Fast-growing position in the silicon carbide market. All these achievements contributed to strong value creation for our company and our stakeholders. Since Benjamin took over as CEO, and you can blush if you like, Benjamin, because I'm not done yet, the total shareholder return amounted to close to 500%, or almost 60%, annualized, placing ASM among the top performers in the sector. During this period, ASM's market cap increased from EUR 5 billion to roughly EUR 30 billion, actually, north of EUR 30 billion today. We are very, very happy that Benjamin agreed to stay on in an advisory role for the next few months to make sure that there will be a smooth transition with his successor.
On behalf Supervisory Board, i'd like to thank you again, Benjamin, and congratulate you with your outstanding achievements over the last few years, and we wish you all the best for the future and with your next steps. Which brings me to Hichem M'Saad, whom we believe to be the ideal successor of Benjamin. Hichem has been with ASM since 2015 and part of the Management Board since 2022. Supervisory Board, we've gotten to know Hichem quite well over the last few years as a strong leader with a very clear vision for the future of the company. Hichem has been a driving force behind many successful products and innovations at ASM, and he's built a very strong track record in innovation and also in former executive roles in the semiconductor industry.
After this AGM, he will be ASM's new CEO and chairman of the Management Board. On behalf Supervisory Board, i wish him all the best in his new role, and Hichem, we can't wait to see where you will be taking this company next. Lastly, we have already said goodbye and will formally say goodbye to our colleague Monica de Virgiliis this year, whose term is expiring after this AGM, and unfortunately, she was not able to be present today due to other commitments, but she sends her very best wishes and apologies. We have flowers for all of you, and I'll give you these flowers once the meeting is over, so please don't leave without them. As part of the agenda, we propose to nominate two Supervisory Board members.
You'll find them here, seated in the front rows: Tania Micki and Martin van Pernis, both present. I will certainly introduce them a little further, but I will do so later when we get to agenda item number 6. Nou, na de eerste inleiding.
Right. After these first introductions and lovely words for our colleagues, I will now continue in Dutch, and I would like to welcome you all again. Next to me at the table, just to be sure so you know, to the extent that you had not seen it, noticed it, and those of you who are joining us on the webcast, we have Benjamin Loh, CEO. Next to him, we have Paul Verhagen, our CFO. Next to him, Hichem M'Saad, CTO, and after this meeting, CEO. We have also Esther Koons, the company secretary. Behind me, we Supervisory Board members, didier Lamouche, Chair of the Nomination, Selection, and Remuneration Committee, also Stefanie Kahle-Galenske, Chair of Audit Committee, marc de Jong, and Adalio Sanchez. My name is Pauline van der Meer Mohr, Chairman of the Supervisory Board.
As you can see, all members of the Executive Board are present today, as are all members Supervisory Board, with the exception of Monica, as mentioned earlier. Also, we have Mr. Michel van Agt, notary public at Loyens & Loeff, and Michel will take the minutes of the meeting, and I'd like to thank you in advance for that. On top of that, also present is our accountant, Mr. Frederik Croiset van Uchelen of KPMG. He's there on the first row, and he will explain later on how KPMG conducted its audit. And finally, we have Marjan Molenaar of Ernst & Young, present, EY, and we will propose to appoint EY as auditors for the fiscal year 2025 under item 7 on the agenda. Then, before we start, some announcements. You know this. Just like last year, this General Meeting is a physical one.
The emergency law that was in place during COVID expired last year, so, having a hybrid meeting with remote voting is not possible anymore for ASM, as this possibility is not provided for in our articles of association. All shareholders had the opportunity to cast a vote and a voting proxy. In addition, a live webcast in English and in Dutch of the entire meeting is available to those shareholders who are connected via the company's website. And you were able to register. For this, as indicated in the convocation of this meeting, no picture or sound recording is allowed during this meeting except by the professional photographer we have allowed today. And, we'd also like to remind you to turn off your cell phone or mute it. Then, when it comes to questions related to the agenda, the following.
As indicated in the convocation, registered shareholders had until 2:00 P.M. last Monday, May 6th, to submit questions in writing via the email address agm@asm.com. I can inform you that this was used once, and we have therefore prepared for these questions. Furthermore, those present in the room can ask questions at the times that will be indicated during the meeting. The staff member will walk around with a microphone, and if you have a question, you can raise your hand. We will group some agenda items so that you can ask questions for each block of the relevant agenda items. And, you know, this is to speed things up, not to be here at night, and the vote on the relevant block will also take place at one time.
So if you ask the floor, I'd like to ask you to begin by stating your name and who, if any, you are representing. And in doing so, I ask that you not ask more than one question in one round if there is sufficient time. Obviously, I will give the opportunity for a second and possibly a third round of questions. Questions may be asked in either Dutch or English. And, those of you who appreciate it, you were able to obtain headphones at the entrance, so as to hear simultaneous translation from English to Dutch and vice versa during the meeting. Questions and answers asked during the meeting will be included in the minutes of this meeting. And these meeting minutes will be posted as drafts on ASM's website within three months, and shareholders will then have three months to respond.
I would also like to inform you about voting. There are two ways to cast your vote. Those entitled to vote at this meeting can cast their vote using a voting device, with a voting card, and you received it at the registration desk, I hope. When you place the voting card with the gold chip into the keypad and your name appears on the screen, you are ready to vote. If at any time you have trouble casting your vote, please raise your hand so that you may receive assistance in resolving the problem. The device and the voting card must be returned or turned in at the exit of the room when you finally exit, not when you temporarily leave the room. Once I open the vote, you will have the opportunity to vote. The choices are one, two, or three.
Choice one represents four, two is against, and three is abstention. You can change your vote until I close the vote and your last choice made counts. You have also been able to vote by proxy. If you have done that, then you have already given your vote and instructions to Mr. Michel van Agt, notary. Mr. van Agt will ensure that the voting instructions are carried out. Then, for US proxies issued by New York registry shareholders, the voting instructions will also be carried out lawfully. As I have explained to you, we will work with some vote or voting blocks. You can ask the questions about the relevant voting block in advance, and after that, votes will be taken on the agenda items in that respective voting block. The voting blocks are divided as follows.
The first voting block is items 3 and 4, so the annual statement with the Remuneration Report, the adoption of the dividend proposal, discharge of members of executive and Supervisory Board. the second voting block is item 5 and 6, Supervisory Board remuneration proposal to amend the remuneration Supervisory Board members and the proposal to amend the remuneration of the members Supervisory Board and its committees. Item 6, composition Supervisory Board with reappointment of Didier Lamouche and the appointment of Tania Micki and Martin van Pernis. Then the third voting block, which is items 7 to 11. Item 7 is the appointment of the auditor for fiscal year 2025.
Then, Board of Management as the authorized body to issue common shares and grant rights to subscribe for ordinary shares and limit or exclude preemptive rights. And item nine, then Board of Management to repurchase ordinary shares in ASM. Item ten, proposal to withdraw or cancel all ordinary shares held by ASM. And then, item eleven is a proposal to amend the articles of association. That's block three. Now, during each voting block, votes may be cast on all resolutions or voting items, and at the end of each of the such blocks, I will show you the voting results. And for the sake of clarity, at the end of the meeting, I will show you the voting results for all items on the agenda.
The results of the items which will be voted on will also be posted on the company's website within 15 days. All documents for the meeting were posted on the company's website on March 26th. The convocation or the notice that was issued the same day also stated that the full agenda with explanatory notes, the 2023 Annual Report including Remuneration Report, and all other appendices were available for inspection at the company's offices and at ABN AMRO Bank N.V. in Amsterdam. The U.S. proxy card, attendance card, and U.S. notice card were also posted and sent on the website. For the sake of completeness, I also report that the record date is April 15th, 2024. The total number of issued shares on the re-record date, April 15th, was 49,428,548. There were 213,931 shares in treasury on that date, and thus 49,214,617 shares could be voted on.
After item two, Michel, the notary, will communicate to me the final number of shares that have been registered and that have voting rights in this meeting. On this basis, I note and conclude that the shareholders have been correctly convened according to the articles of association and legal provisions, and that therefore resolutions can be validly passed in this meeting. Before we start with the report on the financial year 2023, we would like to provide a substantive update on a number of remuneration issues with respect to the Executive Board. We had a dialogue with various stakeholders, including a number of shareholders, regarding item five, the adjustment of remuneration policy for the Supervisory Board.
During these discussions, several stakeholders asked more information on also on Hichem M'Saad's remuneration after appointment as CEO and also on Benjamin Loh's severance scheme and the non-financial targets applicable to the Executive Board for fiscal year 2024. Of course, all these issues will come back next year in the Remuneration Report 2024, but we promised and we understand the questions and therefore promised to address these issues in part as part of this AGM. I would therefore like to give the floor to Didier Lamouche, chair of our Nomination Selection and Remuneration Committee, to comment on these three issues. So Didier, go ahead.
Dear Mrs. Chair, dear Pauline, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, as the chairwoman said, I will provide you first with some details regarding the remuneration of the exiting CEO, Mr. Benjamin Loh.
In a second step, we have an overview of the remuneration aspects and details of the newly appointed CEO, Mr. Hichem M'Saad. And finally, as Pauline said, at the request of many of our shareholders, which we meet at least regularly, at least once a year, to provide more transparency on the Supervisory Board sets the short-term target for the Management Board, we will then disclose the non-financial targets for the manage for the Management Board, sorry, short-term cash incentive scheme as applicable going forward in 2024. This explanation, again, has been promised before to some of our investors as outcome of the engagement sessions held in February this year. But at that point, ASM's performance target setting process was not completed yet. That's why we give those details today. On the first slide, which is showing up behind me, I don't know who's, thank you.
First of all, let's cover the remuneration aspects related to the departure of Benjamin Loh as former CEO. Given his departure there, there will be, of course, no salary increase nor long-term incentive grants awarded for 2024. As far as the short-term incentive is concerned, Benjamin will receive a prorated short-term incentive at target level for the period that he has served as CEO in 2024, meaning from January 1st until today. Furthermore, Benjamin will be eligible at the date of his exit, which is actually today, for an accelerated vesting of the two outstanding long-term incentive grants which he received in 2022 and 2023. For avoidance of doubts, we can also confirm, and that was a question that we received also, that there is no severance in any form paid to Benjamin. Lastly, and as previously already communicated, we can confirm that Mr.
Loh has accepted to stay, and we thank him for that, to stay on for 3 months, but obviously no longer as a member of the Management Board, to support a smooth CEO transition. Again, I renew on behalf of the board all our thanks for his help, as well, again, as his remarkable contribution since 2020. We can go now to slide number 2. Thank you. Let me now elaborate on the compensation package of the new incoming CEO, Mr. M'Saad, as applicable as of today. The proposed compensation has been set in full compliance with the remuneration policy which has been approved at the AGM on May 15th last year. It has also been set taking into consideration the expertise, the experience, the contribution of the new CEO, as well as a thorough competitive benchmarking which has been conducted by a third-party external consultant.
The fixed annual gross salary for Mr. M'Saad will be EUR 710,000 per year. The short-term incentive at target is 100% of the annual base, and the LTI, the long-term incentive at target, remains unchanged vis-à-vis his current remuneration. That is to say, at 450% of his annual base, which, as you know, is reflective of the U.S. market practice, given the fact that Hichem's previous employment background is in the U.S. Hichem will relocate to the Netherlands during the summer period, and some typical international mobility benefits will be applicable, all in line with our Management Board remuneration policy. Last but not least, next one, please.
