Okay. Good afternoon. Welcome to this shareholders' meeting of today, Monday the 28th of May, 2018. I will start this meeting in English, in the English language, the remainder of this meeting will be in the Dutch language, except for the presentation of the CEO. At agenda point two, he will do his presentation in the English language as well. However, there will be a simultaneous translation, and anybody who does not understand Dutch can take the earphones and listen to what is being said and discussed. Questions can be asked in English, and the answer will be then in Dutch or English, depending on how well the person who puts the question forward understands Dutch. Please do not feel in any way hampered by asking questions in English if you don't speak Dutch.
I will now switch to Dutch, and we will start with some formal announcements. Your first request is, of course, to sign the list of attendance. You probably did that when you came in. When you have a question and wish to take the floor, please state your name and possibly who you represent. The meeting was convened in conformity with the Articles of Association, Article 13. The meeting was announced on our website on the 16th of April, 2018. Also, the agenda and explanatory notes and the translation in English were published on the same date on our website. The convocation stated that the agenda and explanatory notes and other attachments and the annual report 2017 were also available, among other things, at the offices of the company and also with ABN AMRO Bank in Amsterdam.
The U.S. proxy card was also published on our website on the 16th of April and sent on the 16th of April. In conformity with the law, the registration date was the 30th of April, 2018. The total number of shares is 62,297,394, of which 7,752,385 shares are in treasury, and therefore, we vote with a number of shares, which is 54,545,009 shares. I wish to announce our special guests, Rob Kroekniet, partner of KPMG, who is our external auditor with his team, and notary Ruud van Bork from Loyens & Loeff, who will draw up the minutes of this meeting in conformity with Article 26.2 of the Articles of Association of the company.
The minutes of the meeting will, according to recommendation 4.1.2 of the Dutch Corporate Governance Code, made available within three months as a concept on the website, and shareholders then have three months to respond or react to the minutes. As you can see, all members of the supervisory board and the executive board are present, and in conformity with the recommendation of the 4.1.8 of the Dutch Corporate Governance Code, Mr. De Jong is present, and we will introduce him as a nominee for the supervisory board. Again, as I've said before, the meeting is in Dutch, just the presentation of the CEO will be in English. The results of the voting items will be announced after each vote and also will be published within 15 days after this meeting on the website.
Those of you who wish to leave this room during the meeting are requested to go to the registration desk. Your voting card will be kept there and will be given to you when you return. Of course, we need to register the represented share capital during this meeting. Some directions for casting your vote. Those who wish to vote by proxy have to register with our registration desk in advance. We will vote with electronic devices, and before we start voting, which is item five and further, we will do a trial making sure that the voting system is up and running. Finally, I wish to ask you, please switch off your mobile phones, making sure that there is no disturbance during the meeting with all kinds of ringtones or whatever you wish to call it. These were my announcements in advance.
Under 1 of the agenda, I wish to go to item two on the agenda, which is the report on the financial year 2017. This is an item for discussion, and our CEO, Chuck del Prado, will give a presentation. Of course, you will have the opportunity to ask questions after that. Chuck, I wish to give you the floor. Thank you. Jan.
In Amsterdam and those listening on the live webcast to ASMI's 2018 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. We are pleased to present the company's results and business performance in 2017. Before starting the presentation, I would like to remind you all here in Amsterdam and on the webcast, with this slide, with a lot of words, to our customary cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements. You've seen this slide before. With that, I would like to start our presentation.
We have established a successful track record as an innovation leader within the semiconductor industry, enabling us to add significant value to all our stakeholders, customers, people, investors, and society. As the worldwide demand for smaller, faster, and cheaper semiconductor chips continues, the drive to digitization is relentless, powering more automation, creating massive amounts of data. Our innovative technologies are already widely used by the most advanced semiconductor manufacturers to help them meet these demands. To continue our path of innovation, we are focused on producing a higher level of business from a broader range of deposition applications, leading to long-term growth and positive returns for investors.
After this introductory video, we would like to provide you with an update on the company in the following way. Let's look at the different chapters that we would like to address with you. First of all, of course, we briefly would like to touch on the financial highlights. Not in the same extensive way as we do in our annual report that you all have been able to read, but just focusing on the highlights. Subsequently, we will talk about the non-financial highlights. This chapter includes, among other subjects, items that are relevant from a corporate responsibility point of view. Subsequently, as chapter 3, of course, we will address the business environment that ASM has been operating in over the last 12 months, 12-18 months almost by now. We will talk, of course, about the company's achievements in the year of 2017.
We will close with the last chapter, what's the company's business agenda and outlook in this calendar year? First of all, looking at financial highlights. Let's review 2017 sales. Sales in last year increased by 23% to a new record level for the company. Excluding currency impact, the increase was even 25%. Product-wise, sales were driven by a clear recovery in ALD, our atomic layer deposition that most of you know very well, as well as strong growth in new products, in epitaxy and in PECVD, plasma-enhanced CVD. From an industry segment point of view, strongest growth for us and for the broader WFE market, for the broader wafer fab equipment market also, was in the memory segment. That was in memory, particularly in the 3D NAND market. Let's look at operating results.
Operating result increased strongly by 38%. This was despite the fact that our gross margin, as many of you know, decreased from 44% to 41.5%, which is fully explained by the 2.5% effect of initial cost related to the new epitaxy and PECVD product launches. We continue to target gross margins in a range of low to mid 40s percentages. Operating expenses remained under control and were in the ranges as we earlier communicated. As a consequence, economies of scale led to an improvement of our operating margin from 13.8% to 15.3% for the year 2017. Looking at net result, this increased by 24%. This is our reported net earnings, not our normalized net earnings, that increased to EUR 168 million. Besides the strong improvement in our operating result, the results from investments reflecting our share of ASMPT net profits increased with a healthy 66%.
Despite the fact that we reduced our stake in ASMPT during the year from 39% to 25%. The net result was negatively impacted by currencies. We keep our cash for a big part in U.S. dollars. The weakening of the U.S. dollar against the euro led to a negative translation result of EUR 31 million. The total net result of EUR 452 million also improved due to a substantial book profit of EUR 285 million on the shares that we sold in ASMPT during the year. In April last year, we sold 5% for the proceeds of approximately EUR 250 million, and in November last year, a stake of 9% was sold for the proceeds of EUR 445 million. This graph shows the development in the cash position. Step by step, we will lead you through how the cash position developed during the year.
As you see here, we started with a healthy cash position in January 1st of EUR 378 million. We generated almost EUR 700 million with the share sale in ASMPT that we addressed also on the former slide. We received EUR 36 million in dividends from ASMPT. As you very well know, we spent EUR 240 million on share buybacks last year. We paid out to you EUR 41 million in dividends. The other cash flow of EUR 44 million for the largest part represents free cash flow that we generate. Free cash flow, which amounted to EUR 32 million. The free cash flow was stable in 2017 year-over-year, with an increase in profitability that was offset by higher working capital and higher CapEx.
The higher CapEx was related to the increase in our R&D activities and the first impact of investments in the further expansion of our activities in Korea and Singapore, which we'll address on a later slide, also in a little bit more detail. Finally, currency changes had a negative impact of EUR 31 million on the cash position. As a result of all of that, we ended the year with a strong cash position of EUR 837 million. Of course, to be noted here is that this number still includes a large part of the proceeds of the ASMPT stake sale that we plan to return to shareholders, which will be addressed later on the agenda of this AGM today.
At the same time, as you know from us, we aim to maintain a strong balance sheet that allows us to continue investing in the growth of our business. Let us now, in the next few slides, provide you some color on ASMI's performance in terms of shareholder remuneration. On dividend, we have proposed a dividend for you to approve today of EUR 0.80 per share. This is an increase of 14% compared to the EUR 0.70 that we paid to our shareholders last year. It also represents the eighth consecutive year that we are paying a significant dividend to you, to our shareholders. This slide shows the long-term development in dividends. As you can see, we came from EUR 0.40 in 2011 and are now proposing EUR 0.80 to pay out to you now.
As you know, it is our policy to pay a sustainable dividend. Besides dividends, ASMI in general is committed to use excess cash for the benefit of our shareholders. As part of that commitment, we completed our third consecutive EUR 100 million program last year. We started a new EUR 250 million share buyback program using the proceeds of the first stake sale in ASMPT that we executed last year. This program was completed at the end of March of this year. Last February, we announced a new EUR 250 million buyback program using a part of the proceeds of the ASMPT sale of last November. Besides the share buyback, we are also proposing a capital return of EUR 4 per share, which is also going to be addressed, as you know, later on in the agenda of today.
Affected as a repayment of capital, therefore free of dividend withholding tax. For this, we will use the remainder of the proceeds of the last ASMPT stake sale. If we look at the total proposed package of shareholder remuneration in 2018, so in this year, not last year, the combination of dividend, capital repayment, and new share buyback program, it totals more than half a billion euro. This slide was made to show you the cumulative cash that the company returned to the financial markets since 2010. Including the share buybacks that we executed so far in 2018, plus the new proposed repurchase program, the capital repayment, and the dividend, the cumulative amount will be almost EUR 1.7 billion. Okay. That was on shareholder remuneration. Now let's take a short look in two slides to our stake in ASMPT.
As we addressed in the previous slides, we reduced our stake in ASMPT from 39% to 25% in two steps last year. We believe this is an important step that will further drive the long-term value creation of our company. This is, of course, next to our continued focus to drive shareholder value by growing and strengthening our front-end operations, which we address later in the presentation. As addressed earlier, we committed to use the proceeds for share buyback and a capital repayment. At the same time, we would like to reiterate here that the management board remains of the opinion that at this moment, a significant stake in ASMPT is of a strategic value to our company, and it adds to our financial strength and perceived industrial presence, and, as such, supports us in further expanding our position with key customers in our front-end business.
After addressing these financial highlights, let's now shift focus to some of ASM's non-financial highlights in 2017. Our achievements for the company would not be meaningful if we did not achieve them responsibly. We believe that responsibly managing our business creates value for our company as well as for our stakeholders and for our society. We continue to focus on improving the way we do business responsibly in our operations, in our supply chain, and with our stakeholders. This means strategies and focus beyond our financial and operational results and sharing these transparently with our stakeholders, and that's what we're also trying to do today. We are focused on further integrating corporate responsibility across all areas of our business.
