Swedish Match: Dividend hike to 1.35 SEK approved at today's Annual General Meeting

- Dividend will increase from 1.22 SEK/share to 1.35
- Chairman and Board of Directors re-elected
- Mandate to repurchase up to 10 percent of all shares in the Company prolonged
- 15 Million shares repurchased by the Company are authorized to be withdrawn

At the Annual General Meeting of Swedish Match on April 24th, it was resolved in accordance with the proposal of the Board of Directors to pay a dividend per share of 1.35 SEK. The record date for the dividend entitlement was set at April 27th, 2001. The dividend is expected to be distributed on May 3, 2001, through VPC.

Shareholders have re-elected Arne Bennborn, Jan Blomberg, Anders Lannebo, Bernt Magnusson, Lennart Sundén, Meg Tivéus, and Klaus Unger to the Board of Directors.

Shareholders approved an authorization to decide, prior to the next Annual General Meeting, to acquire a maximum of as many shares as may be acquired without the Company’s holding at any time exceeding 10 percent of all shares in the Company. The shares shall be acquired on the Stockholmbörsen (OM) at a price within the price interval registered at any given time (market price).

Furthermore, the shareholders approved an authorization for a reduction in the Company’s share capital by 36,000,000 SEK through withdrawal of 15,000,000 shares in the Company. The shares in the Company to be withdrawn have been repurchased by the Company in accordance with the authorization by the Extraordinary General Meeting on October 27, 2000.

The meeting also resolved to allow the Company to issue 1,812,317 call options to a combined value of 7,430,500 SEK, which corresponds to the value of options allocated in accordance with the Company’s options program for 2000.

In addition, shareholders approved all other proposals made by the Board of Directors as outlined in the published notice of the Annual General Meeting for Swedish Match AB.