Our Group celebrated its 85^th anniversary in 2014. This is a milestone not only because we have accomplished a great deal in business terms over the decades, but also because it reaffirms our values and purpose. Our founder, Mr. Alexandrino Garcia, used to say “business may be fleeting, but principles and values last forever.” When launching our telecom operations 60 years ago, Mr. Garcia himself affirmed that “it wasn't about phone services, but about serving the region.” Consequently, “People serving People” is the driving force of our operations and investments, as well as our inspiring vision of the present and the future.

Recent brand image surveys indicate that the “reliability” attribute plays a major role in our relationship with our clients. Those who are our reason for being consider our close relationship with them and commitment to serving them our key distinguishing features. This allows us to fulfill our purpose.

The year 2014 was marked by our international expansion in the ICT industry. We opened an office in Colombia and consolidated our presence in Argentina and Chile with the Asyst acquisition. Another major event for the industry was the agreement we signed with Google (USA), Angola Cables (Angola) and Antel (Uruguay) to build an undersea fiber-optic cable between the ICTies of Santos (Brazil) and Boca Raton (USA). We also obtained a license for fourth-generation mobile telephony (4G).

With these initiatives, we anticipate a need for connectivity and data transmission capacity.

We still believe in the potential of agribusiness. We have expanded our production capacity and separated the management of the crop/livestock farming segment to create Algar Farming, a producer of agricultural commodities that will also prospect new business and partnerships. At Algar Agro, we reaffirmed our commitment to sustainability by installing a biomass boiler at the plant in Porto Franco, in Maranhão State. The plant in Uberlândia, Minas Gerais State, also has a boiler fueled by this clean energy source. As far as management is concerned, we focused our efforts on improving internal controls and strengthened the Executive Committee by appointing a new CEO for the Algar Agro.

In the tourism segment, we upgraded the main hotel of the Rio Quente Resorts complex and centralized the meal production.

In the services segment, we successfully sold TBM 900, the world’s fastest single-engine turboprop aircraft, especially to agribusiness customers.

We made a great stride in corporate management when we opened CSC (Centro de Soluções Corporativas, or Center for Corporate Solutions), which now handles several backoffice activities at Algar. This will allow us to gain efficiency in processes and costs and help us grow fast since the companies can focus only on their core businesses.

Still investing in innovation, we are developing and supporting a renewable energy company in our incubator. We also opened the Algar Innovation Lab, a facility in which we test innovation and co-creation practices jointly with customers. This brought us even closer to universities, research centers and innovative institutions.

Our management is committed to corporate governance and sustainability. We are adopt the highest level of ethics and comply strictly with laws, regulations and policies relevant to our activities.

We are committed to sustainable growth. We will focus heavily on our economic performance while promoting social and environmental development.

We reaffirm our commitment to being “People serving People” in all our activities.

We will continue believing in, and working for, the development of our country. Our way of doing business is reflected on the following pages. Enjoy your reading.

Luiz Alberto Garcia
Chairman of the Board of Directors

Luiz Alexandre Garcia
CEO of Algar Group