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Wacker’s Supervisory Board has unanimously elected Peter-Alexander Wacker as its Chair at its constituent session, held directly after the 2023 Annual Shareholders’ Meeting.
Christian Hartel, CEO of Munich-based chemical company Wacker, outlined the extremely successful business performance of the past year in his speech to around 500 shareholders at Munich’s International Congress Center. “2022 was, by far, the best year in Wacker’s history – despite war and crises, despite all the uncertainties and imponderables,” he emphasised. Overall, in 2022, Wacker had increased Group sales by 32% yr-on-yr to €8.21bn and posted net income of €1.28bn – an increase of 55%.
Wacker’s payout for the past year is, therefore, the highest in its history. The Annual Shareholders’ Meeting approved the dividend of €12.00 per share, as proposed by the Executive and Supervisory Boards. Based on the number of shares entitled to dividends as of December 31, 2022, the cash dividend corresponds to a payout of €596M. As set out in the Munich-based chemical group’s dividend policy, this amounts to around 50% of the net income for the year. Calculated in relation to Wacker’s average share price in 2022, the dividend yield is 8.6%.
The Executive and Supervisory Boards’ other proposals were also adopted by large majorities.
Wacker remains optimistic for the current year, despite the considerable economic headwinds. “For 2023 as a whole, we expect sales in the range of €7bn to €7.5bn,” Hartel said, reaffirming the forecast published in March. According to the CEO, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) are likely to come in between €1.1. and €1.4bn.
Patrick Cramer is a new member of the Supervisory Board. He succeeds Franz-Josef Kortüm, a long-standing member of the Supervisory Board who stepped down at the end of the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting for reasons of age. Cramer has a doctorate in biochemistry and is a former professor and dean at Ludwig-Maxi- milians-Universität in Munich. He currently works as director of the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen.
Cramer will take up his new assignment as President of the Max Planck Society in Munich at the end of June.
