- Approval of a gross dividend of € 0.70
- Approval of the proposed appointments
Today Bekaert’s Annual General Meeting of Shareholders took place, with Mr Bert De Graeve, Chairman of the Board of Directors, in the chair. The following main subjects were considered.
The meeting approved the balance sheet and the income statement as at 31 December 2018, as submitted by the Board of Directors, including the distribution of a gross dividend of € 0.70 per share.
The dividend ex-date is 9 May 2019. The dividend will be payable on 13 May 2019 by the following banks: ING Belgium, Bank Degroof Petercam, BNP Paribas Fortis, KBC Bank and Belfius Bank in Belgium, Société Générale in France, ABN-AMRO Bank in the Netherlands and UBS in Switzerland.
The meeting acknowledged the 2018 annual report of the Board of Directors, and approved the remuneration report for the year 2018. The meeting discharged the Directors and the Statutory Auditor for the performance of their duties during the financial year 2018 and approved the remuneration of the Directors and the Statutory Auditor.
The meeting decreased the number of Directors from fifteen to thirteen and accepted the recommendations:
- to appoint Mr Jürgen Tinggren as independent Director for a term of four years, until the Annual General Meeting to be held in 2023;
- to appoint Ms Caroline Storme as Director for a term of four years, until the Annual General Meeting to be held in 2023;
- to re-appoint Mr Grégory Dalle as Director for a term of four years, until the Annual General Meeting to be held in 2023;
- to re-appoint Mr Charles de Liedekerke as Director for a term of three years, until the Annual General Meeting to be held in 2022;
- to re-appoint Mr Hubert Jacobs van Merlen as Director for a term of three years, until the Annual General Meeting to be held in 2022;
- to re-appoint Deloitte Bedrijfsrevisoren/Réviseurs d'Entreprises as Statutory Auditor for a term of three years, until the Annual General Meeting to be held in 2022.
Messrs Bert De Graeve, Leon Bekaert and Maxime Jadot did not seek re-appointment. Mr Bert De Graeve, who was appointed an Honorary Chairman by the General Meeting, is succeeded as Chairman of the Board of Directors by Mr Jürgen Tinggren. Messrs Leon Bekaert and Maxime Jadot received the title of Honorary Director. Ms Martina Merz resigned as Director.
Related press release: 1 March 2019: Bekaert announces organizational and leadership changes.
The meeting approved a number of change of control provisions.
Today an Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders took place as well. As no legal quorum was reached, the Extraordinary General Meeting was not able to validly deliberate and decide. The Board of Directors has decided to convene a second Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders to be held on Wednesday 3 July 2019 at 11:30 a.m. with the same agenda items. Such meeting will validly deliberate and decide irrespective of the portion of the capital represented by the shareholders attending the meeting.
Attachment