2023-04-28 13:57:31
Iberdrola’s shareholders have massively supported the re-election of Ignacio Galan as president of the group for a period of four years. All the items on the agenda have received a 98% upvote on average, with a participation quorum close to 72%.
During his speech at the Meeting, the Chairman of Iberdrola, Ignacio Galán, wanted to highlight that Iberdrola is a company that combines leadership with a contribution of value to society. “The strategy that we have been executing over two decades has allowed us to reach investment records, financial strength, international expansion and results, as well as social contribution, employment and emission reduction. For this reason, the Iberdrola that we are presenting to you today is a company that is more solid, sustainable and diversified than ever”, stated Galán.
Since the arrival of Ignacio Galán in 2001, the action has gone from 3.5 euros to around 12 euros per share. To this revaluation the 6.5 euros per share distributed as dividends are added. With this, a shareholder who has reinvested his dividends over these twenty years, as most of the capital does, will have seen multiplied your investment by 8 times.
Iberdrola introduces itself today as the first electricity company in Europe and the second largest in the world by capitalization -with more than 76,000 million euros-, which means multiplying its size by seven since 2001. Two decades ago, it was barely the twentieth energy company worldwide.
This good stock market performance is backed by a visionary business strategyfocused on clean energy, to which has allocated more than 140,000 million euros of investment in the last two decades. Iberdrola is located at vanguard of the energy transition in the world, with some assets of more than 150,000 million of euros, one renewable capacity exceeding 40,000 MW and more than 1,200,000 km of networks around the world.
Galán highlighted that the Group’s resilient and diversified model places it in the best position to face the current economic context: 75% of its debt is at a fixed rate (87% excluding Brazil), with an average life of 6 years and has a liquidity of 21,000 million eurosenough for his financial needs of almost two years.
In addition, he has underlined that the alliances signed with top-level global partners, such as the sovereign wealth funds of Norway (Norges Bank) and Singapore (GIC), which join the one sealed more than 10 years ago with the Qatar Investment Authority, show that The most important investors in the world are betting on the Iberdrola model to make joint investments.
The Chairman of Iberdrola also wanted to give a message for the future: “We are at a historic stage. We have a human team with the necessary experience and talentand with the technology and financial resources to continue successfully carrying out this great energy revolution”.
Thus, it has pledged to continue leading the energy transition. The strategic plan presented last November has taken a giant leap in just a few months, with 60% of the generation capacity already installed or under construction and close to 100% of the investments in networks covered by agreed frameworks or under negotiation. The roadmap for alliances and asset rotation, for a total of 7,500 million euros, has been fully complied with, which will allow accelerate the record investment commitment of 47,000 million euros in the period 2023-2025.
With this investment plan, the company anticipates that the net profit exceeds 5,000 million euros in 2025which will make it possible to continue increasing the dividend in line with the growth in results and, at the same time, improving the already powerful financial strength.
Galán wanted to emphasize that Iberdrola’s strategy for the coming years will continue to generate value for everyone: shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers and the companies in the countries in which we are present.
Currently, Iberdrola has more than 40,000 professionals of 89 nationalitieswho will continue to be joined by thousands of more women and men in the coming years, as stated by the Chairman of Iberdrola: “By 2025 we foresee making 12,000 new contracts and continue making our workforce a benchmark in equality, diversity and inclusion. Our purchases from suppliers will reach 50,000 million euros in these three years, will create even more employment opportunities in our thousands of suppliers and will generate billions in tax contributions that will be added to the more than 20,000 million euros that we expect to contribute to the public coffers”.
In addition, the company is the engine of the industrial and business fabric of the regions in which it is present, thanks to purchases that it expects will exceed 50,000 million euros in three years from thousands of suppliers that employ 400,000 people.
In the environmental field, the company, whose emissions are already 75% lower than those of its counterparts, estimates by 2030 to reach zero net emissions for generation plants and have a net or positive impact on biodiversity.
Additionally, the company allocated a total of 20 million euros to its Foundations around the world, to continue promoting their actions in the areas of training and research, the fight against climate change, art, culture and social action.
Shareholder remuneration
In this context, the Shareholders’ Meeting -at the proposal of its Board- has approved a total remuneration of 0.49 euros per share, 10% higher to the one distributed a year earlier. In addition, the General Shareholders’ Meeting has approved a new program for the repurchase of treasury shares in order to reduce the share capital. The objective is to fulfill the group’s commitment to keep the number of shares in circulation stable at 6,240 million shares.
The Meeting has also approved the participation dividend, which consists of the payment of 0.5 euro cents per share -1 euro for every 200 shares- to shareholders entitled to attend the General Meeting for having reached the attendance quorum greater than 70% of the share capital.
Composition of the Council
Shareholders have also massively supported the proposals related to the re-election of Ignacio Galán and Armando Martínez as executive directors, of María Helena Antolín as external director and of Manuel Moreu, Sara de la Rica and Xabier Sagredo as independent directors.
In this way, the company consolidates the high level of member independence of its Board of Directors, as well as its diversity, at all levels. The wide age range, experience and origin of the directors, with six nationalities present on the governing body, reflect the firm commitment to diversity of the company.
With this composition, Iberdrola has a balanced presence of women and men on the Board of Directors. In fact, the company has anticipated the current requirements, continuously meeting, since 2021, the objective of having 40% female directors.
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