Business News
schlott gruppe continues stock buyback
Monday 03. March 2008 - Continuation of share repurchase programme originally initiated at end of 2007 Share price fails to reflect overall prospects of schlott gruppe
Based on the authorisation granted by the General Meeting of Shareholders on March 13, 2007, the Management Board of schlott gruppe AG had passed a resolution for the repurchase of up to 620,420 company shares effective from November 12, 2007. In view of this year’s Annual General Meeting of Shareholders on February 26, 2008, the repurchase of company shares had subsequently been suspended – as communicated in an ad hoc announcement of January 11, 2008 – between January 14 and February 27, 2008. By January 11, 2008 inclusive, the company had repurchased 54,358 shares.
Today, based on the new authorisation granted by the General Meeting of Shareholders on February 26, 2008, the Management Board passed a resolution for the continuation of its share repurchase programme with effect from March 3, 2008 until the end of 2007/8 financial year on September 30, 2008, and the repurchase of up to 566,062 additional treasury shares.
The reacquisition is to be executed via the stock exchange; the consideration per share (excluding ancillary costs of purchase) may not exceed or fall below 10% of the mean value of opening prices (opening auction price of schlott gruppe shares in XETRA trading) on the final three days of trading prior to entering into a purchase obligation. Pursuant to the authorisation granted by the 2008 General Meeting of Shareholders, the reacquired shares may subsequently be disposed of, recalled or utilised for the purpose of servicing warrants and convertible bonds. The company hereby advises that no such warrants and/or convertible bonds are currently in place. Furthermore, at present there are no plans to dispose of or recall the reacquired shares.
The reacquisition will continue to be managed by DZ BANK; for this purpose the company has entered into a contract of engagement with DZ BANK. Under the contract of engagement DZ BANK is obliged to execute the reacquisition solely on the basis of the provisions set out in the resolution passed by the General Meeting of Shareholders of March 13, 2007, and the resolution passed by the General Meeting of Shareholders of February 26, 2008, while complying with the full range of restrictions concerning the buyback of shares, as set out in Commission Regulation (EC) No. 2273/2003 of December 22, 2003 (“EC-CR”), observing all other applicable regulations and executing the reacquisition in a manner that is efficient and in the interests of the company.
In accordance with Sections 14 (2) and 20a (3) of the Securities Trading Act (Wertpapierhandelsgesetz – WpHG) in conjunction with Art. 4 paragraphs 3 and 4 of the above-mentioned EC-CR, the company will furnish regular reports on all executed transactions on its corporate website (http://www.schlottgruppe.de), in addition to publishing the information required under the aforementioned EC-CR according to applicable regulations.