Again, let's now together review some of our non-financial highlights in 2017, and of course, there is much more described also in our annual report or on the website. First of all, we remain relentlessly committed to our philosophy of zero harm, which means we strive to reduce our impact on the environment and positively contribute to society. First and foremost, this means protecting the health and safety of our employees, our customers, and our suppliers' employees. Our safety goal is zero harm. Any incident or injury inspires us to push ourselves further to identify and eliminate the risk or hazard and fundamentally prevent the exposure. Our performance measures are aligned with our industry and peers and allow us to benchmark our performance year-over-year.
The key measures of our safety performance include, first of all, an overall injury rate, and secondly, a recordable injury rate indicator. Again, these are not the only ones, but these are the ones we address with you today. The injury rate is the superset and measures any injury requiring first aid or greater, and the recordable injury rate measures more serious injuries which require greater than first aid or result in restricted duty or lost working days. This graph shows it, that in 2017, our total injury rate showed a further 1.5% improvement from 2016. Our recordable injury rate, which is the gray lower one that measures serious injuries, improved to a record low since we started measuring this 11 years ago.
In 2017, it ended with a score of 0.26. The definition, again, is shown on the bottom of the slide. However, any injury or incident is one too many for us, for everybody within ASM, so we continuously strive to eliminate risk and hazards that could lead to safety incidents. This includes providing workplaces with very good working conditions. Proactive programs, such as our emphasis that all employees are safety leaders. Empowering all employees to conduct Safety Management By Walking Around, so-called SMBWA audits, to identify and eliminate risks or hazards to fundamentally prevent incidents and injuries. We set annual targets that drive us towards our ultimate goal of, again, zero harm. Another item to highlight in that respect is global water consumption.
While water is key to supporting our R&D activities, we recognize that globally, in our society, water is a critical resource and that we must do everything possible to conserve. This is why we have selected water consumption as one of our environmental goals. In 2017, we saw that our consumption trend was not reducing fast enough, so we put much more focus on it. In 2017, we completed, as a result, the engineering and construction of a wastewater recirculation system at our Phoenix location, which represents the majority of ASM's water consumptions globally today. The system went fully online in February of this year. So far, the system performance data supports our projection that this new facility in Phoenix will result in a 50% reduction in ASM's global water consumption compared versus the 2017 levels.
While this will be great progress, we continue to pursue further reduction opportunities to minimize our use of this globally critical resource. R&D headcount. That's another non-financial pillar of our overall strategy, but also of our corporate responsibility strategy. We have been ASM. We have been an innovation leader for 50 years. Our innovative strength is the cornerstone of our strategy. It is what differentiates us in the marketplace. We are focused on innovations and R&D that enable our customers to deliver the next generation chips, which enable the latest technologies, which have in turn positively benefited many aspects of our society today. Our people, our employees, are the driving force and the differentiating factor behind these innovations. The right mix of people working together to solve big challenges, big technological challenges.
We attract and retain creative people from around the world who help us to create a steady stream of innovation. These innovations enable a broader supply chain across more than 20 countries to strengthen their technological capabilities and also provide work. 2017 was another successful year of attracting top global talent, with an 11% increase in R&D employees worldwide. R&D employees represent roughly a quarter of our total headcount. Final slide on the non-financial highlights. ASM began reporting on corporate responsibility by including a brief chapter on the key elements of our program in our 2012 annual report. Many of you, especially VEB, will remember that, I'm sure. Starting in 2013 and improving each year through 2016, we published a standalone corporate responsibility report covering our strategies, focus areas, and results.
Recognizing the importance of integrating corporate responsibility with our business strategy and operations, for the 2017 reporting period, we decided to work towards integrated reporting to more clearly convey how we are achieving this. As such, our 2017 annual report is the transition towards fully integrated reporting. The integrated reporting framework will provide ASM with a structured approach to reporting our value creation and best meet the expectation of all our stakeholders. In the 2018 annual report next year, we aim to take further steps towards this goal. Yeah, I made a mistake. There is one more slide on non-financials. A very nice one, because this talks to our facilities within the company. What this shows is that based on our strategic plan for the next three to five years, we are stepping up investments to prepare our company for the next stage of growth in our business.
In the last several years, we could largely accommodate the increased demand with our existing facilities. Our investment to grow to higher levels include the construction of a new R&D and manufacturing facility in Korea, in close proximity to our key customers' locations. This is a picture of the Korea facility as it should look towards the end of the year. This is still an animation, but it's going to be a reality soon. Soon this year. Okay, next to Korea, we're also in the planning stages for a new manufacturing facility in Singapore. These investments are key to enabling the next stage of our growth. Okay. Financial highlights. Non-financial highlights. Let's now take some time for the third section of our presentation. This section will provide you with an update on the market in 2017 and highlight the business performance of ASM's key product lines.
All right. This shows ASM truly is a global company. We don't have just a headquarter where everything is done. We have a distributed organizational model where key activities happen in many places around the world. We support our customers by deploying our technical people at their fab locations throughout the world. You can see thermal products, R&D, basically the competence center for thermal products. That's EPI and thermal ALD and vertical furnace is done in Almere and in Phoenix. We have our plasma products, which is plasma ALD and plasma CVD, PCVD is done in Tokyo, Japan, and in Cheonan, South Korea, just a few hours outside Seoul. We have manufacturing in Singapore and Cheonan, South Korea. Then we have, let's say, more fundamental research in both Helsinki, Finland and Leuven, Belgium.
The orange dots that complete the rest of the picture, those are other locations where we also are active as ASMI sales and service facilities. Looking at, again, how the industry evolved in which we operate in 2017. That industry, we define it because we are an equipment company. We always define it as the wafer fab equipment market, the WFE market. The WFE market was up strongly in 2017, well over 30% according to Gartner, which is one of the, as you know, very respected market research firm. As you can see in the bar chart, most of the growth came from the orange part, which is the memory part. That accounted for both DRAM and 3D NAND. Memory devices were fueled by high demand, which was well above available supply capacity, also driving prices up.
This undersupply environment drove more new investments in memory fabs. The equipment market for logic and foundry, which is the gray part on the slide, was also reasonably positive in 2017 across a wide range of technology nodes. Not only in the advanced nodes. Top foundry customers were invested in initial 7-nanometer node tools, but also some amount for prior nodes. 16 and even 28-nanometer node. The advanced logic segment, most of the spending there was driven by 14-nanometer, not advanced logic. No significant investments last year in 10-nanometer yet. All right. Looking at this, I waited until the slide was complete. The former slide showed the WFE market by device type, by industry segment, memory, logic, foundry. This slide shows an overview of that same total amount of spending in WFE market by equipment segment.
This pie chart shows the relative size of the major categories. You see lithography, where ASM is active, etch and clean. ASMI, as you know, is focused on the EUR 12.3 billion part of deposition, which represented about 24% of the total WFE market in 2017. Let's now look at ASM's product performance in the WFE market in 2017. As previously noted, our product focus is on serving the deposition equipment market. We're not on litho, we're not on etch and clean. We are a focused, excellent deposition equipment company. Within the deposition space, we are a leader in the ALD segment, atomic layer deposition. We also have developed additional focus over the last couple of years on the other deposition segments such as epitaxy, PCVD, and vertical furnace.
Again, we have been active in those areas for a long time, but we increased our focus in a smart way in all of these three areas. We spent considerable effort and investment in 2017 to more broadly serve these markets, which we will highlight in the coming slides. Again, as we showed earlier, equipment market was up strongly in 2017, and the major growth driver was memory. Within that overall market space, ASM's revenue was up 25% in 2017. Our business benefited from the recovery of the single-wafer ALD market, which as you may recall, was weak in 2016. This recovery was especially driven by strong growth in 3D NAND.
Besides ALD, we're also pleased with our strong growth in epitaxy, where a key win for our new Intrepid tool at a leading foundry customer was achieved, we'll get back to that on a later slide. Further broadening was realized with strong PCVD growth driven by 3D NAND. By the way, what you see here is on the picture, it's maybe in the back a little bit difficult, but this is a part of an XP8 platform, which is used for PEALD and PCVD, and it's part of the XP8 platform wafer handling chamber. Basically where the wafers are being handled as they come from the operator, and when they are handled before they go into the reactor chamber, where the real deposition process takes place. There may be a few later animations, which will provide you a little bit more color on that.
Our business for 3D NAND across our product lines increased substantially this past year, leading to a solid double-digit % of our total sales for the company. Furthermore, we strengthened our investment in many R&D engagements with key customers, which are focused on future nodes. Okay. Then, yeah, a few pictures. These pictures were selected by marketing, not by me. I would like to say that up front, but we use these pictures because we are proud of the customer achievements that took place in 2017. We're very proud to report here that Intel recognized ASM in 2017 with their prestigious Preferred Quality Supplier Award for the second time in our history. The criteria that Intel, as a logic leader in the world, uses for this award are very stringent.
It is a great honor for us and reflects achievements across the entire company. Again, it reflects achievements, and those achievements are not only in technology, but also in terms of operational execution. They also not only look at the technology from their suppliers, but also how excellent are they executing in the field in the high volume fabs. TSMC is, of course, another extremely important customer, and they recognized ASM in 2017 with their Excellent Performance Award for the second year in a row. Let's take a closer look after having reviewed the industry and the more general highlights, the general achievements of the company in 2017. Let's take a closer look at our products and technology, which helped us earn these awards.
We have included several video animations today that we trust will give you a better understanding besides just, let's say, boring PowerPoint slides. First, let's take a closer look at ALD, with a short animation. I trust it will provide you a little bit more color. Let's take a look, and let's dim the light maybe a little bit.
Manufacturing billions of nanoscopic transistors on a single chip requires astonishing precision. This is where atomic layer deposition comes in. ALD allows us to deposit thin conducting and isolating films atom by atom on silicon wafers. It is this atomic-scale control that enables us to use innovative materials that couldn't be considered before and develop chips using 3D structures, which are vital to the future of electronics. As leader in this advanced technology, ASM plays a key role in creating the chips of tomorrow. Building and connecting complicated 3D structures involves depositing perfectly uniform films to every part of the structure. Whether it's for fins to redirect the transistor's current or stacking more memory cells, the highest deposition quality is needed. Using the third dimension means our customers are able to save even more of the silicon wafer surface area while boosting performance.
