Today, at the 23rd Annual General Shareholders’ Meeting of voestalpine AG, a dividend of one euro (after EUR 0.95 in the previous year) for each dividend-bearing share was approved for the business year 2014/15. The shareholders acted on the relevant recommendation by the Management Board and the Supervisory Board. The dividend shall be paid out starting on July 13, 2015 (ex-dividend date is July 6, 2015).
The Annual General Shareholders’ Meeting also authorized the Management Board to repurchase its own shares to a maximum of 10 percent of voestalpine AG share capital. This is fundamentally a renewal of the repurchase authorization issued in 2013 for purposes including extending the employee shareholding scheme and for any convertible bonds. The repurchase authorization is valid for 30 months. In this regard the Management Board of voestalpine AG was also authorized to repurchase its own shares to a maximum of 10 percent of voestalpine AG share capital, and consequently to reduce the share capital by this amount.
The voestalpine AG employee shareholding scheme is regarded worldwide as a best practice model. After the most recent increase in share capital in April of this year, as of June 2015 the voestalpine Mitarbeiterbeteiligung Privatstiftung, a private foundation which pools and manages the voting rights of 24,200 employees, holds a 14.8 percent stake in the company.This represents a value of around one billion euros. As a result, its employees are the Group’s second-largest shareholders.
In general, the voestalpine Group can look back on a uniquely successful story, one which commenced with the start of privatisation in 1995 (a process completed in 2005 with the 100 percent withdrawal of the state from our ownership structure) and which can also be expressed in dividend performance: Since its listing on the stock exchange in 1995, voestalpine AG has paid out a total of EUR 2.2 billion in dividends to its shareholders. The average dividend yield is 3.8 percent.
The voestalpine Group is a steel-based technology and capital goods group that operates worldwide. With around 500 Group companies and locations in more than 50 countries and on all five continents, the Group has been listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange since 1995. With its top-quality products, the Group is one of the leading partners to the automotive and consumer goods industries in Europe and to the oil and gas industries worldwide. The voestalpine Group is also the world market leader in turnout technology, special rails, tool steel, and special sections. In the business year 2014/15, the voestalpine Group reported revenue of EUR 11.2 billion and an operating result (EBITDA) of EUR 1.5 billion; it had around 47,500 employees worldwide.
