NKT's Annual General MeetingPublished 8 April 2003
NKT’s Annual General Meeting held on 3 April 2003 at Radisson SAS Falconer Center in Copenhagen was attended by some 400 shareholders. In this issue of NKT Highlights we present an extract from the Chairman’s report to the Annual General Meeting along with contributions from shareholders.
The Chairman's report:
- Results for 2002 and strengthened into 2003
- Key developments in 2002
- Renumeration to Management, employees and Board of Directors
- Corporate Governance in NKT
- Prospects for 2003
Proposals adopted
Contributions from shareholders:
- Assessment of Management and Board of Directors
- NKT's head office in Brøndby up for sale
- Share warrants for retired employees
- Share options for Board of Directors
Results for 2002 and strengthened into 2003
Christian Kjær: “The accounts show that NKT’s share of net income amounted to a loss of 696 mDKK. This was most unsatisfactory.
Although the final accounting figures are in line with our expectations as stated in our 3Q/2002 report, the final result differs from these expectations on two points: Nilfisk-Advance’s result was better than we had predicted at 1 January 2002, and the NKT companies generated a positive cash flow that, when added to the 71 mDKK with which we started the year, resulted in a net interest bearing asset of 407 mDKK at 31 December. “Our financial strength is intact,” stressed the Chairman.
The Chairman continued: “Despite an unsatisfactory bottom line, NKT entered 2003 a stronger company in a number of ways, because we chose to prioritise our resources.
“The objective was to create balance between NKT’s earnings development, spending and the potentials we wish to target. We chose to focus on measures that could create a future operating surplus and thereby cause growth in the NKT share price. We also chose to retain an annual dividend to shareholders of 4 DKK per share.
“In the light of our dividend of 4 DKK per share and relative to the share price of 74 DKK at 31 December 2002, NKT delivered a return of 5.4% in 2002. In comparison I would mention that the effective rate of interest on a 10-year government bond before tax is around 4.5%,” said the Chairman.