I would like, at the request of many of our shareholders, I would like to spend some time also on explaining the non-financial targets for the Management Board 2024 going forward as far as the short-term incentive is concerned. As you can see on the slide, and I'm not going to cover all the details of those, as you can see on the slides, this is a mix of mainly ESG-related targets such as the continuation of our Net Zero 2025 pathway, as well as a series of people-related targets in the domain of leadership development, culture, engagement, as well as organizational design. Also, as you know, this year is a specific year in terms of ESG. The preparation of the European CSRD reporting and disclosure is one of the targets which is extremely important this year. And another target also is the safety performance recorded across the company.
Lastly, a company-specific target, strategic target, I should say, the implementation of a new ERP software, namely SAP S/4HANA, has been added to the STI target for 2024. And you see on the slide behind me the weight, the respective weight of each of those targets. And with that, I give you back the mic. Pauline.
Thank you. Well, thank you, Didier. Well, this was the introduction, and this is not for further discussion now. But since we've received a lot of questions about this in a couple of months of this year that we've behind us, we thought that it was good to already share it with you. Now I would like to continue with the agenda and with the first substantive agenda item. The first substantive agenda item concerns the report for the fiscal year 2023.
This is an item for discussion, and it consists of agenda items 2A and 2B, so two parts. We will start with 2A. This is the report on Board of Management will that report on the year, but there will also be an explanation Board of Management will do so, i, as Chair Supervisory Board, i would like to make some comments about the last fiscal year. 2023 was another year to be proud of for ASM. It was a difficult year in the semiconductor market where we saw several of our customers put investments on hold. Nevertheless, as in previous years, ASM was able to grow its sales, and its performance outperformed the market. We focused on strengthening ASM in 2023, also in view of its medium and long-term growth plans.
supervisory board and Board of Management often discussed changes and opportunities in the areas of customers, products, technologies, and talent attraction and retention. In a quieter market like 2023, it was important to improve the supply chain and find a good balance between working capital and inventories, also given the scarcity of some materials. This was therefore a recurring theme in our executive Board of Management. the supervisory board was also involved in various investments from R&D to the two large-scale expansions in Korea and Arizona that ASM announced last year. We discussed current geopolitical tensions and increasingly stringent export control restrictions from the U.S. Regulatory changes and other developments in ESG and sustainability were also regularly discussed at meetings of Audit Committee supervisory board as a whole. We also went into sustainability innovations.
These are important because ASM is highly dependent on its customers and value chain to be able to reduce its Scope 3 emissions. Moreover, we paid a lot of attention to diversity and inclusion with new higher targets in terms of a more balanced distribution of men and women, the organization, and the culture of ASM. This also includes talent management and attracting good talent, but also retaining talent, retention, development, and advancement of these employees. As members Supervisory Board, we also met various talents. This allowed us to hear what is going on and how they see ASM. In Supervisory Board looks back on a very successful and satisfying year for which we express Board of Management, the executive committee, and of course to all of the ASM colleagues.
Now I would like to give the floor to Benjamin Loh, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO. After this, Paul Verhagen, CFO Board of Management, will say something about the company's ESG policy. Benjamin, please.
Good afternoon to everybody. I just want to start off by acknowledging Pauline for her very kind introduction at the beginning. Thank you very much, Pauline. I will give a report on what we have done in 2023 and also try to give you an outlook of 2024 and beyond. How do I control this? Yeah. So just the cautionary statement. We can move on to the next slide. So my report will be broken up into six parts. There's a couple of key messages that I would like to share with you.
Then we look into a little bit of details on 2023, and then we proceed to, okay, what does the outlook for 2024 look like? And then we will expand on what we are doing in terms of ESG. And a very important topic for us is, of course, the people topic that will be following the ESG. And finally, a little bit longer term on what the midterm brings for ASM. In 2023, just to repeat what Pauline has mentioned, I think it was still another successful year for us. It was not an easy year. It was a difficult year. We grew 13% at constant currency, but quite a number of our peers actually recorded negative growth simply because the industry was going through an inventory correction and investments were held back. But I think we managed to excel and outperform the market by growing 13%.
We also have continued to invest and increase our headcount by about 7%. This was necessary in a difficult year because we know that subsequent years we are going to expect significant growth, and we need to be prepared for that. Similarly, we continue with our people transformation strategy along four pillars, which I will share with you later on. I think at the heart of ASM, people is what really matters. Talent is what really matters. We need to continue to build on that. Sustainability, one of the things that we are especially proud of is that last year we had our Net Zero 2035 targets validated or verified by the SBTi. We were actually the first in the industry to have done that. So right now, starting from this year, it's execution. We are putting all the plans together.
One big opportunity for us going forward, of course, is the inflection from the FinFET transistor architecture into Gate-All-Around transistor architecture. That is going to present significant benefits, especially for the type of equipment that we produce. And we do expect that the transition to a Gate-All-Around, this is going to last, again, just like the FinFET transition for the next 10-12 years. So there's a lot of opportunities in front for us. AI is now pretty much a big buzzword. I think all of us hearing about it, to some extent, also impacted by it. We are very actually enthusiastic about this. I think we are very well positioned for some of the AI applications that will come as our customers start to manufacture more and more AI-related semiconductor components.
We look at how we are going to make sure that we have enough capacity all the way until our midterm target of 2027. So we have already taken that into consideration. And I will share with you some of the expansion investments that we have done. But as of today, we are quite confident that we have enough capacity to make sure that we can deliver on the high end of our 2027 midterm target. Next. So maybe let's dive into 2023. So 2023, again, was a tough year for the semiconductor industry after very significant growth in 2022. I think when you look at semiconductor chip sales, it was probably down by more than 10%. If you look at the market that we play in, which is wafer fab equipment, it was kind of flat, maybe a slight negative, but we think it's more flat than negative.
Against that, basically what we were seeing is that there was a slowdown in leading-edge logic and foundry investments. Memory was down, and I will show you in another chart. But this was actually compensated by the older legacy or matured note investment, which helped to prop up the overall market. One bright spot for us was the silicon carbide epitaxy business. This was an acquisition that we did of an Italian company called LPE. That's showing now a lot of good results. In fact, we probably tripled the headcount there because of the demand and the significant amount of work that we have to do. We gave a target to the market that we would significantly increase revenue to at least EUR 130 million, which we exceeded that. So we are now in a very good position also to continue growing when the market comes back.
Supply chain constraints, maybe again to repeat what Pauline has mentioned, since the end of 2021, the whole industry and actually many other industries have been constrained by the supply chain. But we are seeing things improving. Except for certain specialty materials, I think the market has by and large normalized. We are or we have during the last two years done a lot of work to make sure that when the ramp in the semiconductor industry comes again, we are prepared. So we have done a lot of work to try to mitigate any risks. Next. In 2023, we continue to invest, especially in R&D. Again, I will come back to this as a slide that we show you which are the areas that we have been investing. A big part of it is actually in our R&D infrastructure.
We had to do that because the opportunities in front of us are just huge. Customers are pulling us to do more and more. We, again, for the manufacturing or capacity part of it, we completed the expansion of our manufacturing facility in Singapore, which is basically responsible for 80%-85% of our total output. So we have now everything in place. We also kicked off an expansion in Korea, a EUR 100 million expansion, which is now under construction. That will also triple the amount of manufacturing space that we have in Korea and double the amount of R&D space that we have in Korea. That facility or that construction should be completed by sometime in the first half of 2025. We also announced we haven't started work yet, but we announced a EUR 300 million expansion in Scottsdale in the US.
That is going to be our flagship facility in North America. We are all eagerly looking forward to that. We're in the process now of working through the design, the permits, and so on. Hopefully, we'll be able to start the construction soon. That will be a major addition as far as our R&D and to some extent, pilot manufacturing capabilities are concerned. The Net Zero 2035 targets, I've just mentioned that. The thing that makes us proud is that we were the first in the industry. We wanted to make sure that we be very transparent with our targets. We are, of course, very glad that after a lot of work, this has been validated by a Science Based Targets initiative. In terms of people, we continue to build on our culture. The core values that we care, we innovate, we deliver.
We have supplemented this actually ever since 2022 with the core behaviors of accountability, collaboration, and empowerment. We have put also special focus on inclusion, equity, and diversity. I think that comes hand in hand with the values that we believe in and we are working towards increasing, for example, whether it's gender diversity or various diversity within the company. Next. So a snapshot. So 2023 was the seventh consecutive year of double-digit growth. We grew 13%. Sorry, can you click one more time? Okay. So we grew 13%. The probably negative aspect of last year's market was the drop in memory sales. I think there was a drop of probably greater than 40% in terms of investments by the customers. But nevertheless, the memory segment is a smaller part of our business.
And this was more than compensated by what we call the key growth or the significant growth in the matured logic and foundry and also legacy-type chips, which is in power, analog, etc. That more than compensated for the drop and resulting in our ability to continue growing in a pretty tough year in 2023. Next. So snapshot again, financial performance. I think here you can see revenue was at a record. Profitability, whether it's in terms of operating profit, free cash flow, they were all at what do you call it? Record levels. And due to, I would say, a better mix and especially quite some business coming in from China, I think we also achieved a very good gross margin. Next. Here maybe to share some of the new technologies that are going to help us continue to drive the business. One, of course, is metal ALD.
So just to recap, two of the biggest plays that we do are in ALD equipment and silicon epitaxy equipment. And ALD accounts for more than half of our total equipment sales. So it's a major part of our business. And we are going into metal ALD. And an opportunity is now just in front of us with the transition from copper and tungsten into moly. So we are heavily engaged with our customers. And in fact, we already have secured some initial wins. So that's going to help us over the next couple of years. Silicon epitaxy is something that if I look at where we came from, let's just say 10 years ago, we probably had a low single-digit type of market share. At the end of last year, we were above 20.
And we are on track, and we are confident that we will reach a 30% market share by the time we finish 2025. So we are making significant gains in the silicon epitaxy market. And again, this will be another key driver for us over the next couple of years. And we are winning because we have and we offer the most competitive technology that is available on the market today. Next. A little bit on the awards that we got from our customers. So as usual, with our three biggest customers, we get yearly awards. But this year actually, we will be getting the award in June, even though it's published. But for 2023, we are especially proud that with Intel, we will be getting the highest level of award, which is outstanding. We are one of only two equipment suppliers that will be getting that award.
It's primarily based on the support and the technology that has differentiated us from some of our competitors. In the same vein, we are very proud that for the first time in Asia, we have been awarded Best Company to Work For or One of the Best Companies to Work For and One of the Most Caring Companies. I think this is a testament to some of the work that we have been doing over the last four years in terms of our values of we care. I really am very proud of these HR awards that we got for Asia. Next. Just a quick snapshot. ASM has been growing over the years. So many years ago, we were number 12 on the WFE. We got to number 7 in 2022. And last year, we moved up one more notch.
So we are now the sixth biggest WFE equipment supplier in the world, which means also that we are now, to some extent, viewed as a major supplier by all the key semiconductor companies. Next. A little bit on the index return compared to the AEX and to SOX, which is a semiconductor index. I think we have done well for ourselves over the last couple of years. And here, I would like to maybe add a comment. Of course, we have done very well. Pauline was very kind to sort of say that it was because of me. It's not really just me. It's the entire team, and especially the employees of the company. Everybody has put in and contributed. This is the reason why we have this kind of results. Next. Outlook for 2024. Next. I talked about AI a little bit earlier.
