumer magazines, our community papers in Quebec (congratulations to Serge Lemieux and his team), and the distribution of advertising material. We have just set up a digital media group to ramp up our presence on the Internet. This sector will be a key driver of growth in the coming years.

I’d like to also mention that it’s the fifth anniversary of our daily paper, Métro. This paper has a weekly readership of 573,000, which makes it the most-read free daily paper in Montreal and third for all categories combined. Another interesting fact is that Métro has a larger share of readers between the ages of 18 and 34 than the competition, i.e.: 46% of all its readers. So take note, advertisers interested in this young and educated urban audience! We identified, before everyone else, the opportunities in the new free newspaper market and we moved on it. Congratulations to the whole team.

The Media sector will continue to be a hothouse of innovation. You have no idea of the number of new ideas that our magazine, newspaper and distribution teams have already put forward to keep us growing! I’ll quickly mention the two latest ones on the magazine side: a tie-in to Canadian Home Workshop for the renovation market and a tie-in to Western Living for the condo market.

Still on the topic of developing our brands and content, I’d like to specifically mention the partnership with Yellow Pages Group, the biggest directory publisher in Canada, for the publication of innovative niche-specific guides. The first editions are aimed at consumers interested in home renovation and bear the Transcontinental trademarks for the magazines Décormag and Style at Home.

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Let me conclude with a few words about our new business project, Evolution 2010. This project was developed by the Corporation’s management team, endorsed by about 150 managers last August and officially launched on November 16, 2005 at a meeting with the financial community. We have a dual objective: to strengthen our gains and go a step further to rise to the challenges of the years ahead.

Our slogan shows that we remain a growth-oriented company and that we are focusing on innovation in all our operations.

Overall, we’ll be strengthening our role as a marketing advisor to customers by developing an even greater knowledge of their markets and getting more integrated into their value chains. We’ll also be improving the content, product and service offering and technology platform for our advertisers, readers of our publications and visitors to our Web sites.

To achieve this, we have adjusted our corporate vision to take into account the technology environment and new consumer habits; we have updated our mission, guiding principles and development strategy; and lastly, we have identified five major “issues for 2010.” Our values, however, remain the same.

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Evolution 2010 is explained in more detail in our 2005 annual report and on our Web site. At this point I’ll simply outline the five major issues for 2010 that define our primary directions for the next few years, and which our intersector teams have already been working on for several months.

Issue 1 indicates that we intend to go beyond the ‘paper and ink’ model by disseminating existing and new content via multiple digital platforms. Media fragmentation is accelerating and information will become increasingly digital. This means that we have to offer consumers more products and services and increase our digital interactions with them.

Issue 2 shows that we’ll be offering integrated services to our customers, both upstream, in premedia, and downstream (I’m thinking about logistics management), and that our printing offer will increasingly focus on personalization. We’ll be offering these solutions to a better targeted clientele at competitive rates, with excellent execution. The person in charge of this issue is Guy Manuel, president of the Marketing Products and Services sector.

Issue 3 is part and parcel of our continuous improvement culture. We’ll be working to reduce administrative and production cycle times by optimizing our business and production processes right across the company. Our logistical excellent will also reduce cycle times for our customers, from ordering right through to payment. The person responsible for this issue is Réal Boulet, vice president and chief information technology officer of the Corporation.

Issue 4 shows that we’ll be intensifying our internal growth by fully exploiting the opportunities for selling existing products and services to our customers. Our goal is to achieve average annual growth in revenues of 5% per year by 2010. The person in charge of this issue is François Olivier, president of the Printing Products and Services sector.

Supporting these initiatives requires a global talent development strategy. We must provide each employee with a development plan and training program that reflects his or her ambitions, potential and values. Preparing new leaders is also part of this context. To implement our strategy, we need the right people in charge. The person responsible for this issue is Julien Houle, the Corporation’s vice president of human resources.

Conclusion

Thanks to Evolution 2010, Transcontinental will continue to differentiate itself and stay in the vanguard of its industry in North America. In addition to the issues that cover all of our activities, we have identified niches where we’ll be investing even more between now and 2010. I’m referring, among others, to outsourced newspaper printing, direct marketing in the United States, short-run book and catalogue printing and our magazine and newspaper publishing operations in Canada.

Our people are enthusiastic at the idea of taking a step further together. To wrap up, I invite you to listen to Katya, Nathalie, Marcel, Jim, Fernand and Jean-Paul.

Katya Laviolette / Montréal
“In terms of the Media sector, I’m delighted by the investments we’ll be making in digital development, an area that has enormous potential for us.”

Nathalie Grégoire / Beauceville
“It’s very promising. We feel like management has a strategy and long-term vision. Given the current context, it’s reassuring to know that they’re making major investments in training people and state-of-the-art technology.”

Marcel Courville / Toronto
“I've been here for 20 years, and have seen the company go from small printer to large multinational communications company. It's amazing to see us always adapt to change. And Evolution 2010 is the tool we need to take the next step. The outlook is very positive.”

Jim Nicholson / Vancouver
“Evolution 2010 is another opportunity for the senior executives to say 'we've listened, we've surveyed the landscape, and these are the major initiatives we must undertake between now and 2010 if we are to be successful. It sends a great message to the marketplace and to employees.”

Fernand Gagné / Saguenay
“I think Transcontinental has a very positive future. I like the message from Luc Desjardins: it shows that he and his management team have a lot of courage and leadership. The idea is to invest to make us more competitive in the years ahead.”

Jean-Paul Gagné / Montréal
“Evolution 2010 gives us the tools we’ll need to take up the challenges of the years ahead. What will also help us is the quality of our human resources, the way our people are mobilized, their commitment to innovating and to continuous improvement on all fronts. Once again, the sceptics will be proven wrong.”