• Annual General Meeting now scheduled for August 6, 2020
  • New dividend proposal of EUR 0.80 per share (previously EUR 0.88) 
  • Company plans to offer shareholders the option to receive a scrip dividend

 

Baden-Baden, May 5, 2020: GRENKE AG, a global financing partner for small and medium-sized enterprises, is postponing its Annual General Meeting to August 6, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. and will conduct it as a virtual meeting. These decisions were made by the GRENKE AG Board of Directors and Supervisory Board on April 23, 2020, in light of the continuing spread of the COVID-19 virus and in the interest of protecting the health of all its shareholders. The Annual General Meeting was originally scheduled for May 19, 2020. These decisions are in compliance with the general ban on (large-scale) events until August 31, 2020, which was issued by the Federal Government in mid-April 2020. The Company makes use of the law passed by the legislator that allows annual general meetings to be held as purely virtual events.

After their timely registration, shareholders can participate in the Annual General Meeting via the Internet and exercise their voting rights by providing authorization to the Company's proxies or by absentee vote. Questions regarding the agenda items may be submitted in advance of the meeting. Further details will be explained in the invitation to the Annual General Meeting to be published in the electronic Federal Gazette no later than June 30, 2020.

 

New dividend proposal of EUR 0.80 per share

The Board of Directors and Supervisory Board have discussed and resolved to amend the proposal for the appropriation of the unappropriated surplus, which was communicated at the beginning of February. Instead of the announced EUR 0.88 per share, a dividend at the previous year's level of EUR 0.80 per share is proposed, which shareholders can choose to receive in cash or in a combination of cash and shares in order to strengthen the equity position.

 

Company offers shareholders the option to receive a scrip dividend

As in the years 2014 and 2016, GRENKE AG will propose to the shareholders that the dividend be paid in a form chosen by the shareholders; namely, exclusively in cash or partly in cash and partly in the form of GRENKE shares (scrip dividend). In order to create the new GRENKE AG shares required to satisfy the scrip dividend, the existing authorized capital is to be used following the Annual General Meeting of GRENKE AG on August 6, 2020, and the execution of a capital increase against contribution in-kind with shareholder subscription rights is to be resolved.