This is happening all around us, whether it's large language models, whether it's generative AI. But I think we are also seeing AI being adopted, implemented with autonomous driving, others. We are also seeing edge devices starting to have AI functionality, whether it's smartphones, whether it's PCs. I think those will be coming out in the second half of this year. Now, overall, I think we are going to see AI being a significant driver of growth for the semiconductor industry. And our view is that we are still very much at the beginning. This has a long way to go and will be good for the semiconductor industry and to some extent, especially for ASM, because we play in the leading-edge type of technology. And a lot of the AI chips components are manufactured at the leading edge. Next.
Something that we showed already sometime back in September last year at our Investor Day, we are quite bullish that by 2027, all logic devices, at least 30% of them, will have some kind of AI functionality. I think this is going to help drive, again, a lot of advances and also capacity to be added as far as leading-edge logic and foundry and manufacturing of chips are concerned. Next. Something which I alluded to in the slides on 2023, Gate-All-Around or the inflection to Gate-All-Around is very important for us because this is where the most advanced technology in semiconductor is being played out. And this slide is a little bit technical, but just to give you a preview or show you what are the opportunities that are ahead of us.
There are many, many opportunities, both in ALD and in epitaxy, which are the two main products that we have. We look at the new interconnect metals. We look at selective deposition processes. We look at embedded functionality. All of these will require more ALD, more epitaxy. This is really going to help us drive the business and grow the business over the next couple of years. Next. A little bit on the general market. So if you look at 2022, 2023, 2024, I mean, the market, the WFE market, which is where we play in, was generally flat. So even for this year, consensus is that the market is generally going to be flat, maybe a little bit of growth. But the positioning is that 2024 is going to be positioned as a growth year for 2025 onwards.
And if we look at the TechInsights and the Gartner industry-specific type of forecasts, it, in fact, is showing that there will be significant growth coming in 2025 and 2026. And that's one of the reasons why we also need to be prepared for the growth. And that's one of the reasons why we continue to invest both in infrastructure and also in our people. Next. This is a slide where I try to explain to you what we are doing in terms of expansion. So if you look at Korea, we had groundbreaking in May last year. And we have started construction of a new facility, which is next to our existing facility, which will triple the amount of manufacturing space and double the amount of R&D space. Both are solely required because we are expanding very quickly in Korea. And then we look at the U.S.
We had an event to kick it off with a EUR 300 million investment. We were very fortunate that we could time this together with the visit of the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte. He attended together with the Minister, Micky Adriaansens. It was a great event for us. As I said, we are now in the process of finalizing design and permits and hope to be able to start construction soon. Japan, we actually already expanded in previous years. Last year, what we did was we made the office, we renovated the office just to improve the working environment for our employees because the office was also becoming too crowded. We had to reorganize and rearrange. Singapore, the expansion of the second manufacturing floor, which is a major preparation for us for 2025 and beyond.
Netherlands and Taiwan, what we did was we created training centers, demo centers for our equipment, both in Taiwan and also here in the Netherlands, here in Almere. And what is not shown here, with the acquisition of our, let's say, LPE business in Italy, we also renovated, expanded the demo and process lab that we had in Catania. So that is now much more, I would say, professional and presentable. And we have had a lot of customers go through there for demo work and also for process development work. So that's what we have been doing in terms of R&D and manufacturing. As we go into the rest of this year and also into next year, as and when we see that there will be additional necessity to expand, that's what we will do because organic growth, that is probably the first pillar of our capital allocation policy.
Next. A little bit on the ESG part. We do not believe in just setting targets. We want to take action. We are a firm believer in what we need to do as far as the climate environment is concerned. We have done materiality assessments with various stakeholders. With this, we have now prioritized what we need to do, which is shown on the right of this chart. Of course, we fully subscribe and follow the five SDG goals that are also listed here, which is clean energy, etc. That's what we focus our efforts on. In terms of the priorities, of course, climate is one of them. It goes beyond that.
We look at, for example, what we do as far as developing our people, as far as the supply chain is concerned, living wage, which is something that we are proud of because we already in 2021 were one of the leading advocates with the Responsible Business Alliance. Now we have a task force that is in the RBA looking at that. We are waiting for the guidelines and making sure, of course, that health and safety is a priority for all of our employees. Next. Pauline mentioned a little bit about the ESG ratings. We are actually very enthusiastic and proud of what we have achieved. I think in the CDP rating, last year, for the first time, we have achieved A-minus. We are ranked among the top, especially in our industry area. If you look at sustainability, we have improved also significantly.
We are actually 1 in our peer group and 3 in the wider industry group. Some of this, we are very proud. And it's not just the ratings. But I think it's a recognition of the efforts and the resources that we have put in to make sure that we do a good job as far as ESG is concerned. Next. Net Zero 2035 targets. As I have mentioned, we got our targets validated by SBTi last year in July. And since then, we have been putting together all the different plans that are going to help us get there. One of the things that we are, which even before the targets were validated, which we have really set for ourselves, was to get to renewable electricity 100% by end of 2024. And as of last year, we were at 88%.
We are confident that we will get there 100% by end of this year. We also launched the climate or we published our climate transition plan in March this year as a result of all the work that we needed to do. Maybe last but not least, we are building new facilities in Korea and later on in Arizona as well. Both of them are designed to gold standards as far as environmental friendliness is concerned. That's something that we will continue to do. All new infrastructure will be environmentally friendly. Next.
Supply chain, that's something that we also did quite a lot of work in 2023, whether it's getting our suppliers to do the RBA assessment so that we can understand what is the risk, getting our suppliers to disclose their, let's say, climate action according to CDP, responsible minerals, making sure that our suppliers use certified smelters and refineries. And we have been engaging strongly with our suppliers. This actually started already sometime, I would say, in 2021. We, in 2022, for the first time, gave a supplier award to suppliers that have performed well for environmental reasons. We call it the PRISM Award. 2022 was the first. 2023 was the second year. And we will continue to do that to acknowledge and recognize suppliers who do a good job in this area. Next. People.
The people transformation strategy is at the core of what we need to do over the next couple of years. I think a lot of us know that in the semiconductor industry, one of the biggest bottlenecks that will happen over the next couple of years is talent. And of course, there are various initiatives, both private, government, and a combination of private and government, that's trying to address that. But at the end of the day, I think as corporations, we also need to do our part. And we, on our part, have identified the four pillars. One, of course, is talent. How do we acquire? How do we grow our talent? We also need to focus on, as the company grows to become a EUR 4 billion-EUR 5 billion company by 2027, how do we scale?
The next thing that we need to focus on, the semiconductor industry is changing, changing very quickly. How do we have an agile organization that's able to respond to all the different changes that may come in front of us? Last but not least, we continue on our culture journey, which we have started a couple of years ago, trying to live our values and making sure that we role model the behaviors that are necessary to create one united ASM. Next. Some key people facts. As I said, in 2023, even though it was a tougher year for the semiconductor industry, we still hired quite some people. In fact, we increased headcount by about 7%. We hired 730 people. We, of course, as part of our inclusion, equity, and diversity focus, have hired more females. This will continue.
We have a target for 2025 and also a target for beyond. We are actively working towards that. The other area that I think is noteworthy is if we look at the number of nationalities represented in ASM, that has increased. We now have 66 different nationalities working within the company. We are also very proud that if you look at the average remuneration of the employees, this has increased significantly from EUR 99,000 to EUR 111,000. Next. We are committed to building the culture in ASM's journey that has started already a couple of years ago. We are accelerating that. Again, the core values of we care, we innovate, we deliver, underpinned by, I would say, the model behaviors of accountability, empowerment, and collaboration. This actually helps us to drive employee engagement.
Underpinning some of these values and also the behaviors, of course, is included inclusion, equity, and diversity. On the employee engagement part, I think we have very clear signals from our employees that they want to have their voices heard. In a pulse survey that we did last year, we had a 94% participation rate, which is really, really high by industry standards. We are proud and happy that employees are willing to speak up and let us know what needs to be improved and how we can make the company better. Next. Last but not least, the midterm guidance and priorities. The strategy of the company hasn't changed. We showed this for the first time in 2021 at the Investor Day in September. By and large, the strategic objectives of the company with the strategic enablers remain the same.
Of course, as the market develops, every year, there's a little bit of tweaking here and there. But if you look at the longer term, the strategy is intact. And we are focusing on the right things. Next. Just another shot to show that digital transformation is going to drive the semiconductor business significantly, grow the business significantly over the next couple of years. The often mentioned number is that the amount of or the revenue for semiconductor chips will hit $1 trillion by the end of the decade. Last year, it was probably in the mid-$500 billion. So you're seeing a significant growth over the next 6-7 years. Next. These are the targets that we have openly disclosed and shared with all the shareholders and also the investment community.
Next year, we expect to be between EUR 3 billion and EUR 3.6 billion, which actually represents a 16%-21% growth if you compare that to 2020, where we are coming from. In 2027, we expect and are confident that we will be between EUR 4 billion and EUR 5 billion, which is an 11%-16% compound annual growth rate compared to 2022. We are working diligently towards these targets. We are actually barring any massive changes in the market. We are confident that we will get there. Next. Again, the key takeaways for all shareholders, 2023 was, I would say, a pretty difficult year. We still managed to grow 13%. We have increased our headcount despite the difficult year because we need to be prepared. Talent is a major issue for the whole semiconductor industry. Our people transformation strategy continues with the four key pillars.
We continue to focus on our sustainability after having had our Net Zero 2035 targets validated last year. Inflection from FinFET to Gate-All-Around is providing us with a lot of opportunities to further grow the company. AI is a big buzzword today. It's going to be a big driver for the semiconductor industry. And we are well positioned for that. And last but not least, we have done or we have taken steps to ensure that when the DRAM comes, probably starting from next year, we have enough capacity. And we are well prepared to do that. Next. And this being my last AGM, I would also like to say a couple of words. You know, the last 4 years, you know, it has been probably the privilege of my life to have been able to lead ASM. I think I'm very honored.
I had great colleagues and also employees that have managed to grow the company to where we are today. But I also want to thank all the shareholders for your kind support over the last couple of years. And as I transition to Hichem, I cannot be more happy that it will be in very capable hands. And in fact, if I look at where the market is going to be over the next couple of years, I'm more than confident that Hichem is going to bring ASM to even greater heights. So once again, I want to thank all of you for your support the last four years. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Benjamin. Very moving. Paul, a few words from you?
Yeah, maybe a few oh, sorry. So maybe a few more words on our sustainability policies, as that was asked for.
Maybe in addition to what Benjamin already has illustrated just now. On the supervisory board, Audit Committee is very much involved and overseeing what we're doing. Management Board, being present here, of course, take a lot of initiative and priority in making sure that we drive sustainable value creation long-term for the company. And we have a Sustainability Board in the company with representatives from business and global functions. So that's how we manage it. I think a key pillar in the E part is our Net Zero 2035 targets. Benjamin talked about that. So no need to repeat that. I think on the S, it's the people agenda that Benjamin talked about. And particularly, of course, building a diverse and inclusive culture where we put a lot of emphasis on and on the G, of course, being an integrity and ethical, moral company with good behaviors.
That's also where we believe we need to set the right tone at the top, which we, I think, all do. Last but not least, we are putting a lot of effort in the CSRD reporting, which will become in place from next year. We have a team. We are progressing well. You might have seen in our Annual Report already this year that we've added quite a few non-financial indicators. That's all, let's say, progress towards becoming fully compliant on CSRD. These numbers also have, I think, now for the third year in a row, if I'm not mistaken, limited assurance through our external auditor, KPMG. I think I'll leave it to that, Pauline.