Okay, as noted on one of the previous slides, the single-wafer ALD market improved in 2017, again, after a weak year for the single-wafer ALD market in 2016. As our strongest product segment, ASM's ALD revenue benefited and accounted for over 50% of our equipment sales. As our logic and foundry customers continue their relentless drive to stay on Moore's Law. We benefit from the need for more ALD process steps to achieve each new technology node. For example, the ALD served available market more than doubled, going from 40 nanometer to the 7 nanometer node that we are in high volume now for the foundry segment. Moore's Law, just to refresh your memory on that, Moore's Law states that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit will double approximately every two years, and the cost per transistor will reduce by half over the same timeframe.
You can imagine how much pressure that puts not only on our customers, but also on the equipment supply chain, like ASM, to enable that, to make that happen. Yeah? Only staying on Moore's Law accommodates society to release every year new end consumer products that for you seem pretty logical that they show up. There's a whole supply chain behind that that makes that happen. We, ASM, we view ourselves as an enabling equipment supplier in that supply chain. Not a me-too supplier, an enabling supplier. For both logic and memory devices, we continue our R&D efforts to increase the number of applications that we can serve to increase our served available market. That's what this bullet addresses. Also, we see the ALD market growth continuing over the long term, driven by the fundamental benefits of the ALD technology.
In the photos, it's probably a little tough to see, but I still would like to because we are proud of our products, we would like to tell you a little bit more. The Pulsar product here on the upper left, it's the industry standard ALD tool for the most advanced transistor high-k gate dielectrics in the world. Yeah? Basically the heart dielectric layer of the transistor is manmade with this ASM tool around the world, the Pulsar XP. Another famous product of the company is the so-called EmerALD ALD for advanced node transistor metal gate layers. That's what this product does. Here, the XP8, that's a leading tool for so-called spacer-defined multi-patterning and other dielectric films.
Our ALD business for multiple patterning continues to be an important part of our business, and many of you have heard about spacer defined double patterning application. We thought you might like to get a little better understanding on just one application, and we chose multiple patterning as one ALD application to show you in an animation what does it really do? How does it really work? Let's take a look.
Spacer defined double patterning is a technique that can reduce device dimensions, and it does it by extending the use of existing lithography, postponing the need for new lithography technologies. Here's how it works. First, photoresist, a light-sensitive coating, is deposited on the wafer. The pattern is created on the photoresist using existing lithography equipment. Our XP8 PEALD, plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition tool, then carries out a resist trim step, narrowing and smoothing the photoresist. Conformally means having the same thickness on all surfaces, a fundamental benefit of ALD. The silicon dioxide spacers are then isolated by vertical etching, and the photoresist material is removed. The pattern is now defined by the spacers. The pitch dimension, the distance between the rectangles, is half the usual width, which means that double the number of patterns fit in the same area, helping to reduce device dimensions.
We address now our number 1 product, which was ALD. Let's now take a look at our epitaxy, the status of our epitaxy product. In July 2017, we launched the new Intrepid ES epitaxy tool after a focused R&D effort. The Intrepid ES has demonstrated competitive advantages in both on-wafer performance and productivity. This capability enables us to now address the broader mainstream EPI market. Let me explain that a little bit more. So far, we addressed the EPI market in the analog power market. That's what we have been focused on until the beginning of 2017, which was roughly about $100 million of the total $700 million EPI market. The remainder of that $700 million, outside the $100 million, is the so-called mainstream CMOS market, the mainstream CMOS EPI market.
Through the win at the leading foundry, we basically entered part of that bigger market, that bigger $700 million markets. We intend to basically gradually grow our penetration in that broader market. The EPI market is estimated to grow in the coming years. The largest part of the EPI market currently is for logic and foundry advanced node devices, but EPI is also being used in 3D NAND. In the near future, we expect that EPI steps for logic foundry are likely to increase in future nodes, and EPI is also expected to see future use in DRAM. With a win at a key foundry customer that I spoke to shortly earlier, Intrepid contributed to our doubling of EPI sales in 2017. We're focused on continuing to grow our new EPI engagement in HVM, so in high volume manufacturing, in the coming years.
As epitaxy is now new for many of you, we decided to share a visual explanation of the EPI process in the Intrepid ES tool. I would like to emphasize before the video starts that at the start and at the end of the video, you will see like this and like this, the gold-coated EPI chamber body. It is really a gold-coated chamber body to optimize, let's say, the EPI process in the reactor at very high temperatures. Let's take a look.
In 2017, we launched the Intrepid ES, our new epitaxy tool. Epitaxy is a way of depositing extremely pure crystalline silicon-based layers on a wafer. These pure layers are critical for semiconductor device performance. How does it work? The reactor within the Intrepid ES uses a bank of lamps to rapidly heat the wafer to a precise temperature. Gas then flows into the low volume quartz reaction chamber. When it passes across the hot surface of the wafer, chemical reactions grow a film of crystalline layers. The Intrepid ES features closed loop temperature control of both the wafer and the quartz reactor surface. This is important because a stable temperature is critical for epitaxy process control. It is a key differentiator for the Intrepid ES. When the target wafer temperature is reached, the lamps maintain that precise temperature throughout the entire process.
Because the Intrepid ES also controls the quartz reactor temperature, it can minimize any undesired deposition on the chamber, which extends reactor performance life between cleans and further reduces cost of ownership. The result is precise and uniform deposition, which means wafer-to-wafer repeatability. Intrepid ES's advanced closed loop process control makes the epitaxy process more stable in volume production, delivering higher productivity and lower costs than competing systems.
Okay. Another product line as you know is PCVD, plasma-enhanced CVD. Also plasma CVD had a good year in 2017. We maintained focus on selected applications in logic foundry such as low-k. We won new business for 3D NAND at a key customer. The result was nearly tripling of PCVD sales coming from a relatively low base. The photo shows the XP8 tool. The XP8 uses DCMs, so it's Dual Chamber Modules, enabling very high productivity with 8 chambers integrated in a small footprint. The way you should imagine it, that in the middle, so behind these blue boxes, this is 2 chambers, 2 chambers, 2 chambers, 2 chambers. 4 times 2. There are 8 chambers in almost a circle. Then in between there is a wafer handling chamber.
Here, the wafers come from the operator in the fab. This is all clean room, which is cleaner than the surgery room of hospital in terms of particles, in terms of stuff, particles. The wafers are entered here, then they go through the wafer handler chamber, and then they are prepared to go into these eight reactors. Then they come out, and then they go back to the operator. That's a little bit how it works. Okay. Last but not least, definitely not least, our vertical furnace product line. We continue to address the vertical furnace market with a niche strategy that includes serving selected key customers, including for advanced logic applications and relatively small but important and growing market segments such as in analog and power.
In particularly, more and more applications are fastly growing, and we have a fairly good competitive position there. Okay. Financial highlights, non-financial highlights, business environment and achievements in 2017. Those three chapters we finalized now. Let's now take a look at the final chapter and review, let's say, the key industry trends that are ongoing at this moment in time and how that impacts ASM's outlook for this year. We talked about Moore's Law a little bit on the ALD slide, for about 50 years now, the industry technology roadmap has followed Moore's Law to go to more transistors on the same footprint and at lower cost. Following Moore's Law has delivered higher performance at lower cost, making possible the incredible electronic products that we use every day in our society today.
This fundamental driver is still an important component of our customers' roadmaps for the advanced technology needed to make 10 nanometer, 7 nanometer, and future node devices. ASM's deposition tools continue to help enable each new technology node. Semiconductor chip sales, that you see that in the upper part of the slide. We're now switching briefly from semiconductor equipment to semiconductor, our customers. Their sales grew strongly by over 20% in 2017, driven by high memory ASPs, average selling prices. Growth is forecasted to continue at a healthy rate in 2018. The current forecast is about 12% by Gartner for this year for our customers. This plot shows semiconductor revenues and forecast growth rates for key application market drivers. You can see at the bottom here that traditional PCs are actually declining.
While mobile PCs are growing well, although still are relatively smaller segments. You see that we now are adding a few other categories. Yeah, white, red, and orange. You can see that the semiconductor end market for smartphones is very large. The long-term growth rate is also slowing, at least in this forecast by Gartner. Now we add the next category of servers, industrial electronics, automotive, solid state drives, and here you see the compound annual growth rate, the statistic. The average percentage of growth between 2017 and 2022. We're seeing here very strong growth rate for solid state drives, servers, automotive, and industrial applications, which is believed to provide strong fundamentals for the semiconductor market on average over a significant number of years to come. Okay. With this chart, we are looking at the wafer fab equipment market forecast.
Now we're switching again from the semiconductor market, our customers, to the wafer fab equipment market, which is the arena we operate in. This chart, we are looking at the wafer fab equipment market forecast segmented by technology node. You see here that the more advanced nodes, 10 nanometer and beyond, are the blue part here. The outlook for 2018 is again a growth year, about +6% according to Gartner. The gray 45 nanometer, the 45 nanometer, which seems an older node, includes primarily equipment for 3D NAND. While it may seem counterintuitive that a relatively larger line with node, an older, a relatively older node, older between quotes, that makes up such a large part of the market, it is because 3D NAND devices primarily scale upwards, not lateral as in logic and DRAM.
The technology requirements in 3D NAND are different from logic foundry and DRAM. Gartner's preliminary forecast for 2019, as you can see, this is the top of the graph, and it goes down here. Their preliminary forecast for 2019 is going down, and it's too early for us to confirm that trend. Regardless of whether they are right on that trend, Gartner's underlying assumptions are positive in that spending is expected to be up for the advanced nodes, for the blue part. The relative contribution of logic foundry, of the logic foundry segment versus memory, is expected to be up also. Finally, we touched on it already briefly earlier, the forecasted growth of the most advanced logic foundry nodes, 10, 7, and 5 nanometer, is reflected in the blue segments for 2019 up to including 2021.
