Business News
Bonus share and share participation program: Axel Springer turns employees into shareholders
Thursday 23. April 2009 - Recognition of employees performance for record result in 2008
The Management Board of Axel Springer AG has decided to implement a bonus share and share participation program. This will give the employees an opportunity to participate more strongly in corporate development.
“The Management Board has wanted to turn our employees into shareholders for a long time, and thereby to strengthen their entrepreneurial connection with Axel Springer in the future”, said CEO Dr. Mathias Döpfner at the Annual Shareholders Meeting of Axel Springer AG today. “Through the bonus share program and the share participation program we can in addition to the profit sharing allow employees to participate directly in the companys success and its future value increase. Thereby we would like to thank them once again for the record year 2008 which brought the best result in the companys history.”
Both the bonus share program and the share participation program are voluntary and will be offered once. A maximum of approximately 8,000 employees belong to the group of those authorized to participate. All of the shares issued within the framework of the two programs are made available from the assets of Axel Springer AG.
The bonus share program offers all employees of the Axel Springer AG and domestic wholly-owned subsidiaries, who have been employed without interruption since May 1, 2008 by the Axel Springer AG or a wholly-owned subsidiary (if the subsidiary has also been a wholly-owned subsidiary without interruption since May 1, 2008), the option of receiving four bonus shares.
In the share participation program, all employees who had target agreements for the year 2008 and concluded their probation by May 1, 2009, may transform either 100 percent or 50 percent of their individual bonus into shares once and then receive an additional allowance from the company of 30 percent (for a 100 percent transfer) or 15 percent (for a 50 percent transfer) on the bonus transferred.
The holding period for the shares from the bonus share program is one year ending May 31, 2010 and for the share participation program two years ending May 31, 2011.