For the first time in more than 20 years, the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting in Schaffhausen was not held in the former iron foundry, but in the IWC Arena. A total of 921 shareholders were present and 2'108'458 votes represented. This presence corresponds to 74,37% of the shareholder votes entered in the share register with voting rights.
All nine members of the Board of Directors were re-elected and Andreas Koopmann was confirmed as Chairman. The Annual Shareholders’ Meeting approved the future maximum compensation of both the Board and Executive Committee. It also approved the distribution of a dividend amounting to CHF 20 per share (previous year CHF 18).
Mainly based on the recommendations of two Anglo-Saxon proxy advisors who had criticized the remuneration model before the shareholder’s meeting, the 2016 Compensation Report did not find a majority of the consultative vote. GF will once again discuss the topic with larger shareholders and the proxy advisors over the following months in order to elaborate a remuneration model which is widely accepted.