On this slide, we're almost at the end of the presentation. On this slide, let's take a look at first, on the left-hand side, the industry segment trends that we foresee in 2018, and then on the right-hand side, some key ASM business achievements. By the way, in the background, talking here as a proud ASM employee, here you see in the background, vague, you see pictures that were made by corporate marketing in Singapore in December, at our manufacturing facility. In the clean room environment, which again is cleaner than the surgery room of a hospital in terms of particles, where you see that the XP8 DCMs were being built. You see all the people in clean rooms, hats on, gloves on, suits on, and even the shoes. Everything is protected not to bring particles into the clean room. Yeah.
That's where one by one, they are being assembled and tested in the Singapore facility. We are now seeing, if we look at the industry trends, we are seeing new DRAM capacity additions this year leading to more tool sales compared to past periods of technology transfers, when customers could often reuse existing EPI-related deposition tools. Logic is forecasted to be up year-over-year. Foundry year-over-year is expected to be flat to slightly down, is our current visibility. With investments still in the 7 nanometer ramp, and important initial 5 nanometer tool investments also taking place towards, especially in the second half of the year. We have seen leveling off of 3D NAND spending this year as the supply and demand are more in balance compared to last year. Now let's look at ASM's business initiatives.
China is so far a strong market driven by both domestic and foreign-owned fab investments. We anticipate doubling our China sales versus 2017. Coming from a low base, it's still doubling. The More-than-Moore market is strong this year, driven by a wide range of factors, including smartphones, IoT, analog devices, et cetera. We address this market with a wide range of products, including for 200 mm wafer size equipment. We will continue R&D investments in 2018, with a focus on broadening the applications we can address, especially in ALD and EPI. Basically, we are working on expanding our served available market in the deposition space. We are investing in new manufacturing capacity, as we touched on before in the non-financial highlights chapter, in new manufacturing capacity in Korea and Singapore to meet anticipated long-term business growth for the company. Okay.
This is actually the last slide. This slide shows the financial outlook as we earlier communicated as part of our Q1 press release that we sent out towards the end of April. As you can see for Q2, we expect sales between EUR 200 million-EUR 230 million. Order intake between EUR 160 million-EUR 200 million. With the visibility we had at the end of April, we clearly stated for 2018, we aim to outgrow the wafer fab equipment market, under the assumption that the wafer fab equipment market, on average, will increase with a high single-digit percentage. With that, I would like to briefly summarize with some concluding remarks. Looking back at 2017, our financial results show significant improvement. We made important strategic progress in a number of areas, such as with the successful launch of our new EPI tool, and seeding efforts of some new ALD applications.
We invested in the further facility expansion of our company, Singapore, Korea. We reduced our shareholding in ASMPT from 39% to 25% in a next step to drive long-term value creation. We substantially increased the return of cash to our shareholders. Looking forward, we believe ASM is well-positioned for further growth. With that, we would like to now close this presentation with some reflection, as we recently marked the 50-year anniversary of ASMI in March of this year. This is a big anniversary year for the company, and we had some events already early in the year for all employees around the world, each in their own location. As you know, the company was founded by our late founder, Arthur del Prado, and its success owes everything to his vision and drive 50 years ago when he started the company.
ASMI has a proud history of driving innovation vital to the development and success of the semiconductor industry. I would like to thank our employees, our customers, and our investors for all their contributions to our success. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm not applauding for me, but for you. Let's make that clear. Now we have a closing video that's just a small tribute to the 50 years.
50 years ago, in March 1968, Arthur del Prado established ASMI. His strategic vision with long-term focus laid the foundations, both for our future growth and our lasting influence on the semiconductor equipment industry, turning us into an innovation leader. Innovation sets us apart from the rest. It enables our customers to deliver the next generation chips needed to implement the latest technologies. It leads to positive returns for our investors. It creates many benefits across society, it opens the doors to tomorrow's possibilities. ASMI, we are just beginning.
Okay.
Thank you, Chuck, for this comprehensive and very interesting presentation you gave. I would now like to open the floor for those of you that have questions with regard to the presentation. Over there, please. Please state your name and who you represent. Scholtens. Thank you for all the information provided. I was wondering, what is the position of ASM when compared to its most important competitors? Can you tell us more about that? We haven't heard a lot about that. Yes, Chuck, probably you want to say something about this. What our position is in respect of our most important competitors. Well, actually, you would have to address that per product line. Let's start with furnace, vertical furnace. For many years, we have a niche strategy. We focus on a limited number of applications and a limited number of customers.
The major part of this market is Tokyo Electron and Hitachi, but we have a very focused strategy, and we've been very successful in that with a healthy EBIT margin and healthy cash flow. What we've tried to elaborate in the presentation is that with regard to our niche strategy, that we are expanding it by configuring our products in a smart way to make sure that we can use them in a more than more market, that we see opportunities to enhance our position in vertical furnace. We will still continue our niche strategy, but a number of areas in the market will be incorporated that the top line can grow in those markets in the next few years, and it's happening this year, as a matter of fact. Now, PCVD, we also have a niche strategy. We've applied that for years.
We are number three, but with two very large competitors that have the bigger part of that market because the PCVD market used to be a rather stable market with stable type of technology. Because of the end market, this segment expanded this market. It is now nearly EUR 3 billion-EUR 4 billion in turnover. You can imagine that if we would gain a market share of 1%-2%, that our competitors would even notice it would be EUR 80 million. In our top line, it would be a significant addition. What we've seen that with one new customer and one new application, we've already expanded. It will still be a niche strategy in that part of the market, but it may offer real growth potential. Good growth potential for that part of the market. Vertical furnace and PCVD. Now ALD.
In ALD, Chair, I would like to pay more attention to that. In the last year, we've lost some market share. It's decreased. According to Gartner, it would be approximately. According to VSI, it's 10%, 9%. According to Gartner, it's 10%. Well, we acknowledge that our market share has decreased somewhat, but not as much as they have calculated. However, it is due to, in our opinion, the dynamics between the various industrial segments. If you see, we have the strongest position in Logic Foundry, but if Logic Foundry is performing best in the market, it's favorable to us. When memory is performing well, as in the past two years, we also have a decent market share, but not as good as in Logic Foundry. For now, we have opted not to be active in some segments. That was up to two or three years ago.
That's why the market share that we have is a bit lower there. However, in the presentation, we've indicated that exactly for that reason, we are really focused to increase the served available markets, also in the part of memory that we're not addressing right now, to choose parts that we want to chase up now. Three years ago, we started investing in it, and we expect a lot in the next few years. Also that our ALD position will consequently mean that we can address more applications and that we will still continue the strong position Logic Foundry. Depending on the performance of an industry segment in a year, that will determine what our performance is in the ALD market within a 12-month window.
We see huge opportunities in ALD for the next years to come for the company, and we are the company in ALD with the widest product range of all competitors. Compare that, ALD opportunities to increase the served available market, large opportunities in Logic Foundry. Will we move over to new technology nodes to improve the share of also the parts that the customers want to spend to us to enlarge that? In memory, we also want to expand our served available market in ALD and outside that, and we were not able to address that in the past annual meetings, the opportunities in PECVD, furnace, and last but not least, EPI.
In EPI, we showed you that up to now, we only addressed $100 million of the $700 million market, and that now we actually have taken a very important step to push the number one in the market, in the foundry market, Applied Materials. Now with the first application, seven nanometers that we've introduced last year. Mr. Scholten, I think that paints a better picture of our operation in the competitive landscape right now. I also noticed another question over there.
My name is Vera. I speak on behalf of VEB, some individual shareholders that have authorized us, and we represent 28,226 shares. What I noticed when I was reading the annual report is the dependency on the biggest 10 customers. Can you indicate what the background is to those trends and what kind of an influence you have on that? I also wish to know to what extent the sale of your share in ASMPT was brought about by pressure of shareholders. Also, what I noticed in your annual report, CO2 emissions and use of water are compared to R&D spending. Why not compare it to turnover or sales? That made more sense.
Could you repeat the last question?
You have CO2 emissions and water use and compare that to the R&D spendings. My question is, why did you choose to do that? For me, it would make more sense to compare it to another figure, which would be turnover. Can you also give an update on the conflict with Hitachi Kokusai regarding patents?
If I'm not mistaken, these are four questions. First question is about customers and what influence we have on our own customers. Well, of course, in the semiconductor industry, we see that consolidation is on the increase and that also latest technologies are difficult to implement, but I think we can come up with an answer. I think this is best illustrated by looking at the investments in the industry. Top three in the industry, it represents 50% of spendings, and top 10 represents about 80% of spendings. That is what Jan also indicated. It's quite a strong concentration of who actually spends the money. We follow. I think that it tells us that the broad basis that we are building is very essential to keep in pace with the industry. Right. Second question regards the sale of a stake in ASMPT.
Your question was whether there was pressure exercised by shareholders. Well, I can tell you that we listen to our shareholders very carefully, and I think you've been following us for years, too. This discussion was ongoing ever since 2006.
We really listened very carefully, but knowing that this has been an ongoing issue ever since 2006, and now we have acted, you must conclude that we followed the advice of many of you, but we decided the moment, of course. That's how it went. With one single goal is, of course, the long-term value creation, and achieve that for shareholders and other stakeholders of ASMI. That answers your question. The relationship between the environment and R&D. Well, it is interesting, of course, to exchange views on that. We were of the opinion that it does make sense to look at CO2 emissions and, of course, R&D spendings, and that is because it's primary driver. That relationship makes sense. Of course, we are open to your suggestions. Then final question relating to the patent infringement cases.
Well, let's go back to what happened since 2006. We have had an agreement with Hitachi Kokusai, a license agreement. It was extended in 2013 for the last time. I'm sorry, in 2012, and it was up for extension in 2017. Then we concluded that a number of details that were important to us that had to be provided by them were not provided, so they did not comply to the agreement as such. Based on that conclusion, we started arbitral proceedings, which was in August last year. That, of course, leads to the fact that we found no reason to extend the royalty contracts with them. That, of course, resulted in the end of November in a court case that we started in the U.S. We then stated officially that they were infringing on our patents.
If you're aware that you're starting a court procedure, you know that other parties on the other side understand that really clearly. Of course, it's very common then that they lodge a counter-claim, and they did. We filed a case in the U.S., and they also filed a case with a different court in the U.S. a couple of months later. For us, ALD technology is key, and we have a very strong position in all these court proceedings, and we will fight to the bitter end, if I may put it that way. I don't think I can say much more about it. It's both in an arbitral procedure and a court procedure. If we have any news, we will publish. I think that my questions about the annual accounts should be saved under that item. Yes, thank you.
