In accordance with a decision taken by the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Handelsbanken on 23 April 2008, the nomination committee shall have five members. Four of the members (the "Shareholders' Representatives") shall represent the Bank's four largest shareholders/shareholder groups in terms of votes, according to shareholder information as at 31 August from the VPC (the Swedish Central Securities Depository and Clearing Organisation), or which by some other means prove to be among the largest shareholders (the "Largest Shareholders") on this date; the fifth member shall be the Chairman of the Board.

 

The Chairman of the Board has now contacted the Bank's four Largest Shareholders; each of these has appointed one representative who, together with the chairman, will constitute the nomination committee for the period until a new nomination committee is appointed by mandate from the next general meeting. In this respect, the decision of the AGM has been complied with, whereby the nomination committee must not include representatives of companies which are significant competitors of the Bank in any of its main areas of operations.

 

Using this definition, the four Largest Shareholders as at 31 August 2008 were Industrivärden, the Oktogonen Foundation, Alecta and AFA. Together, the members of the nomination committee represent about 29% of the number of votes for all shares in the Bank.

 

The nomination committee:

Mr Carl-Olof By, Industrivärden

Mr Henrik Forssén, Oktogonen Foundation

Mr Bo Selling, Alecta

Mr Lars Öhrstedt, AFA Försäkring

Mr Hans Larsson, Chairman of the Board of Handelsbanken

 

The matters to be discussed by the nomination committee are set out on the Bank's website, www.handelsbanken.se/ireng, under the headings "Corporate Governance, Board" and "Nomination Committee". Shareholders who wish to make proposals for the nomination committee may do so by letter to the following address:  Svenska Handelsbanken, Nomination Committee, CJS, SE-106 70 Stockholm, by 31 December 2008.

 

The 2009 Annual General Meeting of Svenska Handelsbanken will take place on Wednesday, 29 April 2009.