Business News
Decisions of the Annual General Meeting of Metso Corporation
Wednesday 01. April 2009 - The Annual General Meeting of Metso Corporation approved today the accounts for 2008 as presented by the Board of Directors and decided to discharge the members of the Board of Directors and the President and CEO of Metso Corporation from liability for the financial year 2008.
In addition, the Annual General Meeting approved the proposals of the Board of Directors to authorize the Board of Directors to resolve of a repurchase of the Corporation’s own shares, the issuance of shares and the granting of special rights.
The Annual General Meeting decided that a dividend of EUR 0.70 per share will be paid for the financial year which ended on December 31, 2008. The dividend will be paid to shareholders who have been entered as shareholders in the Corporation’s shareholder register maintained by the Finnish Central Securities Depository Ltd. by the dividend record date, April 3, 2009. The dividend will be paid on April 15, 2009.
In addition, the Annual General Meeting authorized the Board of Directors to decide, at its discretion and when the economic situation of the Company favors it, on the payment of a dividend of no more than EUR 0.68 per share in addition to the above mentioned dividend.
Jukka Viinanen was elected Chairman of the Board and Jaakko Rauramo was elected Vice Chairman of the Board. Pia Rudengren was elected a new member of the Board. The Board members re-elected were Maija-Liisa Friman, Christer Gardell, Arto Honkaniemi and Yrjö Neuvo. The term of office of Board members lasts until the end of the next Annual General Meeting.
The Annual General Meeting decided that the annual remunerations for Board members be EUR 92,000 for the Chairman, EUR 56,000 for the Vice Chairman and EUR 45,000 for the members and that the meeting fee including committee meetings be EUR 600 for each meeting they attend.
The auditing company, Authorized Public Accountant PricewaterhouseCoopers Oy was re-elected to act as an Auditor of the Corporation until the end of the next Annual General Meeting.
The Annual General Meeting decided to establish a Nomination Committee of the Annual General Meeting to prepare proposals for the following Annual General Meeting regarding the composition of the Board of Directors and director remuneration. Representatives of the four biggest shareholders are elected to the Nomination Committee; the Committee additionally comprises as expert members the Chairman of the Board of Directors as well as one member who is appointed by the Board of Directors from among its members who is independent of significant shareholders.
The minutes of the Annual General Meeting will be available on Metsos website at www.metso.com as of April 14, 2009.