Any further questions?
Any further questions? Good afternoon. My name is Stefanie Claessens, on behalf of VBDO Sustainable Investors. I have three questions. First, about environment. My colleague from VBDO has already said this, so we have these emissions, and you have goals set until 2020. When it comes to water use and CO2 emissions, you met those goals. In your presentation, you say that you wish to improve, but in your annual report, it doesn't seem that you want to do that. Why are you being relaxed and sitting back when it comes to that? Second question is about supply chain. ASMI indicates in its annual report that it feels responsible for those things that need to be in order in the supply chain, and our organization also wants that. We also wish to see that a viable income is included in that.
I am going to assume that all employees have a viable income, so it means nutrition, clothing, schooling, and a house. Do all the employees of your material suppliers get a viable income? What would you need, or if you would call it a living wage, what would you need to include it in a code of conduct, for example? My final question is about the sustainable goals of the United Nations. They were once written because we want to be climate neutral in 2050, and programs of businesses and governments are designed as such that we will never make a climate neutral situation in 2050. Also when it comes to global warming. Our organization therefore advises not to strive for these goals within your current policy, but take it as a guideline for future policy and see whether you need new policy.
Then I wish to ask you for this next step. You acknowledged the goals of the UN to take that next step. You embrace these goals and you wish to formulate new policy, and how are you going to do that? Thank you. I would like to ask Chuck to answer some of those questions. Let me start by addressing sit back and relax. I can't imagine that you mean that in a literal sense. If you look at the history of our company, I think in 2013, first year, we of course have a CSR chapter. We published individual CSR reports, and we have a CSR report with material criteria. Then we have a fully integrated CSR report. We do not experience this as sitting back and relax. I assume that you don't mean it in a literal sense.
I want to say that. Of course, the point that you're making when it comes to natural capital. Well, let me put it this way. We have goals every five years, and at the beginning of such a term of five years, what is feasible for each segment? That is what we ask ourselves. You could say that when within a certain segment you make the levels that you agreed on, you can then change those goals. Of course, we will look into that. Again, these are five-year goals, and maybe if you didn't make a certain goal in that time frame, you can focus on another part of what you deem relevant. You have to divide your attention across several segments. This is how we looked at those goals and established those goals at the very beginning.
For example, for water consumption, you could say at the end of 2018, we will make our target possibly. At the end of the year, of course, we will sit down and look at whether this is it for the coming five years, or are we going to take it to the next level? Of course, we will look into that. I'm not committing to taking it to the next level as such, but of course, I think we have demonstrated that we are serious ever since 2013. Your second question about living wages. If you look at our wages within our own activities, we believe that living wages within our employment wage base is not an item. It could be an issue in the rest of our supply chain, and that is what you're getting at, of course.
At this moment, the RBA, the Responsible Business Alliance, for those of you who do not know this abbreviation. We have the RBA, and their code of conduct is what we've adopted, and living wage is not addressed in that code of conduct. You are probably aware of that. First step is then to talk to them and to address that particular issue as to why at this moment it has not been included and whether we can change that. If we do not see enough progress, we do see it as our own responsibility to look into whether we might have to adjust our own code of conduct when it comes to this specific thing that you've mentioned. Your final question relating to the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals as formulated and defined by the United Nations.
I think in total we have 17 of such goals for the rest of the audience. We selected five of those goals that apply to our business. We believe that for SDG 12, responsible consumption, and SDG 13, climate. In our five-year plan, we have very clear environmental goals for greenhouse gases, for water consumption, and solid waste reduction. We will of course, continue to look into that. As far as we are concerned, we've already included those. Of course, if you have a different opinion, I'm sure that after this meeting we can look into that a little bit further. Maybe we have a blind spot. SDG eight and nine. Eight is decent work and economic growth, and nine is fostering innovation. We are very willing to look into that, whether we could formulate measurable goals for that.
Indeed, we do not currently have them. Well, not reported in a way that you could recognize it, not measurable as such. At this moment, we are in an early planning phase when it comes to that. We are very willing to look into that. SDG 5 then?
Gender equality.
Gender equality. Yes. We made progress since 2014. The percentage of women in our company has increased slightly, of course, we will have to continue to work on that to establish a measurable goal for that. I do not want to raise false expectations, maybe. I know that in all layers of our company, people are working on that with more than an open mind, to enforce things by having a certain measurable element, I'm not sure whether that's a good idea. We are very determined to continue to think about that. Thank you, Chuck. One more question, I see.
Good afternoon. My name is Robert Fregen. We are from WeCollectYou, public investors and public relations. ASMI is one of the crown jewels of the Netherlands, just like ASML. For over 20 years, I own shares in both companies, both shares are best performing, I'm very happy with that. Some points of focus. I wish to have a management summary of the annual report, because it's just too much, the entire annual report. Also, it would be really nice to have copies of the minutes of the meeting for the participants to the meeting, because that makes it so much user-friendly and makes it even better for everyone participating in the meeting.
It's also quite common, and Mr. Van Bommel can confirm this, that when you start at 2:00 with a shareholder meeting and Mr. Van Bommel is present at KPMG, too, to serve lunch to people who come, because the good thing about that is 50% of the people fall asleep, so no critical questions are asked. It's a very cost-efficient investment. Last year, the target was EUR 55 for the price of the share. According to ING, it was EUR 65. Now, I believe we are at about EUR 50. I'm wondering how the management board approaches this. Last year, there were many parties in the room that were wanting to split up ASM. I didn't hear them this year. They have become very quiet. I wonder what has happened to them. With regard to sustainability, ASMI is top of the bill, Champions League in IT.
In the Netherlands, we have many more crown jewels. One of them you can see here, and that is WakaWaka. The Waka is your own personal solar panel, and the good thing is that it only costs EUR 5 billion to make sure that 1 billion people in the world that don't have electricity right now or power or light, that you can provide them with that. It also has a chip included in it. ASMI can help improve that chip, and ASMI can make sure, together with the other crown jewels, to assist very fast and very quickly to provide everyone with light. You don't have to do it by yourself. You can do it together with Shell, with ING, et cetera. ASMI, one of the top league players in IT, can help a lot.
I understood last year with regard to-- If I can ask you, how many questions do you have? This will take up a lot of time, and therefore, I will have to ask you, I believe you already have asked five questions, to limit yourself, please. I am reaching my last question, sir. Thank you. Of course, we need to have drinks in time. There was one hybrid Porsche Cayenne last year. Now we have Tesla X, and I was wondering how fast will electric cars develop within ASMI. It's good if your staff arrives by bicycle, up to 50 km on a bicycle, up to another distance at the electrical speed bike. They will continue to exercise, so they are more fit at work, and other people may arrive by electric cars.
I was wondering, which is my last question, what about sustainability of the fleet, and electricity is one part of that.
Okay. Thank you. These are a number of questions. I think that Mr. Van Bommel
May I don't believe that as a business we issue targets of the share price. We said so last year that would need a positive approach. Of course, I can't vouch what analysts say. If they say 65 or whatever, that is their idea of what they believe the share should be. If they believed at that time that it didn't have the right value. Yeah, these are the questions that I would like to reply to. Thank you, Pieter. I believe that your questions were answered. There's one left, isn't it? Okay, the sales of the shares. Well, you referred to the shareholders of last year. Some shareholders that wanted to split up the business. Well, we debate with all the shareholders, including shareholders that attended last year, perhaps they are not all attending today.
We will have a continuous dialogue with these shareholders. In general, we believe that quite some of our shareholders are satisfied with the way we performed in the last year. Obviously, we can't speak on their behalf. You would have to address them personally. You wouldn't want us to speak on your behalf if other shares are sent. The cyclists and the cars, the fleet. Yes. Well, we are not a local business. We are a global business. The cyclists cycling in Singapore or in Phoenix or in Tokyo may be difficult, in Seoul as well. However, in Almere, which is the smallest subsidiary we have in the world, maybe we could try to address that to encourage people. We will talk to HR about that. Compared to the total number of employees we have, the effect would be really small.
Thank you for your suggestion because in principle, I understand your reasoning. Okay. Thank you, Chuck.
The Burgers.
Mr. Burgers, I noticed another question. On behalf of the Add Value Fund, thank you. I would like to congratulate all of you first of all. It's a very special day. Mr. del Prado indicated it. 50 years, it is truly something to be happy about, and also, I congratulate you on your presentation. That was really clear. Also with a very good view in the background. I have a small number of questions to console you, Mr. Chair. First of all, a sentence that was mentioned before, you stated, not for the first time, a significant stake in ASMPT is of strategic value to ASMI. You continued that statement over the years. However, the situation changed considerably in the past year. My question is, what is the purpose of this sentence in this year?
Well, if you look at it more closely, can we still expect this sentence in another 5 years' time? Nobody knows how the future will develop, but how strategic is the ASMPT stake right now? Maybe you can also give us some information. You now have 25%. What will be your next step? Does it mean that the stake will decrease in future, or would you say, "Well, the strategic interest to us is so important, the 25% is the minimum level that we want to reach." Maybe it's good to explain that strategic element. What does it mean exactly? Is it as strong as 5 years ago? In short, that's my first question. Second question, you've addressed it briefly. There was a doubling of sales in China. My question is, how important will China be for you in the next 3 to 5 years?
Does it mean that you will invest extra in that market? Of which we may underestimate the importance right now. I would like to see some clarification on that. Chair, something I missed in the presentation of Mr. del Prado, but that should be addressed also in respect of the cash flow position after paying the dividend, is acquisitions. Is it something that as a meeting, we should take as to be noted, it should happen, or is it an active policy that may be addressed in the next year? Maybe you could clarify on that. Mr. Chair, last question to you, an element that is important to the long-term investors, the turnover in spares and services. We feel that it should be about 20% of the revenue. Can you explain that? Is it increasing?
