Dräger annual shareholders’ meeting approves significant dividend increase – Biotech Investments

Dräger annual shareholders’ meeting approves significant dividend increase

Lübeck – Drägerwerk AG & Co. KGaA held its Annual Shareholders’ Meeting 2024 today. All resolutions on the agenda items were passed with a vast majority. In total, 46.2 percent of the share capital was represented (2023: 45.7 percent).

Dividend
Among the agenda items was the appropriation of net earnings. The shareholders approved the joint proposal of the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board to distribute a significantly higher dividend compared to the 2022 fiscal year of EUR 1.74 per ordinary share (2022: EUR 0.13) and EUR 1.80 per preference share (2022: EUR 0.19) for the 2023 fiscal year.

“We would like to thank our shareholders very much for their trust,” says Stefan Dräger, Chairman of the Executive Board of Drägerwerk Verwaltungs AG. “We generated a significant net profit in fiscal year 2023, and we also have a solid equity ratio of over 40 percent. The simplification of our capital structure is now finally complete. As a result, our investors will receive a significantly higher dividend. We also want to distribute at least 30 percent of our profit as a dividend in the future.”

Focus on medium-term corporate objectives
In the course of his speech, the Executive Board explained the business development and confirmed the outlook for the current fiscal year. Stefan Dräger illustrated why the Executive Board is focusing on corporate objectives.

“After returning to growth and profitability last year, we are now focusing on our three medium-term corporate objectives. Corporate Objective #1 is ‘Focus on profitability’. This means that we will concentrate more strongly on earnings growth in future. In the coming years, we want to further increase our margin, on average by one percentage point per year,” says Stefan Dräger. “With Corporate Objective #2, ‘innovation leadership’, we want to strengthen our innovative power, use it successfully in our markets and become the first choice for our customers. We also want to expand our expertise in interoperability and in the systems business in order to achieve our Corporate Objective #3. By working on these three objectives, we want to improve our DVA, with a positive DVA in 2024 and in all subsequent years.”

The voting results and all other relevant documents relating to the annual shareholders’ meeting are available on the following website: https://www.draeger.com/en-us_us/Investor-Relations/Annual-Shareholders-Meeting

Further information is available in the financial report at www.draeger.com.

Disclaimer
This press release contains statements on the future development of Dräger Group. These forward-looking statements are based on the current expectations, presumptions, and forecasts of the Executive Board as well as the information available to date. They were compiled to the best of the company’s knowledge. Dräger does not provide any warranty nor assume any responsibility for the future developments and results described above. These are dependent on a number of factors. They entail various risks and contingencies outside of the company’s influence and are based on assumptions which could prove to be incorrect. Dräger does not assume any responsibility for updating the forward-looking statements contained in this report. This does not infringe any legal stipulations on the adjustment of forecasts. Information on the financial indicators used (incl. alternative performance measures) can be found on our corporate website www.draeger.com in our Investor Relations section.