Thanks a lot, Paul. Right, ladies and gentlemen. This means that we will move to Agenda 2B, which is the Corporate Governance Structure in Compliance with the Dutch Corporate Governance Code.
In December 2022, an update of the Corporate Governance Code was published by the Corporate Governance Monitoring Committee, which I chaired. In line with the monitoring committee's recommendation, ASM included the chapters of the 2023 Annual Report describing the Corporate Governance Structure and Compliance with the Corporate Governance Code on the agenda. Chapter 13.1 contains an explanation of corporate governance at ASM, including an explanation of the various bodies of the companies and their rights and obligations. For example, the role supervisory board, the General Meeting, the Management Board, and the Executive Committee are discussed, as well as the relationship between the various bodies. In Chapter 34, we discuss compliance with the Corporate Governance Code. We explain why we deviate from the code on certain matters.
In summary, these concern the delegation Supervisory Board of contacts with the internal auditor to Audit Committee. the Supervisory Board members are members of Audit Committee. the committee is the most financially literate. However, it is guaranteed in Audit Committee charter that the internal auditor may always escalate matters to me as the Chair Supervisory Board. for that same reason, the internal auditor reports to the CFO. ASM believes the CFO is best equipped to oversee internal audit. For the same reason, Audit Committee, rather Supervisory Board, maintains contact with the external auditor. Audit Committee therefore briefs the auditor on its performance. The updated code requires an organization-wide diversity and inclusiveness policy, which actually should have been adopted in 2023. ASM adopted that in February of this year.
It's two months behind. The code requires the chairman Supervisory Board to provide a vice Supervisory Board had discussed this in the past but had concluded at the time that it did not think it was necessary. Given the limited size Supervisory Board unofficially, our chairman fulfilled the role of vice chair. Given ASM's growth, however, and the proposed expansion Supervisory Board from six to seven Supervisory Board decided earlier this year, after having discussed it again, to formally appoint Mr. Lamouche as a vice chair, so on a more formal note. Then, I will now give you the opportunity here in the audience to ask questions about Agenda Item 2 report on the 2023 fiscal year. And I would like to remind you to ask a maximum of one question at a time.
We have two microphones in the pathways. So if you can stand up and walk to the mic, you can do so. If you cannot walk up to the mic, we have another microphone that can come to you. So I would like to give the floor to who? Inaudible to the interpreter. Ik hoor hem niet. Inaudible to the interpreter. My apologies. Ik ben heel blij mee. En ik denk dat ik het belangrijkste cijfer heb wat. Right. So in summary, return on my shares is 5,000%. There is nobody else who has that 5,000%. I acquired those shares a long time ago. I never did anything with it. And the return on those shares is 5,000%. It's the best performing share in the Netherlands. And I think that you are very happy with me stating this at the beginning.
I'm also very happy that in the Netherlands, we have a family-run business called Heineken. And we are very happy that Heineken is still in the Netherlands. And I'm really trying to get Max Verstappen into the latest James Bond movie together with Humberto Tan to promote Heineken 0.0 and really make that a very popular drink. The same applies to ASM because it was founded a long time ago. I think Chuck built what his father created. And Benjamin Loh really put the turbo on it. And Hichem is very, very modest, which is all nice. But he is the engine of the company. And the great thing is we're moving from Asian regions to African regions. And I think there's a lot to do. And at this moment, not a lot is going on in the field of research there.
And we've noticed in this country that people, well, if you want people to stay there, you need to have employment there and a nice working climate. And also the climate in general. So a nice research lab in Africa would be nice because the climate is not doing really well. And we need forests. And also ASM will benefit from stability. And we now have a very weird combination of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran that is completely disrupting the world. And they use terrorist groups for that, especially Hamas in Gaza. And this leads to a weird, dangerous situation also in the Netherlands. So it's very important that you, with your powerful companies and network, that you do something about it. You can provide stability in regions because this is required for further growth.
What I have been missing here, I have not received an answer to my question what the actual value is of this company. In the Netherlands, we say that we want 50% people from outside. We have people with a lot of experience in IT and cybercrime. Wouldn't it be great that you can send one of the people that work for you to sit in government? Because we don't have a lot of competent people in our government. So they could use your expertise. We asked one question at a time. I actually wrote down several questions from your side, Mr. Vreeken, so that we can give the opportunity to other shareholders. Well, the good news is that I have to leave pretty soon. So the number of questions is limited this time. And of course, I agree.
So upon my leave, I know you will not have to answer my questions anymore. But I have a lot of positive feedback as well. This is my last one. I don't think ASM is doing a lot of sponsoring in the Netherlands, not in the Van Gogh Museum, etc. But with such great results as a company, it is important that ASM has excellent sponsorships in the Netherlands and abroad. So these are my questions and comments. Thank you, Mr. Vreeken. Yes, a couple of those are suggestions, I think. So thank you very much for those compliments and suggestions. And congratulations on your share return of 5,000%. I think more people are happy about that. You talk about employment in Africa and a suggestion on an ASM forest in Africa. I think it's not the first time that you have commented on that.
I'm afraid we don't have an answer to that yet. We will include your suggestion. You talk about stability in the world. A value of ASM is around EUR 30 billion, slightly above. You have a friendly suggestion that people behind this table should form government. You do realize that they won't be able to sit on the board here, right? Well, they can choose or delegate people from their network. I completely agree with you, Mr. Vreeken, that we should urge people with a certain expertise to do something, to stand up and go into politics and stand for election. If that is your point, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Sponsoring. I would like to give the floor to Paul Verhagen. Correct. In the Netherlands, we might even have zero sponsoring. If it's there, it's not big.
In several countries that we operate in on a smaller scale, we do give back to the community by initiatives that were founded by employees. They do charity work. We try to do that here, which is different from sponsoring, I understand. But it's still giving back to the community, right? And we believe it's very important that our employees contribute to that and ourselves as well. Nevertheless, sponsoring is on the agenda. And I do agree with you that we need to review the sponsoring policy. If you're a big company, then if you're big, then you need to also return to the community big time. Other questions? Yes, go ahead. The lady over at the other microphone. Thank you, Chair. Stephanie Claassen, VBDO, Investors for Sustainable Development. We represent 80% of institutional investors with 1,600 million. That's quite a large number.
ASM is a great example for VBDO over the past years. I'm going to assume that with the new people on board, ASM is going to continue what it has been doing. A company is not an isolated object. It influences its environment. The environment influences the company. A company is part of the chain, the value chain, and cannot be considered and cannot exist without the chain. This is the starting point for the analysis when it comes to risks and opportunities. Biodiversity is one of the biggest risks, according to VBDO. We would like to complement ASM with the fact that it's doing many good things for net zero, for the climate. But biodiversity deserves the same attention. Critical raw materials are essential in the value chain of ASM. They come from mines.
And processing these materials has a huge impact on man, environment, and community. But to what extent does ASM measure or include this in the value chain? And to what extent is ASM willing to face those risks and act on those risks? Or does ASM consider this part of the, well, we do value it. So Paul, please, can I give these questions to you? Well, first of all, biodiversity, we drafted a policy. We published this policy. So it's very important to us as well. I think it's important to also understand the context that we operate in. We are a company with a low manufacturing number. We produce slightly less than 1,000. We don't have huge buildings, huge factories. So that would have a huge impact on biodiversity in the environment you put those locations in.
I think the largest part of our impact on biodiversity comes from emissions that take place in the value chain for the benefit of the manufacturing of materials and our own equipment. And we address that through our Net Zero 2035 target. So that's what we focus on. And indirectly, we contribute to biodiversity. And also, secondly, good to know is Benjamin talked about some expansions, among which in the U.S., one of the things that we did there for the first time is a biodiversity assessment. We had never done that before. And the results of it are shared with the development company and will be included in the further development of the facility that we are building there. So also from that perspective, we try to take into account as much as possible biodiversity. Then, the critical raw materials.
What is important here is that we have a policy in place. From our suppliers, we expect them to work with certified refineries and foundries to be able to supply to us. So indirectly, we have attention for that as well. From a direct perspective, we might not be doing that sufficiently, especially because of overall capacity. We have a close connection to our tier one suppliers. We visit them. We have direct audits with them. But further down the supply chain, not so much. It has our attention in the future to do it more. Through the certification system, we try to achieve that also manufacturing of raw materials that this happens in an environmentally friendly manner. Who's next?
My name is Andrea van den Heuvel for Achmea Investment Management. I have a question on the Dutch Corporate Governance Code.
ASM has signed this code. I would like to ask whether ASM will fully report according to this code, so a country-by-country tax report. Thank you. That's, again, a question for our CFO.
Yes, it is correct. We signed this particular code. On almost all counts, we operate in line with this code. We have a tax strategy. We have no artificial construction to mitigate tax or to evade tax in any way whatsoever. Paying taxes is an operational commercial activity in the countries that we operate in. We really try to really follow the intention of the code. What we do not comply with is the country-by-country reporting. The reason for that is that we try and we haven't found that way yet. We try to strike a balance between transparency but also not giving away competitive and commercially sensitive information.
For certain countries, we only have one product, deposition. And in other countries, we have only one big customer. So if we were to report country-by-country revenue, FTE, profit before tax, etc., then basically, it provides a lot of competitive information that we do not wish to share. So we really try to look into how we can deal with that in the best way possible. We haven't found that answer yet. We're working on that. Any other questions on this item?
My name is Hilda van der Hout , European Investors, VEB. My question is this one. ASM has a market-leading position in ALD. If you look at underlying, then you are also leading in logic and foundry and memory. You wish to expand further. My first question, if you look at recent development in Bell Labs Research, can you say something about the latest competition developments in logic and foundry?
And on top of that, in contrast to other bigger players, you have a less big portfolio in chip tools. Can you say anything about or to what extent this is a disadvantage to you? Thank you.
I mean, ASM being a smaller company competing against very large competitors, some of them are actually 10 times our size. But I think if you look at what we have done over the last four years or last couple of years, not just the last four years, we have been able to outcompete despite our small size. And the main reason for that is we put a lot of focus on innovation and technology. So if you look at the ALD, as you mentioned, that is something that is now becoming more and more important as we go into the more advanced nodes.
We have been able to, let's say, carve out fairly a significant market share for ourselves compared to our three largest competitors. Of course, we do understand that our largest competitors are going to come after us because it's a very attractive, fast-growing market. But we remain confident that given the focus, the emphasis that we have on innovation and R&D and also the efforts that we have put in to ensure that we work together closely with our customers, we will be able to maintain that kind of market share. In some areas, for example, in memory, where we are a smaller player, perhaps even to increase our market share. We are confident of being able to hold off our competitors.
Follow-up question? Yes.
So if you look at transition to Moly, to what extent is that an advantage for Lam Research, where they're coming from and looking at the product offering?
Again, I will actually just answer this quickly. Then I would actually like my colleague, Hichem, to be able to add on to that. Now, the transition to Moly opens up an opportunity for us. It's an area where we were not playing in in the past with Copper and Tungsten. So when this transitions to Moly and they have to do the deposition very much using ALD, it is something which is incremental to the market that we are already serving. But maybe, Hichem, you can also add your comments.
I think on the question that was asked earlier about sustainability, we at ASM, we actually have developed Moly metal, ALD, to actually reduce the energy usage of chips.
So by going to Moly, we've actually been able to reduce the resistance of metal, which actually reduces the energy usage of chips, which helps sustainability from that point of view. So we have been successful in bringing this technology. And this is the first time, as what Benjamin has mentioned, this is the first time that we enter the metal ALD market. And we entered this market with Molybdenum. And we see that for all devices, 3D NAND and DRAM and logic, they will use this metal. And it's actually a new era that's happening right now in metal deposition.