Is it important because of the cyclic nature of the sector that shareholders could get more comfort? If you could provide us with some information, I would like to congratulate you once again on your results, of course. I would like to ask Chuck to reply to your first three questions, and Pieter Van Bommel can address your final question on spares and services. Okay. First of all, thank you for your kind words with regard to the jubilee, the anniversary. With regard to the first three questions, and Pieter, the last one indeed, with regard to significant value. Well, I can imagine, and you are not the only one that has asked this question. We believe that we have demonstrated over the past few years that we are really committed to create long-term value for the business.
Last year, as part of the strategic planning review process that we had, that is taking place on a regular basis, we decided at that time, because of a combination of matters, we checked out what the progress was that Front-end made with our customers, with the product, on the one hand, the scale. On the other hand, we also scrutinized what was the value development of the business in the past few years. We concluded, well, the value creation has been at a standstill for two years looking at Front-end. We thought that didn't compare favorably to the value of the strategic interest. We decided to consider to sell part of the stake, 5% and 9%. Following that, you see that the implied value of Front-end has increased by hundreds of millions.
It was effective, the market concluded that the perceived magic 30% was not relevant to the business to take that step. As such, we cannot say much more, Mr. Burgers, than that we will continue to review the stake in that respect. We know that a significant stake was 40%, defined as 40% a few years ago. It is now 25%, and we still feel that is significant. We will continue to review it in the same manner. What are the developments of operations and Front-end? How important is that still in representing financial strength of the company in terms of balance sheet strength, market cap, and also in terms of perceived value for our customers in respect of industrial strength? We will continue to address that and compare that to the value development of the business. Is it moving fast enough?
We will continue to proceed in the same manner, Mr. Burgers. That's what we can inform you about. With regard to China, this year, we will double the revenue, starting from a low base, at the same time, we didn't benefit as much from China as other competitors. They've invested in all the technology, we've invested in advanced node as of 20 nanometer, that's when we only start to benefit, really start to benefit. This will happen in future. That's why we invested considerably in infrastructure in China. It's about technology, staff members, commercial staff members, maintenance staff members in China or in the China area. You can see as a consequence of that actually each quarter, the list of opportunities in China is significantly expanding.
In the past, it used to be a few opportunities and mainly also in logic foundry, but you now see a mix all over the place, not just in logic foundry, memory, more and more, a large diversity of opportunities, we expect a lot in the next few years, and we've invested quite heavily in it. Is it important? Yes, indeed. Acquisitions. It's part of the strategic review. It has been so ever since we are a healthy company and had our products at the right level. We've always considered that very carefully. Technology acquisition, skill-related acquisitions, economy of scale related acquisitions. I can tell you we have made an effort, up to today, we never made two positive conclusions, and that's the bottom line. It will still be part of our review process. It is definitely on the agenda.
In the reviews with the Supervisory Board, it's always a separate item in strategic reviews with the colleagues at the table, the colleagues of myself and Peter in the Supervisory Board to which we report. Yes, we pay attention to it. We never have taken specific decisions in that respect. Spares and service business, important business to all the wafer fab equipment manufacturers. As of the first quarter of this year, we started reporting on the revenue we achieve in spares and services. It is a relatively more stable business in revenue when compared to the equipment business itself. Even though there are customers that may, at some time, not order new equipment, they will continue to order parts. The growth actually is originating from installed base. The more you have installed in the field, the more the demand will be for the spare parts.
We expect not to divert from the industry, which is on average 20%-25%. You expect and hope that the equipment business will rise. Also the sales of spares and services will rise. As I told you, it is more stable quarter to quarter than equipment. There will be fluctuations as a percentage of the revenue in the individual quarters. We expect that as a percentage of total sales, it will not increase spectacularly, but that it will be a healthy growth, at least.
Okay. Thank you. Also in view of the time and the progress of the meeting, I would like to allow another person to ask one question. I don't see anyone, I would like to continue to item on the agenda. Item three on the agenda, the execution of the remuneration policy in 2017. I would like to give the floor to Martin van Pernis, who is the Chair of our Nomination and Compensation Committee. Martin. Yes, Jan. Thank you. You will find all details you need in the annual report, by the way. You can find it on our website. The remuneration report is listed on pages 94, 95, and of course, the financial report also pages 147-149. You have agreed in 2014, the AGM at that time, with our remuneration policy. Just to remind you, we have four components.
The Management Board have a base salary. They have annual performance with financial goals, and 25% is specials for that specific year. They are different for the CEO and CFO. We have a long-term incentive, which is stock options, and we gradually transferred to real shares because that is common in the market. Of course, we have the personal provisions like a company car and expense account. Four years ago, we agreed with this. We have a peer group of national and international companies because we are in a very specific industry. The amounts, you can all find it in the annual report. I don't think I need to elaborate on that unless you have any questions. Yes. As you are all aware, this is just to inform you this item on the agenda.
If there is anyone in this room who wishes to raise a question after reading the report or after hearing Martin, I would like to now give you the opportunity to come forward. Nobody has questions. I guess we were very clear. This means that we can go to item 4 on the agenda, which is an item that is to be discussed. It is compliant with the corporate governance code. As you know, in December 2016, the Monitoring Committee Corporate Governance Code published a revised version of the Dutch Corporate Governance Code. It subsequently came into force as of the 1st of January 2017. As of this year, companies also need to report as to how they deal with that.
You've been able to read in the annual report that we have compared the corporate governance code with the changes. We also changed our code and what we have included. You will be able to find this code on the website of ASMI. We feel that so far we are complying also with the new rules of the corporate governance code. One element could be highlighted, and that is that we unfortunately, do not have a 30% share when it comes to the whole diversity discussion for the Supervisory Board or Management Board. For the first time this year, we have a female supervisor, which is Stefanie. I can assure you that it has our attention. Our efforts are continuing to make sure that we comply with that part, that element of the corporate governance code, that requirement.
We really hope that we could meet that. Based on what I have said and what you have been able to read in the annual report, do you have any questions? If not, we would like to thank you. We can go to item 5 on the agenda, which is the adoption of the annual account 2017. First of all, I wish to inform you about the number of shares we have at this meeting. According to the list of attendance, we see represented at this meeting a total of 37,661,529 shares, representing 69.05% of the share capital with a vote. During my introduction, I've already said that the share capital with the vote is already 54 million plus. Each share of the present 37.6 million is entitled to cast one vote.
Before or for the vote, we use a voting pad. As always, to make sure that the vote is cast correctly, we always have a test, and we do that with the help of a question that you need to answer. This year, we have the following question, and I must tell you again, of course, it is about football. Our question is whether you wish to vote on this. Is Ronald Koeman going to get us qualified for the European Championships in 2020? I would like to ask you to take your voting pad and vote so that we can see whether the system is up and running and functional. Of course, completely disregarding the results in this case. You know that you need to press one if you are in favor, if you're against, number two, and if you wish to abstain, you press three.
You can now vote. I don't see that the system is working. Oh, there we go. Almost at the end. Voting closed, and we'll shortly see the results. In favor, 93.4%, against 6.6%, and everyone wanted to cast their votes, so that's great. We can start looking forward to the European Championships then. Before we start our formal vote for the adoption of the annual account, I would like to invite Rob Kroekniet of KPMG to come up to the microphone. He will inform you about the ways and methods that KPMG and Rob and his team have used when it comes to the external audit and the audit report. Rob, the floor is yours. Of course, Jan. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Rob Kroekniet, I can inform you about the audit. This afternoon, I am here with my colleague, Philip Tucker.
He's also here. First of all, something about what we specifically do. We audit the consolidated accounts of the company, as you have been able to read, we have an unqualified opinion on pages 161 to 167. Our unqualified opinion means that the annual account is in compliance with IFRS and that the annual report has no material mistakes and is in compliance with the other financial details that we have and the rest of the annual report. Something about our approach, our audit report. What is very important to us is that we start with a risk analysis. Where do we believe the risks are? We, of course, talk to management and the audit committee for that, which results in an audit plan. Of course, all the materialities are important that we include. We slightly increased those to EUR 5.5 million.
Last year, it was EUR 5 million, this is in compliance with the growth in the business and focused on the result. Materiality is in line with the result before taxes. We report to the supervisory board and the management board also smaller corrections. Anything above EUR 250,000. Our audit approach is what we call top-down. We centrally decide what we do, then we instruct our local auditors. A large part of the audit is actually done centrally and a central team and shared service center in Singapore, where many of the accounting reporting is done, and also a lot of it is done in Almere. We use local accountants of KPMG throughout the group. We instruct them very carefully. ASMPT is audited by another accountant, which is Deloitte, and we also visit them every year to assess their activities.
In certain countries, we have statutory checks by our KPMG offices. Sometimes this is a little bit later down in the year. Foreign accountants report according to our strict instructions. They need to be independent. They need to have certain competencies. Of course, we are in touch with them on a regular basis when it comes to the audit and the outcome of the audit. A selection of foreign accountants is visited by us. We have foreign colleagues, but we also involve a lot of specialists. Our IT specialists, of course, have a prominent role because much more is IT-driven, but also valuation specialists, tax experts, and if necessary, of course, forensic specialists. In our activities, we have a large range. We do audit 100% of revenue and 94% of the assets, which is a relatively high percentage. The average is 70%-75%.
Maybe a little something about our conclusions. You were able to read our report, our audit report. Focal points of the audit that we discussed with management and the audit committee and the supervisory board. The most important focal point was, of course, the valuation of the stake in ASMPT, income tax, and the research and development expenses. Of course, it's very important that we look at whether the amounts are correct, but also there's a lot of estimates of management included. When it comes to these valuations, we feel that they're all acceptable, and we also include that in our unqualified opinion. This concludes my brief presentation. I am more than willing to answer your questions, thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Rob. Any questions based on Rob Kroekniet's presentation, specific questions relating to the audit activities of our external auditor? If you have any questions, please ask them now.
I apologize for the confusion. I thought that someone else's turn was up. Anyway, I'm here. Still Vera on behalf of the VEB security holders. First of all, a specific question to the accountant and the audit. I have some more general questions, too. First, what about the internal auditor and how did they function? What was the weakness and what was the strength of the internal auditor? The annual accounts of all subsidiaries of 2017, are they ready and approved by the local accountant or auditor? Third question is not a direct question to the auditor, but is related to that. Why was there such a steep increase in auditors' costs? The last question is about the valuation of ASMPT and a mistake. This mistake was not discovered by you, but by the auditor. Why did you not notice this mistake?
