Extraordinary General Meeting of Holmen

Extraordinary General Meeting of Holmen Board authorised to repurchase shares in the company The Extraordinary General Meeting of Holmen held on Tuesday resolved in favour of authorising the Board to buy and sell shares in the company, on one or more occasions between now and the next Ordinary Annual General Meeting. Purchases shall take place on the OM Stockholm Exchange at the listed prices applying at the time of purchase. The number of shares that may be purchased must not exceed 10 per cent of all the shares in the company. The company's own shares may be used as payment in connection with acquisitions of companies or lines of business. Holmen's Board has decided to exercise the authority Holmen's Board has decided to exercise its authority to purchase shares in the company. According to the Board's decision, up to 8,858,278 shares will be acquired between now and the next Ordinary Annual General Meeting. Based on the result for the past six months, a repurchase of that number of shares would, at today's listed price, raise Holmen's return on equity by some 0.6 percentage points and its earnings per share by about 7 per cent. The repurchase of shares is a step in the matching of the Group's capital structure to its objectives. ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by BIT http://www.bit.se The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/08/15/20000815BIT00770/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/08/15/20000815BIT00770/bit0002.pdf