Thank you, Hichem. Can we then move on to the next item on the agenda? One more question. Oh, two even. Right. We have other opportunities for questions, by the way. So just don't, you can hold your horses if you want. Thank you.
My name is Bastiaan Rogmans for Add Value. A question?
If you look at your targets, if you look beyond 2027, one of your biggest drivers, of course, your most important product is ALD. And you benefit from the increasing number of layers in the leading-edge foundry production. If we look at the penetration at the moment of ALD in the leading-edge foundry production, how big is that now? And how far can it keep on increasing? That's my question. Benjamin. Bastiaan, I think this is we will not address this directly because that will be competitive information. So
what we have always shared is if you look at our overall market share, it is at least 55%. This is logic and foundry combined with memory. Now, our market share in logic and foundry is substantially higher because we have a smaller market share in memory.
So I think if you look at what will happen as far as, first of all, the transition to Gate-All-Around, that's going to add more layers in terms of logic and foundry ALD applications. But at the same time, memory is also advancing and will require more and more ALD layers. So as far as we are projecting, we think that the additional layers and coupled with a certain amount of investments in 2027, that's going to lead us to that EUR 4 billion-EUR 5 billion kind of target that we have set for ourselves. And based on current view, unless there are something that changes dramatically, we are actually confident that we will get there. One more follow-up, maybe. If you look beyond the 2027, do you see this trend continuing with more layers for ALD? I think if that's not our view.
But if you just look at what's going to happen as far as the technology roadmap is concerned, so beyond 2020, 2027, Gate-All-Around will come in other, let's say, variations. For example, at the end of the decade, maybe you might see CFET, which is one on top of the other. And all those are all just going to add to even more ALD layers. So without giving any kind of projection because that should probably come in the next investor day, we think that the growth in terms of layers as the technology becomes more and more advanced, that will continue. Thank you.
[Foreign Language] Hartelijk dank. Ik zag nog één vraag. Mevrouw Claassen, nog één. Mrs. Claassen, one for you. And then I propose that we move to items three and four. Thank you, Chair. Stephanie Claassen, VBDO. Livable wage was already a topic in presentation.
Living wage, obviously, is not a topic for own employees. But obviously, further down in the supply chain, you have said that you were waiting for the results of an initiative for living wage. What are you waiting for? And which steps is ASM then going to take?
Again, since 2021, we have been advocates of living wage with the Responsible Business Alliance. And I think that has finally taken shape. What they have done is they have created a Living Wage Task Force . And of course, we give our inputs into what should be the guidelines or what should be in that guidelines which they are preparing and hopefully publishing soon. So one of the things that we are waiting for is to look at exactly what will be in the guidelines. I mean, we provide input, but we don't write the guideline.
So once that is out, we're going to use that as the basis of not just, as you correctly mentioned, Stephanie, not just for internal purpose, but also how can we use that guideline to work together with our suppliers. I think that's important because you are absolutely correct. Living wage is not just an ASM issue. It's also in the value chain and specifically our suppliers. And in our facilities, namely in the supply chain.
Yes, exactly. So predominantly in the supply chain. Yes. Okay. For the sake of time, let's move on to items three and four on the agenda, which means first voting block, three and four. And after item four, I will give you again the opportunity to ask questions on both agenda items and also to KPMG that will make presentation in a moment on agenda item 3B. But first, yes, this is the notary.
I now get the final number of registered shares that have a voting right in this meeting. That number is 38,421,463. Great. Okay. The next item is 3, which is a voting item with three sub-items. So 3A, Remuneration Report 2023. An overview of the implementation of the remuneration policy can be found in the Remuneration Report included in the Annual Report 2023. This can be found on pages 153-166 of the Annual Report 2023, as also mentioned in the agenda. We have an explanation by the chair of the NSR Committee, Mr. Lamouche. Didier, over to you.
Thank you, Mrs. Chair. Thank you. Thanks again. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now take you through the highlights of the Remuneration Report for 2023. As Mrs.
van der Meer already indicated. This report is included in its entirety in the ASM 2023 Annual Report from page 153 to page 166. Of course, here, I will just give you a few highlights. But if you need more details, you can refer to the full report. This report fully complies with the Dutch Civil Code and the principle as set out in the Dutch Corporate Governance Code. In accordance with the Dutch Civil Code, we ask you, the General Meeting, to cast an advisory vote on the Remuneration Report 2023. Allow me to remind you that the current remuneration policy for the Management Board on which the Remuneration Report for 2023 is based was adopted by the General Meeting on May 15, 2023. Let's look to the various elements of the Remuneration Report. On the base salary first, in 2023, the base salary of Mr.
Benjamin Loh, our CEO, has been increased by 10%, justified, of course, by the excellent performance, which has been illustrated before, and generally in line with the market movement that we have seen in the Netherlands following a period of inflation, as well as generally in line with the average increase for ASM employees in the Netherlands. This did bring his annual base salary from around EUR 671K to EUR 738K. As far as Mr. Verhagen, our CFO, base salary is concerned, the increase has been by 5% in 2023, which did bring his base salary from around EUR 538K to EUR 565K. And the base salary of Mr. Hichem M'Saad as CTO has also been increased with 5% in 2023, which brought his base from $600K to $630K.
Now, let's take a closer look at the variable compensation, at the variable remuneration elements of the pay mix, namely the short-term cash yearly incentive and the long-term share incentive, which is, as you know, delivered under the form of performance share. As far as the STI, short-term cash incentive, is concerned, the payout level is based, on one hand, on the achievement of financial targets, which have a weight of 75% of the nominal total, and on the other hand, on 25% non-financial targets. These non-financial targets are ESG-related and strategy-related. All targets are set annually Supervisory Board. the sti target as percentage of annual base salary is set at 125% for the CEO, Mr. Loh, and at 80% at target level for the CFO, Mr. Verhagen, as well as for the CTO, Mr. M'Saad.
The maximum attainable level is 187.5% at base salary of base salary, sorry, for the CEO and 120% of base salary for both the CFO and the CTO. It will, of course, not be a surprise to you that given the strong performance year that we have recorded in 2023 for ASM, all Management Board members have shown an overachievement on 4 out of the 6 predefined STI targets. 2 non-financial targets have been realized on target or slightly below target. I want to say also Supervisory Board did apply a downward adjustment of the overall outcome on the non-financial target based upon their assessment of the realization of a critical non-financial target. The total outcome still resulted in an overall overachievement of 137% of target payments for all 3 Management Board members.
Last but not least, the long-term share incentive program, which, as I said before, is performance-based. I mean, yes, it's performance-based and paid in shares. This is, as you know, a multi-year variable payment, which is delivered via performance shares, which become unconditional after a period of 3 years over which the performance is measured and which are subject to a 2-year holding period after this period of 3 years. So in total, 5 years. The unconditional award is a result of the realization on the following 2 targets. First of all, revenue growth, which is measured vis-à-vis the market. And the market performance is tracked versus a public indicator. And second, second KPI, the average EBIT versus a preset objective, which is determined by the Supervisory Board.
Based on the achievement of the performance criteria per end 2023, the vesting for the 2021 grants in 2024 is 135% for both the CEO and for the CFO, corresponding for the CEO to 5,786 excuse me, 5,786 shares and for the CFO, 2,915 shares. There was no vesting of performance share for the CTO given his date of appointment and the applicable three-year vesting period. Furthermore, the following amount of shares conditional to performance, again, as measured over the coming three years, have been granted to the three Management Board members in 2023 at an on-target value with a three-year vesting period, so ending in 2027, and in line with the remuneration policy. In terms of numbers, Mr. Loh, CEO at that time, received 4,052 shares representing roughly EUR 1.3 million. Mr. Verhagen received 2,580 shares representing EUR 844.7K. Sorry for my hesitation. And Mr.
M'Saad, the CTO, received 8,039 shares representing roughly 2,600,057 shares. It is to be mentioned that as of the 2023 grant, a so-called related I'm sorry, relative total shareholder return, which is a performance indicator measuring the return to the shareholders as compared to a basket of comparable companies. This indicator has been added to the two already existing performance measures. This third measure is set up as a modifier, a multiplier that can impact positively or negatively the total achievements upwards by +35% if we are measuring an overachievement and negatively by -35% if, in three years from now, we record an underachievement. Last but not least, I would like to give you some color on the so-called CEO pay ratio. As you know, the ratio of the CEO remuneration and the average remuneration of all other employees is calculated and tracked.
This is called the pay ratio by dividing the CEO's remuneration by the average remuneration of all employees. The ASM CEO pay ratio is relatively stable, moving from 27 in 2022 to 31 in 2023. I want also to mention that this ratio is rather at the low end of the range when you compare to other comparable AEX-listed companies. And with that, I would like to turn back the microphone to you, Mrs. Chair.
Thank you, Didier, for this presentation. Dank u zeer. Graag informeer ik u dat de algemene vergadering wordt. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to inform you that the General Meeting will vote on this in line with Article 235B, paragraph 2 of the Dutch Civil Code. And this will be an advisory voting item. Then there is the adoption of the Annual Report in 2023.
The Annual Report has been checked and audited and approved by KPMG. And now I would like to give the floor to KPMG to give an explanation and a comment on the audit statement. Well, good afternoon. My name is Frederik Croiset van Uchelen, and I'm the external auditor of KPMG, responsible for the audit of the financial statements of ASM. This is my fourth year as responsible partner of KPMG. And KPMG is now the auditor of ASM for already nine years. I would like to take this opportunity to give you a further explanation of our audit of ASM's financial statements for the year 2023. But before I do so, I would first like to say a few words about the complete research into the answers to questions from mandatory tests and these results from settlement with the U.S. regulator.
I deeply regret that the sharing of the answers was able to take place within our organization. This shouldn't have happened. I apologize for this on behalf of the company and myself. We have properly investigated the causes of this and have taken several measures based on this to prevent this from happening in the future. To you, shareholders, I would like to confirm that I personally was not involved. This also applies to all five other audit IT and ESG partners involved in the audit. Due to Dutch regulations, as the GDPR privacy rules, I cannot say anything about the outcome of the investigation regarding the other team members. KPMG has sanctioned everyone involved. Some have left KPMG since then. KPMG has also taken remedial measures based on the investigation, including actively monitoring the correctness of tests as well as retesting of individuals involved.
We have a very robust quality system, including evaluating audit work within the audit team. With this fact and the experience and qualities of our team, I fully support the quality of the work performed. That's our audit opinion. Having said so, I would now like to talk about the 2023 audit of ASM. This presentation follows the structure of our statement as included on pages 259 to 266 of the Annual Report. Next slide. Our opinions now. On the 1st of March 2024, we issued an unqualified audit opinion. In brief, this means that the financial statements present a true and fair view without any material mistakes. The Annual Report gives a clear and fair view of the situation. We audited and we issued an unqualified audit opinion on the non-financial factors.
This is what we see on the pages 251 to 253 of the Annual Report. Firstly, materiality. In the planning of our work, we take into account what is known as materiality. In brief, we consider something to be material if the extent of misstatements is such that it reasonably affects your decisions as users of the financial statements. Well, a materiality of EUR 33 million has been used for the audit of ASM's financial statements, which is 4.87% of the pre-tax income, normalized mainly for the reversal of a previous write-down of ASM PT. We report all identified discrepancies above EUR 1.65 million to management and Supervisory Board. now, the risk analysis. We conduct our audits using a risk analysis. We focus on those areas where the risk of errors, that is, intentional or unintentional errors or misstatements, is the biggest in the financial statements.