Are there more mistakes like that?
Thank you. Rob, could you please respond to those questions?
Of course. Your first question, the internal auditor. Yes, we are in touch with her on a regular basis, and we believe that what she does, of course, is in close collaboration with management and supervisory board. What we know and what we've seen is that she does her job really well, she has a relatively small team, and that's of course a choice. Of course, the scope that you give to an internal auditor at several moments in time in the year, we talk to her. As far as we are concerned, we are very satisfied with how that goes. Second question then. The annual accounts. Have all annual accounts been audited? Yes, it's taking place right now.
I cannot confirm that all annual accounts are ready and approved, it will all take place within the time frame that is laid down by the law in those countries. Yes, the increase in costs for auditors. Yes, they have increased, which was actually approved by the audit committee and the management. It is a reflection of the scope of what we audit. Of course, also the level of detail. Over the past year, we have had a more detailed approach, of course, because of new regulation, the current audit costs are a fair reflection of the work that we do. Of course, I leave that up to management to talk you through all of that. A last question, and a good question, by the way. The mistake in ASMPT, maybe as a background to Well, it's under 29 on page 151.
I can also refer to page 124, sub six, and also page 164. I think these three paragraphs also provide background to what we found and why it happened. The nature of the mistake, it was March 2013, and until the 31st of December 2016, additional shares were issued by ASMPT. That meant that there was a dilution of these shares, and this dilution, until 2016, was not included in the calculation of goodwill and appreciation costs. Not included in that. Only in the intangibles. As a consequence of that, there was a higher valuation of ASMPT. This mistake was discovered in 2017 and was corrected in the annual accounts.
The mistake, when it comes to that, was a relatively small mistake, and the effect was quite moderate, and therefore the settlement in the end, in the annual account, if you look at the valuation of the total item on the agenda, I think it was an item of EUR 1.3 billion. It was relatively small, but of course, well above the limit of materiality. This is, of course, why we paid some extra attention to this mistake, referring to those same pages again. Thank you. If we have no further questions for the auditor, I wish to give you the opportunity to ask questions specific to the annual accounts. Thank you, Rob, for your presentation. First of all, it's more than one or two questions, I don't know to what extent you'll allow me to ask those questions.
Well, if nothing strange happens, this will, by the way, be the last item on the agenda that I have questions for. Maybe this gives me the freedom to ask all these questions. Me, on a personal basis, I think you can relatively easily answer these questions.
Okay.
First of all, if I look at the total comprehensive income, it's not the most important concept that we have within this company, but it's still important. If I look at the effect of the stake and selling the stake in ASMPT, it brings a negative amount. If it didn't take place, the total comprehensive income would have been negative. I know that it doesn't really look nice, my first question, therefore, is does that play a role in whether or not to sell a stake when it comes to that? The spendings on R&D and what was activated, it was quite a high increase. What is the background to that? Something else that I noticed is there is a depreciation on land for a term of 50 years, I always thought, I'm not an accountant, there is no depreciation on land.
Some subsidiaries were liquidated, and also in the annual accounts, you say that there were some settlements that are now ending when it comes to certain pension schemes. What is the update on that? Thank you. I think that our CFO, Peter van Bommel, can quite rapidly and adequately answer those questions. The first question, maybe we should actually discuss that outside this meeting, because I wish to know your calculation, because it's not negative. Having or determining results is not a driver or a reason, of course, to sell a stake in ASMPT. I would like to see what you have included in your calculation so that I can really answer your questions and that we can take away your concerns. That's fine. R&D. Yes, costs or spendings have increased.
Under IFRS, we have the obligation to list activities of which you expect lead on the long term to direct use in products. It's product-related and customer-related that you need to activate for the expected lifespan of those research and development spendings. What we did, I think Chuck referred to it in his presentation, that over the past two to three years, we have been very busy developing many new products, and we have marketed those products. The more you get closer to the end of that program, more and more of these R&D activities are under the obligation to become activated. It's just a rule under IFRS, and that has led to an increase in spending in R&D. On the balance sheet, I mean.
On one side, negative because it leads to a higher activation amount, but also positive because it's a clear signal that we expect these products can yield revenue in the future. Also, again, something else that you're referring to, I wish to talk to you in person about that. We have some subsidiaries indeed, that were taken out of the market. I said before that when it comes to fiscal matters, we want to be very transparent and pure. We had a couple of parts of our business that were no longer active, and they were only causing costs, and these were not high costs, but why would you keep it? This is why we closed that down in the decisions that we had to make. In relation to the pension schemes, maybe you can repeat that question again? Yes.
The annual account lists an agreement relating to the Dutch pension scheme, and it ends on the 31st of May. What is the update? Is there an agreement about the extension or? We do not have our own pension scheme. The pension scheme that we have falls under PME pension fund. We need to refer to that. Indeed, the arrangement ends on the 21st of May, and there will be negotiations with the unions. I have no idea what the latest update is on that. You completely depend on-- okay. Yes, absolutely. PME. Okay. Thank you, Peter. Any other questions about the annual accounts before we start our vote? I see no further questions, no hands raised. This means that I would like to invite you to vote. We have already done the test.
The system is functional. I would now like to activate the system. Again, one is in favor, two is against, and three is abstention. The vote is open. You can now vote. The voting is closed, and we now see the results. In favor, 100%, and abstention 28,472 votes. Of course, this is negligible. It's 100%. I thank you for this result. Item 6 concerns the adoption of dividend proposal. We have a proposal for a dividend in cash of EUR 0.80 per common share. Any questions? I see no questions. We can directly vote. You can now vote. One in favor, two against, three abstention. Almost over. Yes. Voting closed. The result is in favor 99.97%, against 0.03%, and 4,412 votes have abstained. I conclude that the proposal has been adopted. This brings us to item 7.
Item 7 concerns the discharge of the members of the management board. Is there anyone who wishes to make a remark or ask a question before we vote on discharge of the management board? I see nobody. We can vote. One in favor, two against, three abstention.
Voting is almost over.
Almost over.
It's now closed.
The voting is closed.
We have 99.82%.
In favor, 99.82%, against, 0.18%, and abstain of 30,632. Item seven, discharge of the members of the management board, has been adopted by this meeting.
The voting system is almost closed. It is now closed.
You can no longer vote. Voting closed. For, 99.82%, against, 0.18%, and 29,870 abstentions. This means that also item eight on the agenda, discharge of the members of the supervisory board, has been adopted. This brings us to item nine on the agenda, which concerns the composition of the management board. This item on the agenda has two parts and two votes. Chuck del Prado to the management board. In accordance with Article 18.1 of the Articles of Association, it is proposed by the supervisory board to reappoint Mr. C. del Prado for an additional four-year period, expiring on the date of the annual general meeting in 2022. The supervisory board has therefore drawn up a binding nomination in accordance with Article 18.1 of the Articles of Association and Section 2, sub 133 of the Dutch Civil Code to reappoint Mr. del Prado to the management board.
Upon his reappointment to the management board, the supervisory board will reappoint Mr. del Prado as the chairman of the management board, president, and chief executive officer.
Are there any questions or remarks on this proposal?
Any questions or remarks? If not, we can now vote 9A.
Exciting, Chuck.
Quite exciting, Chuck, isn't it?
The voting is almost closed.
Almost closed.
It is now closed.
You can no longer vote. The results, for 99.8%, against 0.2%, and 51,286 abstentions. Chuck, congratulations. This meeting has adopted item 9A. We can again see you as the chair of the management board of ASMI. 9B concerns the reappointment of Mr. P.A.M. Peter van Bommel, to the management board. Also, in this case, the supervisory board proposes, in accordance with Article 18.1 of the Articles of Association, to reappoint Mr. van Bommel for an additional four-year period expiring on the date of the annual general meeting in 2022. The supervisory board has therefore drawn up a binding nomination in accordance with Article 18.1 of the Articles of Association and, of course, in accordance with the Dutch Civil Code, to reappoint Mr. van Bommel to the management board of ASMI. Any questions or remarks? If not, we can also vote on this item, 9B.
You can now vote.
The voting is almost closed.
Voting almost over.
It's now closed.
It is now closed. For 99.8%, against 0.2%, abstentions 51,291. I can therefore conclude that item 9B, the reappointment of Mr. Van Bommel, has been adopted by the AGM. This brings us to item 10 on the agenda.
Sam is telling.
Composition of the Supervisory Board
I would like to introduce this item on the agenda as follows: Mr. Heinrich Kreutzer was appointed in November 2006 as a member of the Supervisory Board, and is now at the end of his third four-year period as a member of the Supervisory Board of ASM. It means that he cannot be reappointed, and as such, he decided that he will step down from this Supervisory Board at the end of this meeting. Consequently, we have to cast a vote on the new composition of the Supervisory Board. Before we will start this vote, on behalf of the Supervisory Board and the Management Board, and I also assume on behalf of you, I would like to thank Mr. Kreutzer kindly for his efforts and his contribution to the Supervisory Board.
We have highly valued his opinion and his proposals, and we've considered it when we took our decisions, and he has been active in various parts of the work of the Supervisory Board. Up to now, he was Chairman of the Audit Committee, and in that capacity, he also did an excellent job. Once again, and I will do so in English, although I believe that he may understand Dutch by now.
Management and Supervisory Board, and I'm sure also on behalf of the shareholders, I would like to thank you for your contribution. As a first token of thanks, I would like to hand over to you.
Thank you.
I'm sure we do have time tonight to further elaborate on your assignment.
Thank you.
Please.
As I said, upon Mr. Kreutzer stepping down, we would like to introduce a new member of the Supervisory Board and hopefully appoint him. We have found Mr. de Jong, Marc de Jong, willing to be a candidate for this position. In accordance with Article 22, Paragraph three of the Articles of Association and Article 133 of Book two of the Dutch Civil Code, we have made a binding proposal to appoint Mr. M.J.C. de Jong as a member of the Supervisory Board. The appointment will be effective for a term of four years and will start after casting the vote and will immediately be effective as of the vote today. Mr. de Jong is present here today. You can see him on the front row in the audience, and I would like to ask Mr. de Jong, Marc, to introduce himself to you.
