Annual General Meeting endorses KTG Agrar’s growth strategy
First-ever dividend to be paid for FY 2009
Hamburg, 29 June 2009 – “KTG Agrar is on a profitable growth course,” CEO Siegfried Hofreiter reported to the Annual General Meeting of KTG Agrar, one of Europe’s leading agricultural producers. The Managing Board informed the approximately 80 AGM attendants in Hamburg about the company’s successful performance in the year 2008 which saw total output rise by 52.2 percent, with net profit for the year even advancing by 170.6 percent. The outlook presented by management was equally positive - all key figures and ratios are to be improved further despite the ongoing crisis in the economy. KTG Agrar consequently plans to pay its first-ever dividend for the year 2009. Siegfried Hofreiter said: “By doing so we want to document the sustainability of our business model.”
Shareholders commented favourably on the company’s development and the announcement of the planned dividend payment. Subsequently all items on the agenda were approved by a large majority. In addition, the shareholders authorised the Managing Board to issue option bonds and convertible bonds and to create conditional and authorised capital. Wolfgang Bläsi, the company’s CFO, said: “We attach top priority to profitable growth and we need maximum flexibility to attain this goal.“
KTG Agrar will stick to its successful strategy. This means that the company will continue to focus on its three core competencies - growing organic and conventional produce and producing biogas, with additional farmland and farms to be acquired or leased particularly in eastern Germany and Lithuania. Says Siegfried Hofreiter: “Our expansion will continue. We can draw on the required financial strength and market potential.” Some 29,000 hectares of farmland make KTG Agrar a leading European producer of agricultural commodities already today. The company’s biogas production is to be expanded as well, with capacities planned to be doubled by 2010.
The detailed AGM voting results can be viewed in the 'Investor Relations/AGM' section of www.ktg.ag.