In our risk assessment work, we included fraud risk factors related to fraudulent financial reporting and improper appropriation of assets, the risks in relation to IT and cybersecurity, and then the non-compliance with laws and regulations, including trade restrictions. Then the internal control environment, including culture and design, and also climate-related risks and continuity risks. We discuss such risks in the audit team so that we can remain alert to new insights and developments. Together with our specialists, such as IT auditors, climate, and forensic specialists, we evaluate whether these factors indicate a risk of a material misstatement. What is our audit approach? Well, partly for reasons of efficiency, we choose which activities we performed centrally and which more locally.
Because of the setup of the financial organization at the shared service center present in Singapore, we were able to plan and execute an almost complete central audit, which resulted in the fact that we performed detailed audit work on 91% of all assets and 85% of the total revenue. This means that we do central audit work for the main operations in Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the Americas. We audit these operations primarily through audit work at the shared service center as well as using work performed by local KPMG auditors. In addition, we use the engagement of the non-KPMG auditors of ASMPT as part of our audit work on the item investment in associates. We reviewed online the recorded work of the relevant local auditors in Hong Kong for the audit of ASMPT.
In addition, we had several calls and virtual meetings and discussed the local audit approach as well as identified significant risks. This year, we also physically visited the operations and, where applicable, the local audit teams in Singapore, Italy, and Korea. All local auditors who performed work for the audit of the consolidated financial statements performed their work in accordance with our instructions and under our supervision. Next slide, please. So now, fraud and compliance with laws and regulations. Specifically, with respect to fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations, we perform several specific activities. A summary of these can be found in the audit report on pages 261, 262, and 263. Internal control now.
In the audit, we look at the quality of internal control at administrative organizations based on the question of whether and which internal control is relevant to us and whether we can make use of it during the audit, and/or whether additional control risks emerge. So it is therefore not a matter of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of internal control as a whole. The nature and scope of the identified opportunities for improvement are limited and lie mainly in process improvements and to our documentation of internal controls. Then a few words on IT and information security. For our audit, we consider the risk of material misstatements due to cyber risks. We took note of what ASM has drawn up to improve cybersecurity as well as noted any cyber incidents. And we involved our IT specialists. We also performed work on management's process regarding backup and recovery procedures.
From this work, we concluded that there were no findings that had a material impact on the financial statements and/or our audit approach. Then climate risks. Management has considered the impact of climate on business operations as part of its strategy and internal controls. You've been able to read more about this in the Planet section of the Annual Report. We have determined whether recognized risks could also have a potential material impact on the financial statements. Based on the work we performed, we have determined that climate-related risks do not have a material impact on the financial statements, including on the evaluation of fixed assets. Well, finally, the key points of our audit. As also included in our statement on pages 263 and 264, we've identified two key issues this year. Well, consistent with prior year, we have identified a key issue related to revenue recognition.
This is due to the financial impact and the financially and the specific situation related to delineation. The risk includes the assumed fraud risk that management deliberately fails to fully account for revenue. Secondly, also consistent with prior year, we have identified a key issue related to capitalizing development costs. We've included this as a key issue considering the financial impact and the estimates involved as well as the complexity related to estimating to what extent specific criteria are met to capitalize development costs. Well, we found no particularities in these two key points. The 2022 key item regarding the purchase of LPE and the valuation and allocation of the estimated value to individual assets is no longer applicable this year as it related to the specific situation in 2022.
Well, as to the audit of 2024, we are currently preparing this, and we will discuss it briefly with Audit Committee. we expect the approach and scope to be in line with last year. This was my presentation. Well, thank you for your attention and confidence. Of course, I'm ready to answer any questions you may have. Mrs. Chair, I would like to hand the floor back to you. Well, thank you, Mr. Van Uchelen . Well, we'll take together the points. There's three C. First of all, this is the profile of the different proposal. There's a proposal for a dividend of EUR 2.75 per each ordinary share. This is higher than the dividend payout for 2022, which was then EUR 2.50. Once declared, the dividend will be made available on 22 May 2024. That will be the payment date for the dividend.
After the next item, I will give you the opportunity to ask questions about item 3. Well, first of all, item 4, the discharge. This consists of two voting items. First of all, Board of Management. well, in accordance with Article 30, Paragraph 4 of the Articles of Association, it is proposed to the General Meeting that Board of Management be discharged of liability for the policy pursued by them in 2023 insofar as the policy is evident from the 2023 financial statements. Well, then item 4B concerns the discharge of the members Supervisory Board. this is also in accordance with Article 30, Paragraph 4 of the Articles of Association.
It is proposed to the General Meeting that the members Supervisory Board be discharged from liability for the exercise of their supervision of the policies pursued Supervisory Board in the fiscal year 2023. Now I'll give you the floor. Now you'll have the opportunity to ask questions about agenda items three and four. That is the statement of the auditor and then item four, the discharge. I represent VEB, so the investors' association maybe well, I can say that the cash that the company wanted to have in the past was EUR 300 million. Now it has increased it had been increased to EUR 600 million. It has already increased to EUR 700 million. And if nothing weird happens this year, do we EUR 850 million? But if you look at the minimum of cash, you have to look at the developments of ASMI.
So what do the investors have to expect in terms of cash? Can we expect more buybacks, or do you think that the dividend can be increased? Well, this is a very logical question. I will take the other question that I saw in the room. And well, maybe, Paul, you can answer this question about the cash position and also the possible buyback of shares. Well, hello. I'm Mr. Wiersma. I'm representing Add Value Fund. I'm a long-term investor since 2010. I'm very satisfied.
First of all, many thanks for the last four years. It was amazing. A great achievement to this great company. Thank you very much. And of course, Hichem, good luck for the future. For the 2027 target of EUR 5 billion sales is quite amazing. First question about the evaluation tools at the balance sheet is in 2023. It was a record high, EUR 80 billion.
So my question is, what is the amount of the percentage of that amount of the EUR 80 million? Is for the next generation 1.4 nanometers Gate-All-Around? And my second question is about the research and development cost, the capitalization of the development cost. If you look at the last couple of years, it was in the low 30s%. If you look at the percentage of the gross R&D amount, this quarter in 2024, it was above 40%. What do you expect for the coming years to go? Many thanks. Okay.
Hartelijk dank for these questions. Many thanks for these questions. Hichem, perhaps you can do that. First, we'll do the cash buffer question, and perhaps you can take the other question around the Gate-All-Around and the R&D capitalization. This, Paul.
I will answer in Dutch.
So indeed, we have a capital allocation policy, and priority 1 is focus and growth, internal growth. So that's capital investment in R&D and M&A opportunities. So that's priority 1. 2 is a strong balance sheet, and that's where the EUR 600 million comes from. So in our midterm guidance until 2027, we've said that these targets will be kept.
So around the EUR 600 million, we do not have an update on that despite the fact that there was further growth from 3.0 to 3.6. So we left that 600. So it is a question whether it will be raised in the future. We will report on that in the future if this changes during one of the investor days. And a final remark, I think this year, we increased dividend by 10%, among other, for reasons that you yourself indicated. And we also increased share buyback to EUR 150 million.
So there is an upward movement, if you will, based on the strong cash performance we had in 2023. And maybe you can say something about that R&D capitalization and development cost. Yes. If you look back on the past few years, then 9 out of 10 times, the quarters were 35%-40% of the gross development spendings that we do, they are capitalized. There can be an outlier, slightly more, slightly less, depending on the focus on that particular year or quarter. But most years, or for one whole year, you end at the 35%-40%. And I don't see that changing. When it comes to amortization of costs, you will see them increase from Q2 compared to the past because of a number of products that were recently developed for Gate-All-Around are now transitioning into mass production.
And therefore, we will start amortization of that capitalized development cost. Is that sufficient, or do you need more explanation? Evaluation costs? Oh, evaluation tools, Hichem. Is there anything you can say about that? Next-gen Gate-All-Around?
Evaluation tools for a next-generation Gate-All-Around. I think that with the Gate-All-Around, the generation right now is 2 nanometer. And the next generation would be 1.4. It's going to take maybe 3-4 years to achieve that. So right now, we're actually in the first stages of working with our customers on the evaluation tools for 1.4 nanometer. As you know that, okay, we are very present in ALD and in Epi. And we expect that our evaluation tools for the next-generation Gate-All-Around will be as good or maybe even higher than for the next generation.
Okay. Zijn nog andere vragen over deze punt?
Any other questions on these items? If not, then it's time to vote on the first voting block. In the audience, you can vote using the voting device. You can now vote by selecting your choice. So you can push the buttons 1, 2, and 3 corresponding to the choices 1 for, 2 against, and abstain 3. The last choice made counts. We have some light. Let's start with item 3A, Remuneration Report 2023. I now open the vote. Just a few seconds left. Make your choice. I hereby close the vote. We proceed by voting on 3B, adoption of the annual accounts. I now open the vote. Few seconds left. Vote is closed. We will now proceed to the vote on item 3C, adoption of dividend proposal. I open the vote. Couple of seconds left. Vote is closed.
Then, item four A, discharge of the members of the Executive Board. I open the vote. Couple of seconds. Voting is closed. Then finally, you can cast your vote on item four B, discharge of the members Supervisory Board. i now open the vote. Few seconds left. I hereby close the voting. So, this concludes the first voting block. I hereby close voting for this voting block. The voting results you're about to see include the vote cast by proxy and the votes cast in the room today. The voting results can be seen right here in front of us. I conclude that all proposals have been adopted with a large majority. Many thanks for that. We now move to the second voting block, items five and six. We will first discuss these first.
After the end of item six, you will have the opportunity to ask questions again. Then item five, remuneration Supervisory Board consists of two voting items. I will first explain briefly in Dutch what these items are and then give the floor to my colleague, Didier Lamouche, for a detailed explanation. Five A, proposal to amend the remuneration policy Supervisory Board oh, sorry, the new remuneration policy Supervisory Board. the proposed policy was posted on the website. I refer to that. It was created and came about after dialogues with stakeholders. It's presented to the General Meeting on the recommendation Supervisory Board and also on the recommendation of the NSR Committee within it. Then five B is the change to the remuneration of the members Supervisory Board and its committees.
In the dialogues with stakeholders, it was also discussed an adjustment of the remuneration of the members Supervisory Board. it is proposed by the board to make certain changes to the remuneration as set out in the agenda in the agenda item five B with retroactive effect from January 1st, 2024. If the meeting does not vote in favor of this item, the current remuneration will continue to apply. Didier, can you go ahead? Agenda items five A and five B. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Chair . Absolutely. Let's move now to, if you're okay, to the proposed adjustment Supervisory Board remuneration policy. As we know, the current remuneration policy Supervisory Board was adopted by the General Meeting as of May 16, 2022.
It is proposed Supervisory Board to update this policy Supervisory Board, which will be then applicable for the next four years in view of a couple of considerations. First of all, given the fast evolution of ASM, the company needs to ensure its competitive ability to Supervisory Board members with broad skill sets and broad background in this very high-growth environment. Furthermore, the nature of the role has significantly changed over the last couple of years with an increased complexity, an increased size for the company, and increased visibility for our company. I would like just to remind that four years ago, ASM market cap grew when it entered the AEX index, grew from EUR 5 billion initially, EUR 5 billion, to now close to EUR 30 billion, which is positioning ASM in the upper end half of the AEX index.
