The Annual General Meeting approved a dividend of SEK 7.25 per share. The record date will be 6 April and dividend payments through VPC are expected to be made on 13 April. Ratos shares will be traded without right to dividend from today, 2 April.

The existing Board members Olof Stenhammar (Chairman), Lars Berg, Peggy Bruzelius, Göran Grosskopf, Arne Karlsson (CEO), Jan Söderberg and Per-Olof Söderberg were re-elected.

The Meeting decided to dismiss the previous auditors. Newly elected auditors are auditing firm KPMG Bohlins AB with Thomas Thiel as principal auditor for the period until the 2008 Annual General Meeting has been held.

The Meeting decided to authorise the Board, during the period until the next Annual General Meeting, to decide on buy-backs of the company's shares so that the company's holding at any time does not exceed 7% of all the shares in the company.

The Meeting decided that the company's share capital should be reduced by SEK 6,250,000 through cancellation without repayment of 500,000 B shares repurchased by the company. The purpose of the reduction is that the amount by which the share capital is reduced should be transferred to unrestricted equity.

The Meeting decided to issue a maximum of 250,000 call options on repurchased shares.

At the conclusion of the Meeting the 2004 Söderberg Journalist Prize in Law was awarded. The prize is worth SEK 150,000 and was awarded to author and journalist Anders R. Ohlsson who works within the Swedish television company (SVT).

For further information, please contact

Clara Bolinder-Lundberg, IR Manager, +46 8 700 17 63

Financial calendar from Ratos:

Interim Report January-March 2004        12 May 2004

Interim Report January-June 2004         25 August 2004

Interim Report January-September 2004   12 November 2004

The press release can be downloaded from the following link: