People
Uniper SE: Fortum´s Dovecote in Düsseldorf
Once again, shareholders had to take note of changes to the management of Uniper.
On 29 March, the company announced that the Supervisory Board” had agreed with the CEO Andreas Schierenbeck and the CFO Sascha Bibert that they will leave the Board of Management of Uniper with immediate effect.
The former Chair of the Supervisory Board Klaus-Dieter Maubach is the new CEO, while the Supervisory Board member Tiina Tuomela assumed the role of the CFO. Both were initially delegated by the Supervisory Board but were supposed to take over the tasks on a permanent basis.
After all, the company has already gained extensive experience with the termination of contracts by mutual agreement. In a way, one can even speak of another copy and paste action with Uniper. It is astonishing to see that the results have not suffered under these conditions. Nevertheless, let´s keep our fingers crossed that the new members of the Board of Management will stay with us for a while.
GRENKE AG: Small Transactions can create a big Headache
This spring, GRENKE AG received far more attention than desired. Hash accusations by Fraser Perring, reluctance on the part of local investors and critical looks from BaFin resulted, among other things, in three auditing firms looking to take closer looks at the accounts and structure of the company.
Something like this always leaves some casualties, including people lost along the way. But in May, the great relief came with the unqualified audit certificate from KPMG for the 2020 annual financial statements.
Financial statements have tended to get bigger for years now, while auditor´s reports have remained rather straightforward in the past. KPMG has broken with this tradition. The report on the audit of the consolidated financial statements and of the combined management report comprises ten pages plus annex. The report was signed on 17 May. On 14 June, GRENKE announced that the Chair of the Board of Directors, Antje Leminsky, has decided for personal reasons to leave the company as of June 30, 2021, after eight years on the Board of Directors. Shareholders have more time to read the report: This year´s AGM is scheduled for July 29.
Aareal Bank AG: Just next to it is also called over
Aareal Bank´s AGM was unusually turbulent this year. In the months leading up to the meeting, the company had to deal intensively with several corporate governance issues, including the partial sale of its IT unit, a serios illness of the CEO, and demands of shareholders for extensive structural changes, including a full spin-off of the IT unit.
Shareholders´ criticism was mainly driven by Petrus Advisers, who also requested the removal of three Supervisory Board Members, and the nomination of three new members at the AGM. The request didn´t come out of the blue, since the investor has been critical of the bank`s business strategy and policies since approx. two years. Was it enough to convince the audience? Nope, approx. 69% of the share capital present at the meeting voted against this demand. Was it in vain? Nope, at least there was food for thought, and the required majority vote was not reached for the remuneration system for the Management Board, with just approx. 37% of votes casted in favor of the proposal.
Both sides had to take blows, but this is not the time to rest. Four weeks after the AGM, the bank was able to report the solution to its most pressing problem. Subject to the approval by the ECB, Jochen Klösges will become the new Chairman of the Management Board of Aareal Bank, effective 15 September 2021.
As is well known, new brooms sweep well.