Shareholder Structure and Annual General Meeting
Shareholder Structure
The following chart shows the voting rights pursuant to Sections 33 and 34 of the German Securities Trading Act (WpHG) as notified by the shareholders in relation to the current share capital. It is important to note that the number of voting rights reported could have changed within the respective thresholds without triggering an obligation to notify the company.
Major Shareholders (as of December 31, 2020)
Based on the German stock exchange’s definition of free float, only the interest held by Norges Bank (Ministry of Finance on behalf of Norway) does not count towards the free float. This means that 93.7% of Vonovia’s shares were in free float on December 31, 2020. The underlying voting rights notifications and corresponding financial instruments reported by shareholders or other instruments pursuant to Sections 38 and 39 WpHG can be found online at: https://investoren.vonovia.de/en/news-and-publications/disclosure-of-voting-rights/
In line with Vonovia’s long-term strategic focus, the majority of its investors also have a long-term focus. The company’s investors include pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and international asset managers in particular. We determine/update the shareholder structure once a quarter. We determined approximately 95% of our shareholder base as of the end of 2020. 91% of our shareholders are institutional investors and around 4% are private investors. The breakdown of the company’s shareholders by region is roughly as follows:
Regional Distribution of Institutional Investors of Vonovia SE
2020 Annual General Meeting
Vonovia conducted its very first virtual Annual General Meeting on June 30, 2020. Given the health-related risks and official requirements imposed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, it was impossible to hold an Annual General Meeting allowing participants to be physically present. The Annual General Meeting was chaired by Jürgen Fitschen, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Vonovia SE. Together with Rolf Buch, CEO of Vonovia SE, he spoke to the company’s shareholders from a studio set up at the corporate headquarters in Bochum. The Annual General Meeting, which also featured sign language interpretation, was streamed live in the Investor Portal on the Investor Relations website.
Shareholders had submitted their questions for the general debate electronically in advance. Their voting rights could be exercised before and during the Annual General Meeting electronically, per postal vote or by authorizing the company’s proxies.
With 700 participants representing 79% of the share capital present at the same time, all resolution proposals were approved with a large majority. The dividend of € 1.57 per share proposed to the company’s shareholders for the 2019 fiscal year also found broad support among Vonovia’s shareholders. This corresponds to a dividend yield of 3.3% based on the cut-off date of December 31, 2019, and an increase of 9% compared to the previous year. Shareholders were once again able to choose either a conventional cash dividend or payment in the form of shares. 40.7% of shareholders opted for the scrip dividend.
The dividend for the 2019 fiscal year was paid out from a contribution account for tax purposes. It was therefore paid out without capital gains tax or the solidarity surcharge being deducted.
Since 2018, the investor portal has given our shareholders the option to conveniently attend to all formalities relating to registering for and voting at the Annual General Meeting online. http://investors.vonovia.de/investorportal