In addition to this evolution, we have performed very recently a benchmark helped by conducted, I will say, by Willis Towers Watson, which is an executive, well-known reward consultant. And this benchmark was primarily based upon a Dutch AEX peer group comparable to ASM in the sense that we considered only two-tier board companies since we want to compare with a similar-structured company in terms of corporate governance. On the following slide, you will see first the main proposed policy change concerning the following items. First, we are proposing to remove the cap on the travel allowances, which is currently set at EUR 10,000 per year for continental travel and EUR 20,000 per year for intercontinental travel.
Second, we would like to introduce, in order to give flexibility for the board to manage unplanned events, we would like to introduce a fee of EUR 2,500 per additional meeting in excess of two hours above the regular cadence Supervisory Board or its committee in case of special business circumstances and after prior approval by the chair Supervisory Board. we would like also, third, to introduce the option to establish other committees depending on the need of the company and, in particular, potentially, a technology committee. In addition, a proposal has been submitted to the General Meeting to increase the fees Supervisory Board member and its committees. ASM has engaged on this topic with a significant number of our top shareholders and key investors back in February, as well as proxy advisors.
And we received positive feedback to move forward with this adjustment Supervisory Board remuneration policy and subsequent fee setting. Finally, and that's illustrated on the chart, which is shown in front of you, based upon the benchmarking, again, which, as I said before, has been conducted by Willis Towers Watson and taking into account that the fees for several positions are today at the lowest quartile or even below, below versus the AEX reference group, the following adjustments, which you see here, are proposed and detailed in the table, which is depicted on the screen. I will not comment all numbers, but I will let you just look. In this table, you have the current fees, which is awarded by position in the board, being chair or being committee members.
On the middle of the charts, on the blue part of the charts, you have the benchmark that we have recorded, the median, the 25th percentile, and the 75th percentile. On the right-hand side, we have a proposal that we are putting forward for your Supervisory Board. i'll let you a few minutes to read the Supervisory Board is asking you to cast a vote on this new policy, which should then be valid for the next four years absent of any new extraordinary event. This will close my presentation of all remuneration elements. If you allow me, I would like just to conclude. Benjamin is leaving us today as a CEO. But there is another person who is leaving us. It's Mr. Stefan van der Werf, who's sitting on this table. Stefan is and still, until today, Head of Global Reward.
He helped me, the board, and the committee a lot to prepare the roadshow with investors, to convince investors to prepare this AGM for many years. I would like to thank you, Stefan. I learned a lot from you. You contributed a lot to this company and to the management team. I would like to wish you a very happy, wise, and quiet more quiet than today retirement. Thank you, Stefan.
Thank you so much. And so. Thank you for your kind words to Stefan, which I wholeheartedly echo. Now, let's continue now with item six, composition Supervisory Board. this item consists of three agenda items, all of which can be voted on. First, six A, the proposal to reappoint Mr. Lamouche as a member of the Supervisory Board.
Didier was appointed for a term of four years on May 18, 2020. His term, therefore, expires at the end of this general Supervisory Board proposes, on the recommendation of NSR, to reappoint Didier for an additional period of four years, which period will end at the end of the annual General Meeting in 2028. Supervisory Board has prepared a binding nomination to reappoint him. His main current additional position and career are described in the agenda. Then we move to the next two items on the agenda, the proposal to appoint Tania Micki and Martin van Pernis as members Supervisory Board. they are both present today. They will introduce themselves to you in a Supervisory Board has prepared a binding nomination for the appointment of Tania Micki and Martin van Pernis as members of the Supervisory Board.
If you vote in favor, both will take effect today and will be for a term of four years, which will end at the end of the annual General Meeting in Supervisory Board is pleased to nominate them today and is confident that they will both be very valuable additions Supervisory Board. tania was CFO since 2020 and also Tecan's board member and also with École Hôtelière de Lausanne . With her wealth of financial experience, she is a financial expert also referred to in the Corporate Governance Code. I'd like to give the floor to Tania so that she can briefly introduce herself. Tania, go ahead. Thank you, Pauline.
So good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tania Micki. It is my honor to be here today to be elected Supervisory Board of asm.
My professional career in the last 25 years has covered all aspects of the finance functions, such as M&A, FP&A, finance transformation, tax, treasury audit, in different industries, from FMCG to heavy equipment manufacturing. I'm currently the Group CFO for Tecan, as Pauline mentioned, a medtech company listed on the SIX, and the Chair of Audit Committee at EHL, a leading business school in Switzerland. In these two roles, I'm deeply passionate about leveraging my experience and financial acumen to serve purpose-led companies. At Tecan, we are scaling healthcare innovation to improve people's lives, which is very much in line with what ASM wants to do, and empowering next generations through education at EHL. Similarly, my motivation to join Supervisory Board stems from my belief in the transformative power of technology and innovation.
I believe that ASM stands at the forefront of technological advancement and then allows us to drive progress across different sectors. It is a fast-paced environment where innovation is essential for growth. There's nothing more important for me than being at the heart of such innovation-driven ecosystems. I'm very much looking forward to overseeing the strategic direction of the company, ensuring high standards of corporate governance and ethics, and safeguarding the interests of shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders together Supervisory Board. i'm very proud and honored to Supervisory Board of asm. I would like to thank once Supervisory Board and you, the shareholders, for your trust. Thank you.
Thank you, Tania. Welcome to ASM. On het voorstel tot. Then the proposal to appoint Mr. van Pernis as a member of the Supervisory Board.
I think Martin in this room needs no introduction. He has been involved with ASML from the very beginning and has contributed immensely to ASML's success in recent years as president and CTO. He's widely praised for his technological knowledge and Supervisory Board plans to establish, after Martin's appointment, a Technology Committee of which, obviously, Martin will be the Chair. This committee will be a sparring partner for the Executive Board and Supervisory Board in identifying and assessing market developments in the field of technology, to be able to assess all of that and how we can do that in the best way possible, obviously. Also here again, I would like now to give the floor to Martin for a brief introduction.
Good afternoon. My name is Martin van Pernis.
And I'm also honored to be nominated and become a member Supervisory Board of asm, not ASML. You can do that three times, but then you will be punished. Well, I don't think I'll manage. Okay. So I worked a long time at ASML. So this morning, when I arrived, I was like, "This is my second job throughout my career." But to be honest, the time that I started out with ASML, for 50%, it was in the hands of ASMI. So you could argue I'm only half transitioning. Right. I'm very motivated. Why? Because of the historical context, the success of ASML, the past 40 years. And I think ASM played a very important part. So the historical context, but also context, but more importantly as well, by, as Pauline said, by setting up the technology committee.
I have experience with that with ASML from the management perspective, but many positive experiences. I've seen that I, in this way, can contribute to the further rolling out of ASM's strategy. Looking at the years to come, I believe that I know the roadmap of the customer. From that perspective, I realize that the role of new materials and depositions, like Hichem says, that it will become more and more important. So also for the future, I think we can make a huge difference by having the right strategy. I would like to thank you for placing that trust in me. I think that is what I have to say.
Many thanks, Martin. A warm welcome to you. We're very happy to have you on board for this great club.
Now, then I would like to give the audience the opportunity to ask questions, if any, on items five and six.
Yes, go ahead. Erik van Heuningen on behalf of VEB. Well, I don't think that we surprise you by saying that we're very happy that ASM can use Martin van Pernis. And I think you, as chair, had a great role in convincing Martin. Two questions. First of all, I am curious. If you look at the developments in the field of lithography, things becoming more prominent, to what extent the coming of Martin van Pernis could be a competitive advantage now that ALD is becoming gradually more important? Second question is maybe not really fair, but Martin becomes sparring partner for management Supervisory Board member. so how is he going to separate these two identities? Thank you.
To your question, I think that first, we are very pleased to have Martin van Pernis join ASM. I think it's very important that this technology, the growth of the technology in the future, needs both materials and lithography. And his knowledge about the customer and the technology would also be helpful to us. We think that the growth of technology in the future resides a lot on new materials and also on how to integrate those new materials with patterning films and so on. And I think his knowledge of the lithography part of patterning would be helpful for us to develop new material going forward. Thank you.
Thank you. Then, answering the other question of how can. Regarding the other question, how can you separate your role, being Supervisory Board and an advisor to the management?
Well, I think it applies to all of us as supervisors. I think this is the big question. Being effective as a supervisor, one day you are an advisor to the Management Board. The next day, you're supervising. Then you have to approve certain matters or not. You're also the employer. So there are different roles to play. This is always a field of tension that we live with every day as a supervisor. It will not be different for Mr. van Pernis compared to other supervisors. I would like to leave it at that if you do not mind, as long as Mr. van Pernis hasn't been officially appointed. I don't think it's necessary that he will explain how he will go about it, if you don't mind. Well, no. Please do not consider it as an attack on Mr. van Pernis.
No, I do not consider it. No, because he was explicitly mentioned as a sparring partner. And yeah, but we all are. We all are. We are all sparring partners. And we are supervisors and employers. That's being a supervisor. Any other questions? No. Then you now have the opportunity to cast your vote on items 5 and 6. You have a few seconds to vote per item on the agenda. Again, choice 1, for; 2, against; abstain, 3. Your last choice made will count. I will share the voting results immediately. Let's start with item 5A, proposal to amend the remuneration policy Supervisory Board. and i now open the vote. A few seconds. I now closed the vote. Then item 5B, proposal to amend the remuneration of the members Supervisory Board and its committees. And I now open the vote.
A few seconds left. The voting is closed. You may now vote on 6A, proposal to reappoint Didier Lamouche as a member Supervisory Board. the vote is open. A few seconds. Voting is closed. You may now vote on item 6B, proposal to appoint Ms. Micki as a member Supervisory Board. i open the vote now. A few seconds left. I now closed the vote. Finally, you may vote on item 6C, proposal to appoint Mr. van Pernis as a member Supervisory Board. i again open the voting. A few seconds left. Voting is closed. This is the end of the second voting block. I hereby close the voting for this voting block.
And the results we're about to see include the votes cast by proxy and votes cast in the room today. So can I have the results, please? Right. And again here, I conclude that all proposals have been adopted with a large majority. And then I congratulate my colleagues with their appointment and reappointment. Tania, Martin, and Didier, congratulations on your appointment and reappointment. That concludes this voting block. And we can now go to the last voting block, items seven through eleven. And again, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions after item eleven. And then you can vote on all these items. Seven is the appointment of the auditor of ASM for the financial year 2025. You have been able to read the explanatory notes. We ask you to agree with appointing EY as the external auditor for fiscal year 2025.
I would like to give the floor to the chair of Audit Committee, stefanie Kahle-Galenske. Stefanie, go ahead, please.
Thank you, Pauline. First, I would like to extend my gratitude to KPMG for last year's audit, for their contributions to Audit Committee meetings, and the professional collaboration during 2023. As explained during last year's AGM, 2024 will be KPMG's last year as external auditor of ASM due to the mandatory rotation after 10 years. Therefore, we, Audit Committee, formed a selection committee together with management for the tender of a new auditor. We've sent out a request for proposals, had several onsite meetings, and attended presentations of the three audit firms that participated in the tender, where we raised several questions to all firms.
Subsequently, we made a comparison taking into account experience, financial ESG, and other knowledge, qualifications, the relevant firm's approach towards the audit, technical considerations, and price. We also cleared the independence checks of each firm. After a careful process, the selection committee concluded that Ernst & Young Accountants LLP was the most suitable for ASM going forward. Therefore, Audit Committee made a recommendation Supervisory Board to nominate Ernst & Young Accountants LLP with Marjan Molenaar as lead partner as a new auditor for financial year of Supervisory Board subsequently nominated Ernst & Young for appointment by the GM today. Marjan is present today to answer any questions you may have when Pauline opens the floor for questions later at the end of the block.
