Uniper holds first Annual Shareholders Meeting and draws positive balance on 2016 financial year
- All financial targets for 2016 financial year achieved
- Dividend of €0.55 per share proposed
- Good start to 2017 financial year
- Elections for Supervisory Board
- First Sustainability Report published
At Uniper SE’s first Annual Shareholders Meeting, CEO Klaus Schäfer today drew a positive balance on the 2016 financial year. Speaking to the company’s shareholders at the Grugahalle in Essen, Germany, Schäfer said that “Uniper is on a good course. We achieved all of our financial targets for 2016 and implemented numerous measures to enhance Uniper’s competitiveness, just as we said we would. We intend to maintain this approach and to continue to do everything we can to remain a reliable and successful energy company.”
Uniper achieved its earnings targets for the 2016 financial year. Adjusted EBITDA of €2.1 billion (2015: €1.7 billion) was at the upper end of the guidance range. Adjusted EBIT, which has been Uniper’s key metric for operating earnings since the start of 2017, improved by €0.6 billion to €1.4 billion (2015: €0.8 billion). Uniper strengthened its balance sheet in 2016 by reducing its economic net debt by €2.5 billion. So that shareholders benefit from this solid operating performance, management will propose to the Annual Shareholders Meeting that the company pay a dividend of €0.55 per share for the 2016 financial year.
Uniper share, which began trading at €10.015 at its listing on September 12, 2016, closed yesterday at €17.88, a more than 75-percent increase.
Good start to the 2017 financial year
In the first quarter of current financial year Uniper has continued the solid course in its operational business. Factoring out substantial nonrecurring items recorded in 2016, Uniper’s first-quarter operating earnings of €514 million were roughly at the prior-year level. Net income attributable to shareholder of Uniper SE totaled €733 million compared with €652 million in the prior-year period. Uniper continues to expect its adjusted EBIT for the 2017 financial year to be between €0.9 and €1.2 billion. The company foresees to increase its proposed dividend for the 2017 financial year by 15 percent relative to the prior year.
Elections for the Supervisory Board
The agenda at today’s Annual Shareholders Meeting includes holding elections for the Supervisory Board. With the exception of Dr. Johannes Teyssen, who is no longer standing as a candidate, all of the current shareholder representatives on the Supervisory Board (Dr. Bernhard Reutersberg, Jean-Francois Cirelli, Dr. Marion Helmes, Rebecca Ranich, and Dr. Marc Spieker) have all been proposed for election. David Charles Davies has been proposed as a new member. Three shareholder representatives from E.ON (Karl-Heinz Feldmann, Michael Sen, and Dr. Verena Volpert) ended their service on the Supervisory Board at year-end 2016 in conjunction with Uniper’s deconsolidation from E.ON. Among the employee representatives, Andreas Scheidt will end his service on the Supervisory Board and be replaced by Immo Schlepper.
First Sustainability Report published
Uniper today published its first Sustainability Report, which documents how the company addresses the environmental and social challenges of its business operations and how it helps solve these challenges. The report is available on the internet at cr.uniper.energy.
Uniper is a leading international energy company with operations in more than 40 countries and around 13,000 employees. Uniper’s business is to provide a reliable supply of energy and related services. Its main operations include power generation in Europe and Russia and global energy trading. Its headquarters are in Düsseldorf, Germany.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Uniper SE management and other information currently available to Uniper. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. Uniper SE does not intend, and does not assume any liability whatsoever, to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.