First of all, I am really happy and honored with the opportunity to be a nominee for the position of member of Supervisory Board of a very well-known and very renowned high-tech business, a pearl from the Dutch society, as was stated before. With regards to the 30 years that I have been working, I've felt a strong connection to semiconductor and semiconductor equipment business. In 1986, I started at Philips Electron Optics. We created electron microscopes, and that's what we did, including semiconductors. Intel and various others were our customers at the time, and they needed electron microscopes in manufacturing to do quality research, et cetera. Later on, I became active in developing a joint venture with ASML and Fraun ofer for an EUV source to develop the lithography market.
That was as of 2000, and in 2005, I became a member of NXP Semiconductors, where I worked in automotive and identification as a CEO. After NXP, I went back to Philips and I headed the professional lighting solutions business and the transition to LED, another part of the industry in semiconductors, and we use equipment for semiconductors. For the past five years, I have been a member of the supervisory board in a German business active in the semiconductor business listed in Berlin. So over the past few years, I have been engaged in the semiconductor market. It is a very challenging and dynamic market, and from that perspective, I hope that in the next few years, with all the experience and the interest I have in this market, that I can enhance a very talented and experienced supervisory board.
Most of all, I would appreciate it highly to get your support and your trust by means of the vote that you will cast now in order to collaborate in the next four years to the success of this business. Thank you. Thank you, Marc. Thank you, Marc. Are there any questions or remarks following the explanation that you read in the agenda and the information given? My name is Nieuwenhuis, and I wondered why you didn't nominate a woman. I think it is an opportunity you are missing out when you are appointing a new member. I do understand your question, madam, and what I've said before, in the past few years, we've been really actively engaged to appoint a woman or women to the supervisory board.
We succeeded last year by appointing Stefanie. We have been actively engaged. In our overall search, we were not able to find the most adequate female candidates. That's why we proposed to appoint Marc today. However, it is not true that we will now relax. We will continue to make sure that the supervisory board in future will try to achieve the figure of 30% of women. Do you have any other questions or any other remarks? If not, I would like to put the appointment of Marc de Jong to the supervisory board item on the agenda 10A to the vote. The system is now open to cast your vote.
The system is now closed.
The vote is closed. This is the result. The result is 99.16% is in favor. 0.84% is against, and 53,801 votes abstain. I conclude that Marc de Jong has now been appointed as a member of the supervisory board. It's now formal, and when you leave, you get flowers, and when you are appointed, you get flowers.
We will now continue with item 10B.
We will now continue with item 10B. It concerns the reappointment of Mr. Van Pernis to the Supervisory Board. He was now at the end of his second four-year term as supervisor with ASMI in accordance with the Corporate Governance Code. The two terms is sufficient, and it is expected people step down. Seeing and looking at all the changes in the Supervisory Board, last year we had a new member, this year we have a new member. We felt that it was better to, at least for another two years, use the services of Mr. Martin Van Pernis as a supervisor. His experience in the industry and also his contributions so far in our Supervisory Board have been of a great value to us. Therefore, we decided as a Supervisory Board to ask for an additional two-year period and mandate for Mr. Van Pernis.
Any questions or remarks?
If not, we will vote on item 10B, the reappointment of Mr. Van Pernis as a member of the Supervisory Board for a two-year period.
The system is open.
You can vote now. The voting is closed.
The voting is closed.
The result is that 98.07% of the votes are for, 1.93% against, and 6,787 abstentions. I therefore conclude that item 10B has been adopted, the reappointment of Mr. Van Pernis as a member of the supervisory board. Thank you. Brings us to item 11, the remuneration of the supervisory board. The supervisory board has assessed the current remuneration policy, looking at the responsibilities of the different members of the supervisory board, and looking at the size of the company and the scope of their supervision, and whether the remuneration is in relation to the current market practices and developments. There was a survey conducted to determine the market relevance and market references, and a market analysis was made according to the benchmark.
Considering that the market capitalization of the company is significantly increased, and that the scope and complexity of the business has changed, which of course has a clear impact and has had an impact on the responsibilities of the supervisory board. This has led to a proposal for this meeting to change the current remuneration policy. The current policy was adopted by this meeting in 2011, it is more than seven years ago. Therefore, the proposal is to change the remuneration, to increase it by €5,000 to €50,000 a year, and for the chairman from €60,000 to €70,000 a year. On top of that, there is a proposal for the adjusted additional remuneration for committee membership to EUR 7,500 and for chairperson of the audit committee to EUR 10,000. It was EUR 7,500.
For a member of the nomination selection and remuneration committee, to increase that from EUR 5,000 to EUR 6,000, and for the chairman of the nomination selection and remuneration committee from EUR 7,500 to EUR 8,500. Any questions? Oh, this person is leaving. This is why she was standing. If there are no further questions or remarks, I wish to put this to the vote, too.
The voting is open.
You can now vote.
The voting is almost closed.
The voting is almost closed. It is closed. The result of the vote is that 99.84% has voted for, 0.16% has voted against, and 4,850 votes abstain. I conclude therefore that item 11 on the agenda has been adopted and approved. This brings us to item 12 on the agenda. Appointment of an accountant to the company for the year 2018. Are there any questions following this item on the agenda or any remarks before we cast the vote? If not, I would like to put this item to the vote. This takes quite some time.
The voting is now nearly to an end.
The vote is now nearly to an end and is now closed. In favor were 100%, rounded off, 1,273 votes against, and 3,826 votes have abstained. This item has also been adopted and approved. In the
Annual year 2018, we will work with KPMG as an external auditor. Now, we can move on to item on the agenda 13B. Appoint a management board for an 18-month period to be calculated from the day of the annual general meeting as the body of the company, which subject to the supervisory board approval, is authorized to limit or to exclude any preemptive rights of existing shareholders if common shares or rights to acquire common shares are issued.
Which one of you would like to take the floor? To acquire common shares are issued. Which one of you would like to take the floor with regards to a question or a remark?
It is B. It is 13B.
I made a mistake. This is item 13B. I have to apologize. I would like to move back to item 13A, which is designation of the management board as the competent body to issue common shares and rights to acquire common shares. We will now first decide on item 13A. Who would like to take the floor in respect of this item on the agenda? Who would have a remark or a question? If not, we will cast the vote on item on the agenda 13A first. You can now cast your vote.
Voting is back.
The vote is nearly closed. Closed now. The result is, in favor 83.5%, against 16.5%, and 718,620 votes abstain. This means that this agenda item 13A has been approved and adopted, and we can move on to casting votes on agenda item 13B, as I have just introduced to you. Do you have any questions or remarks in this respect? If not, we can start casting the vote.
The voting is almost done.
The vote is nearly finished and is now closed. In favor 76.34%, against 23.66%, and 717,835 votes that abstain, which means that also agenda item 13B has been approved and adopted. We can now move on to agenda item 14, authorization of the management board to repurchase common shares in the company. This agenda item has two parts, and we will cast separate votes on these two elements. As stated in November last year, the issuing of shares ASMPT has generated about EUR 450 million, and as announced on February 28, 2018, the business intends to use about EUR 250 million to buy new shares back. It means that an additional authorization to repurchase common shares may be necessary. Therefore, it is advised under agenda item 14B.
You know that all shares that are repurchased, it will be requested to the meeting in 2019 to withdraw this item in order to execute the share programs for employees and board members. Is there any question on this topic? Who would like to take the floor? If nobody wants to take the floor, we will first vote on agenda item 14A, which is authorization of the management board to repurchase common shares up to a maximum of 10% of the issued capital. It is important to state that because the business will maintain a number of its own shares after withdrawing the ordinary, the common shares, as proposed in agenda item 15, it may be possible that the company may own over 10% for a limited period, if they would use the authorization that they request to the full.
Those who gave the power of attorney cast the following vote. Is there anybody who would like to have a question on item on the agenda 14A? If not, we can now cast the vote. The vote is nearly closed. It's now closed. The result of this vote is 97.71% is in favor, and 2.29% is against, and 5,260 votes abstained. This means that item on the agenda 14A has also been approved and adopted, and we can move on to agenda item 14B, which is authorization of the management board to repurchase common shares in the company up to an additional maximum of 10% of the issued capital. If there are no questions or remarks with regard to this item, I would like you to cast your vote, please. The vote is now open. The voting is now closed.
The result of the vote is 96.61% is in favor, 3.39% is against, and 5,366 votes abstained. This means that agenda item 14B has also been approved and adopted, and we can move over to agenda item 15, withdrawal of treasury shares. In the comments to the agenda, you read why we wanted to do so. Do you have any questions or remarks with regards to this item on the agenda? If not, we can now start voting on this item. The vote is now closed. In favor 99.99%, against 0.01%, and 4,949 votes abstained. This item on the agenda has been adopted formally.
We can move on to item on the agenda 16, amendment of the articles of association relating to the increase and decrease of the par value of the common shares in the capital of the company, and propose extraordinary distribution of EUR 4 per common share by way of repayment of capital. You could read in the explanation to the agenda why we want to do so. Following this explanation, do you have any questions or remarks on this item on the agenda? If not, I would also like to cast votes on this item on the agenda. The vote is nearly closed. The vote is now closed, 100% in favor, with 1,089 against, and 718,290 votes that abstain. Item on the agenda 16 has also been adopted, and we can move on to agenda item 17, amendment of the articles of association.
This proposed change relates to changes of legislation and regulations and some other textual changes and explanations. In the comments to the agenda, you were able to read the reasons why. Do you have any questions with regard to this agenda item? If not, I would like you to cast your votes on this agenda item, please. The vote has now finished, closed, and in favor were 99% and 0.10% against and 718,235 votes that abstained, which means that item on the agenda 17, amendment of the articles of association, has been adopted and approved. Mr. Van Pernis just left. That is not because he believes it's no longer interesting, but he has planned a very important engagement, and the meeting took somewhat longer than he had planned, so he excuses for having to depart.
Now, we can move on to the final item on the agenda, which is number 18, and that is any other business. Who would like to take the floor with a question or any other item you would like to raise? I think everybody's ready to have a drink. Therefore, since nobody wants to raise an additional item on the agenda, I would like to close agenda item 18 now, and I would like to thank all of you for being present here today and for contributing to the meeting, and I would gladly offer you some drinks and snacks outside this room. I thank you very much.