• Annual General Meeting to take place on 4 May 2018 in Basel
• Albert M. Baehny proposed as new Chairperson of the Board of Directors
• Angelica Kohlmann and Olivier Verscheure proposed as new members of the Board of Directors
• Stable dividend of CHF 2.75 per share proposed
• New online Annual Report published
Basel, Switzerland, 22 March 2018 – Lonza today announced that it has published its Online Annual Report 2017 and its invitation to the Annual General Meeting 2018, which will take place on Friday, 4 May 2018, at 10:00 a.m. CEST, at the Congress Center Messe Basel, Messeplatz 21, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Annual General Meeting
The Annual General Meeting (AGM) invitation can be accessed on Lonza's website by clicking on “Annual General Meeting” on the following webpage: www.lonza.com/about-lonza/investor-relations/investor-information
The Board of Directors proposes the election of Albert M. Baehny, currently Vice Chairperson of the Board, as Chairperson of the Board of Directors. Rolf Soiron (Chairperson), as announced a year ago, and Jean-Daniel Gerber (Chair of the Nominations and Compensation Committee) have decided not to stand for re-election at the AGM 2018. The Board would like to thank them for their contributions during their years of service.
The Board of Directors is proposing to Lonza's AGM the election of two new Board members, Angelica Kohlmann and Olivier Verscheure.
Angelica Kohlmann is a German-Brazilian entrepreneur, investor and medical doctor. Her broad experience of more than 25 years in the fields of pharmaceuticals and biotech, tech and big data, management and international business – including the launch of several companies – will be valuable to Lonza.
Angelica Kohlmann is Chairperson and CEO of the family-holding Kohlmann & Co AG, serves on several boards and is Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Global Peter Drucker Forum, Vienna (AT). She holds an MD and a Doctoral degree from Hamburg University (DE).
In May 2016 Olivier Verscheure became the Executive Director of the Swiss Data Science Center, a national R&D center hosted by both the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne (CH) and the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich (CH).
Together with his prior professional career at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York and the IBM Research Lab in Ireland, he brings to Lonza extensive insights into the rapidly changing digital world and its latest developments. Olivier Verscheure received his Ph.D. degree in computer science from EPFL in 1999.
The Board is further proposing to the AGM the re-election of all other Board members. Further motions include the election of the Nominations and Compensation Committee and the approval of the compensation of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee.
Lonza's Board of Directors is proposing a stable dividend for shareholders of CHF 2.75 per share for 2017, despite a 40.7% increase in share capital. Subject to approval at the Annual General Meeting, the dividend of CHF 2.75 per share for 2017 will be paid out of the reserve capital contribution and will be free from Swiss withholding tax.
All details on the motions can be found in the invitation to the Annual General Meeting 2018.
Online Annual Report
Last year Lonza switched from a printed to an Online Annual Report. The online report and the downloadable PDF can be accessed through the following website: http://annualreport.lonza.com/2017
The online report is separated into five sections: Company Overview, Segments, Financial Overview including financial statements and notes, Remuneration Report and Corporate Governance Report.
By eliminating the formal printing of thousands of reports, Lonza aims to reduce its impact on the environment. The switch to online and PDF versions also saves money required for printing and mailing.