Subject to the General Meeting's approval today, Ernst & Young will commence work this year to ensure a smooth transition when it takes over the baton from KPMG in 2025. Audit Committee, we look forward to a fruitful, effective, and pleasant collaboration with Ernst & Young. Thank you.
Helemaal mooi. Veel dank. Many thanks, Stephanie. I welcome you at the company. I will now move on to agenda item eight. That is Board of Management as the accountant body to issue ordinary shares and to grant rights to subscribe for ordinary shares and to restrict or preclude or exclude preemptive rights. Well, this point is always on the agenda. It consists of two agenda items. You will vote on it separately.
Agenda item 8A is Board of Management as the competent body to issue common shares or ordinary shares and grant rights to subscribe ordinary shares. In accordance with Articles 5.1 and 5.6 of the Articles of Association, it is proposed that Board of Management as the body of ASM that, subject to the approval Supervisory Board, is authorised to issue ordinary shares, including granting rights to subscribe for ordinary shares for a period of 18 months from the day of the meeting. The issuance shall take place at such a price and further on such terms and conditions as shall be determined at Board of Management, if required with the approval of the Supervisory Board.
This right is limited to a maximum of 10% of the entire issued ordinary share capital of ASM on the date of this meeting. Agenda item 8B concerns Board of Management as the authorized body to limit or exclude preemptive rights with respect to the issuance of ordinary shares and grant rights to acquire ordinary shares. This agenda item is also a voting item and deals with the exclusion of preemptive rights.
In accordance with Article 7.5 of the Articles of Association, in conjunction with agenda item 8A, the General Meeting is Board of Management for a period of 18 months from the date of this meeting as the body of the company that, subject to the approval Supervisory Board, is authorized to limit or exclude the preemptive rights of existing shareholders if ordinary shares are issued or rights to subscribe for ordinary shares are granted. Well, we now arrive at agenda item 9. This is Board of Management to repurchase or buyback ordinary shares in ASM.
In accordance with Article 8.1 of the Articles of Association, it is proposed that the General Meeting, subject to supervisory board, Board of Management for a period of 18 months from the date of this meeting to buy back a maximum of 10% of the issued capital on the date of this meeting. This may be done at a price of at least equal to the nominal value of the shares and at most a price equal to 110% of the average closing price of the share according to the listing on the Euronext Amsterdam Stock Exchange on the five trading days preceding the day of the buyback. We now arrive at item 10 of the agenda. This concerns the proposal to cancel common shares or ordinary shares held by ASM.
In order to optimize ASM's capital structure, ASM wishes to have the ability to cancel the ordinary shares it holds at any time in its Board of Management, with the approval supervisory board, proposes to the General Meeting to resolve to cancel all ordinary shares in the share capital of ASM that will be acquired pursuant to the authorisation under agenda item nine. Insofar as they will not be used or held to cover obligations or under the long-term share incentive plan for employees Board of Management. this cancellation may be carried out in one or more tranches. The number of common shares or ordinary shares that will be cancelled will Board of Management, subject to the foregoing.
Pursuant to the relevant legal obligations or provisions, withdrawal cannot take place earlier than two months after the decision to withdraw and before it is publicly announced. And this applies to each tranche. Well, finally, we arrive at agenda item 11, which is also today's last voting Supervisory Board proposed to amend the bylaws by the Articles of Association by including an indemnification for the members of both bodies who are in office on or after the date of the execution of the deed of amendment of the Articles of Association for the total periods they are in office. We believe that including the text of the indemnification in the Articles of Association and in line with transparency for shareholders, this could be done. We also see that many listed companies have included the indemnification in their bylaws.
The proposed amendment of the Articles of Association has been made available for inspection at the offices of ASM and ABN AMRO Bank N.V. as of today's notice for this meeting. It also has been published on ASM's website. I now grant you the opportunity to ask questions about the agenda items 7 through 11. Is there anybody who has a question about these agenda items?
Well, thank you. My name is Emiel van den Heuvel . I work for Kempen & Co. Well, Mr. Van Uchelen said that he nor team members of his team were included in the fraud assessment . And this is, of course, an important point when reappointing EY. Can I invite Ms. Molenaar to give a comment on that? Ms. Molenaar doesn't use his microphone. Well, thank you for this question. It's good to clarify this point. Are there any other questions?
No other questions. I note that there are no further questions. I would like to ask you to start voting. Well, I would like to point out to all of the shareholders that this is the last voting item. After this, I will publish all the voting items. We will start with number seven, so the points about the auditor. The appointment of the new auditor. So just a few seconds left. I would like to close the voting now. You may vote on eight A. This is Board of Management as the authorized body to issue ordinary shares and to grant rights to subscribe for ordinary shares. I would like to open the vote on this now. Well, we have a few seconds left now. I would like to close the vote now.
We have 8B, Board of Management as the authorized body to limit or exclude preemptive rights with respect to the issuance of ordinary shares. I would like to open the vote on this now. Just a few seconds left. I would like to close the vote now. There's item 9, Board of Management to buyback ordinary shares in ASM. I would like to open the vote now on this. Just a few seconds left. Hereby, I would like to close the vote. Now we arrive at item 10. This is the proposal to cancel ordinary shares. I would like to open the vote now. I see that most of the votes have been cast. I would like to close the vote now.
Finally, you may vote on agenda item 11, the amendment of the Articles of Association. I would like to open the vote on that now. Just a few seconds left. I would like to close the vote. Well, this was the end of the third voting block. I would like to close the votes for this voting block. We will now see the results of the votes in a few seconds. These are the votes cast based on the proxy and also the votes from the room. You see the results here on the screen. You see the results for 7, 8A, and 8B. And what is missing here is 10 and 11. This is on the next page. So here, the items have been adopted by large majority. Then we have the next page. Here, we have the items 9, 10 and 11.
Also, these items have been adopted by large majority. One item, even with 100%, I do not know whether we achieved this in the past already. Well, thank you for your support for the proposals. I assess you that all of these agenda items have been adopted. Now we arrive at any other business item. May I give the floor to anybody for the any other business item?
Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. Stephanie Claassen of VBDO. I have two questions lobbying. Well, ASM is an organization of public interest. And this is important. It's important for the economy and for the Netherlands. According to an OECD study, the Netherlands are lagging behind in the field of lobbying. Well, it's important to know what is done, how it is done. If you talk about lobbying, how can we have influence on our politicians?
This is why lobbying is an important item for us. The list of memberships of associations in the Annual Report, is it exhaustive? If not, may I ask you to include an exhaustive list next year with all of the organizations you work with, accompanied by a statement how you verify whether these organizations work in line with the systems and values of ASM and of international organizations. Then the second question. This is about circularity. Any supply chain restraints they have been solved for the larger part has been said. But I would like to come back on critical raw materials. Circularity is not so much true for ASM because we just heard that you sell about 600 systems per year. But I'm curious to know what you do in the field of circularity of critical raw materials.
If there are not enough critical raw materials, you can't make any end products in which the ASM chips are being processed. So this is the reason for my question. Well, thank you for the questions. To whom may I give the floor? Paul, do you want to answer this question?
So I think it has already been published in the Annual Report. The list of memberships and associations that we interact with, you are correct. That is not the whole list. And part of it is because some of these are very minor and very local. But we will take into consideration the request to publish an exhaustive list in the Annual Report next year.
Yeah. And then the question with regard to circularity. Yeah. As you most likely know, we design products on a modular basis to service those products, which, of course, increases circularity.
We also develop certain service solutions. We call it CKM, Complete Kit Management Solutions, that also help, again, circularity because we take back parts, we clean them, and we put them back into the respective tools instead of throwing them away and putting in new parts. And I would assume, but to be honest, I don't know, that would also benefit critical raw materials. But I would like to invite maybe Hichem to say something if all the, let's say, servicing of tools that we do, spares and service solutions that we have, if there's something specific for critical raw materials. I'm not sure. Hichem, can you maybe take that question?
Yeah. I think if I can add to what you mentioned, Paul, is that we're really looking into reuse of the material that we use in our deposition equipment. So we have precursors. We have chemicals.
We have gases, liquids, and you name it. And we really try to recycle that. So that's really another area that we do to really help in the recirculation of the raw material. It's not something I'm going to talk too much about. But it's really something that we're really doing. And we are very actively working in this area.
Ik zie nog een voorzitter. Ik heb nog niet helemaal het antwoord gehad op de twee vragen. Mr. Chair, I didn't get a full answer. As to lobbying, I also asked for a statement or a declaration. So how do you verify whether the organization with which you work, whether they act in accordance with international treaties and our values? As to circularity, I'm talking about the value chain. It's not about the circularity of ASM, but it's about the value chain.
If in the value chain there are not enough raw materials available, then products cannot be made. In that case, ASM will make less machines because then the demand for chips is lesser. How in future can we deal with the lack of critical raw materials?
The associations or the bodies that we are part of or have membership of, I can safely say that they are well-known international organizations. So it's not like we joined some association in some third-world country and we are not aware of what they are doing. So I think in that respect, if you would give us perhaps the request that we publish a more exhaustive list of our membership and so on, I think it will be quite evident that, look, these are not associations that are perhaps questionable.
I think most of the, actually, associations in the semiconductor industry, they are quite well-known. So I think maybe let us look into that. And then if there are still questions, of course, please come back to us.
Okay. I can add something to Benjamin. I think raw material is really not a very big problem for us. The reason I'm saying this is that in the development of our products, especially in ALD, we're actually developing new compounds using the same material as we use right now. The beauty of ALD is that you can change the different ratio of the normal material and you form a new material. So you can change the ratio of the normal precursor that we use right now. You make them in different ratio. With that, you develop a new material. So that's really the focus of our work.
ALD is a very good technique to develop new materials with the normal component that we use right now.
Good. method. Well, having said so, is there any last question? I see one last question. We'll guess the last for two. I'm Piet Molenaar. I have a general question. The semiconductor world, already a new front end and a back end, the wafer part, and then the assembly part as the front end. Well, ASM delivers its equipment at the front end so that it's wafer. ASMPT delivers its equipment to the back end. In this last period, we see that the borders are more vague. There are now wafer-level molding technologies, special bonding technologies. So my question is, is it working with ASMPT in this transitional stage or not? Maybe in the field of R&D.
So in brief, I would like to know this just from a personal interest. Benjamin?
So sorry. I think you have a deep knowledge of the semiconductor industry. It is actually very true that we are looking at certain technologies that are bringing the front and the back together. And for us today, we look at ASM Pacific still as a financial investment. So it's on our books. But of course, we have two board seats. So we know what they do. At this moment, I don't think we are doing any form of R&D or joint collaboration. But I will not rule out that possibility as this becomes more and more entwined. I think for a long time, whether it's the front end or the back end, it was quite separate, especially what they do and what we do because we are in that position.
But we do see that there is potentially, as the advanced packaging or what you call heterogeneous integration develops, there may be some possibilities. But there's nothing that is concrete at this moment.
Okay. Thank you. Goed. Nou, deze mooie technische. That is a nice forward-looking question. I would like to thank you all for your presence here and for your confidence in this amazing company and for your involvement in ASM. And I would like to invite you, on behalf of all of us, for a drink and a bit and a bite. And I hope that the old and present members of the boards, Supervisory Board, will present these drinks. Thank you. I now close the meeting.