Skandia's Annual General Meeting
Skandia's Annual General Meeting At Skandia's Annual General Meeting, T. Willem Mesdag and Eero Heliövaara were elected as new directors on Skandia's board, in accordance with the recommendation of the nominating committee. In addition, Lars Ramqvist and Johan Fr. Odfjell were re-elected. All for two-year terms. T. Willem Mesdag, born 1953, is Managing Director of Goldman Sachs & Co., Los Angeles, and Eero Heliövaara, born 1956, is Chief Investment Officer of Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company, Helsinki. Melker Schörling and Boel Flodgren were reappointed as policyholder representatives by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce and the Swedish Consumer Agency, respectively, for the coming year. Pirkko Alitalo resigned from the Board at the Annual General Meeting. The number of directors elected by the Annual General Meeting has thus increased from five to six, and Skandia's board now has the following composition: Lars Ramqvist, Bengt Braun, Eero Heliövaara, T. Willem Mesdag, Johan Fr. Odfjell and Lars-Eric Petersson. Also included on the Board are Boel Flodgren and Melker Schörling, appointed by the Swedish Consumer Agency and the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, respectively, and three employee representatives. In addition, at the Meeting Hans Karlsson, Authorized Public Accountant, KPMG, and Jan Birgerson, Authorized Public Accountant, Ernst & Young, were re-elected for the period up until the next Annual General Meeting. Voting rights limitation eliminated The Annual General Meeting also resolved to eliminate the remaining voting rights limitation in Skandia's Articles of Association. This means that shareholders in the future will be able to vote for the full number of own or others' shares held. Bonus issue Further, the Annual General Meeting voted in favour of a bonus issue, whereby one (1) new share will be issued for each one (1) old share held (B1:1), through a reduction of the statutory reserve by 511,771,260 SEK and an increase of the share capital by the same amount. The record date for the bonus issue will be May 18, 2000, which means that it is expected that VPC will report the allocation of the newly issued bonus shares on May 22, 2000. Stock option programme At the Meeting it was also resolved to approve the Board's revised proposal for a stock option programme for the years 2000-2002. In connection with this resolution, the Meeting also approved the Board's proposal for a directed issue of three promissory notes each with a nominal value of 3,500,000 SEK, and each of the promissory notes having 16,000,000 detachable warrants (the amount calculated after the bonus issue above) for the subscription of new shares in Skandia. Further reduction of the statutory reserve The Annual General Meeting also resolved to approve the reduction of the statutory reserve by 4,525,425,922 SEK to 0 SEK, and that the reduced amount be transferred to unrestricted retained earnings. Dividend The Annual General Meeting approved the dividend of SEK 1.00 (0.90) per share and 10 April 2000 as the record date. Dividends are expected to be sent out by the Securities Register Centre (VPC) on April 13, 2000. For further information, please contact: Birgitta Hammarström, Press Manager, Skandia, tel. +46-8-788 27 455, or +46-70-378 27 55 ------------------------------------------------------------ Please visit http://www.bit.se for further information The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/04/06/20000406BIT00220/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/04/06/20000406BIT00220/bit0002.pdf