• Discharge granted to the Board of Directors and Supervisory Board
  • Dividend for the 2016 fiscal year increases by EUR 0.25 to EUR 1.75 per share
  • Resolution of stock split at a 3:1 ratio

Baden, May 11, 2017: At today’s Annual General Meeting of grenke AG, the Board of Directors and Supervisory Board once again received a strong support for the Company’s strategic orientation and persistent growth. All resolutions on the agenda were adopted by a large majority. The Annual General Meeting granted discharge to the members of the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board for the 2016 fiscal year and appointed Ernst & Young GmbH as the auditor for the current fiscal year.

Against the backdrop of a successful 2016 fiscal year, the attending shareholders also approved the proposal for the appropriation of the unappropriated surplus by a large majority. The Annual General Meeting thereupon decided to increase the dividend from EUR 1.50 to EUR 1.75 per share. The remaining unappropriated surplus will be carried forward and provides the Company with additional equity to support its further growth.

The Annual General Meeting also resolved a stock split in conjunction with a capital increase from company funds. The aim of the stock split is to facilitate trading in the shares making the shares more attractive to investors. To achieve this, the Company is raising its share capital from capital reserves by EUR 25,432,327.53 to EUR 44,313,102.00. Following the capital increase, the notional interest of each no-par value share in the share capital will be split from a EUR 3.00 to EUR 1.00 resulting in a three-fold increase in the number of ordinary, registered shares outstanding.

All of the shares will be fully entitled to dividends in the 2017 fiscal year. The stock split will be executed within the next three months. In the context of the stock split, there was also a resolution passed to adjust the Supervisory Board’s variable remuneration.

The shareholders also approved the Company’s conclusion of a corporate agreement with Europa Leasing GmbH, which mainly governs the transfer of profits to grenke AG.

In his speech to shareholders, the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Wolfgang Grenke, summarised the successful 2016 fiscal year and confirmed the forecast for 2017: "We are very satisfied with our performance during this past fiscal year. The new business in our Leasing segment grew by 17%, while the Factoring segment reported an increase of 10%. Based on the business performance in the first quarter of 2017, we are very confident that we will be able to achieve our full-year forecast for an increase in new business in the range of 11% to 16% in the Leasing segment and 12% to 20% in the Factoring segment while largely maintaining profitable and risk-adequate margins. We expect the grenke Consolidated Group’s net profit to amount to between EUR 113 and 123 million".

Sebastian Hirsch, member of the Board of Directors of grenke AG, added: "We were very successful again this past fiscal year. We achieved yet another record for net profit as a result of our profitable new business and the overall improvement in our cost-income ratio. At EUR 103.2 million, we even slightly exceeded our target range of EUR 98 to EUR 102 million, which we had raised during the course of the year and, thereby, underscored once again our image as a growth company”.

Around 340 shareholders participated in the Annual General Meeting. The shareholder presence at the time of voting was at 76.2 %.

The Company invited several pupils to its Annual General Meeting including the winners of Sparkasse Baden-Baden-Gaggenau’s stock exchange planning game, pupils from the Markgraf-Ludwig High School and Robert-Schuman- School in Baden-Baden, as well as pupils from the Goethe High School Gaggenau.

The Board of Directors