Good morning, dear shareholders and everyone present here. It is a pleasure, like every other year, to start the AGM in the first call. And if you allow me, before we officially constituted, I would like to introduce you to Iago, Rebecca's son. She works in the marketing department. And as you will see in the video, Iago, thanks to his mom's work, who's an employee of Naturgy, he explains in a quiet, truthful manner the commitment of our employees and of the group towards society. I hope you enjoy it.
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So once again, good morning, dear shareholders. I'm very happy, as the Chairman of the board of directors of this company, to welcome you to the AGM of Naturgy. Over the last few years, we will hold it both in person and remotely. I would also like to thank both the presence of the members of the board of directors, in person and online. So we officially start the AGM. As you know, the call of the AGM was published on the 29th of February on the websites of the company, the CNMV, and in several Spanish newspapers. The agenda is included in those announcements as well as in the attendance card that you have with you. So I suggest that it's considered read. Okay, thank you. Now the secretary will provide you the data for the attendance quorum to this AGM.
Good morning. The summary of the attendance list is the following: present, 154; owners of 655,245,747 shares, that amounts to 67.578% of the share capital. Represented or shareholders, 302; owners of 223,232,581 shares, amounting to 23.02% of the share capital. So in total, 456 shareholders; 456 shareholders; owners of 178,478,328 shares, amounting to 90.60% of the share capital. These figures may still change depending on the latest shareholders that join us, both remotely, up to 9:00 A.M. in the morning. The final quorum will be published on the website of the company, together with the results of the voting. According to articles 193 and 194 of the corporate law and regulation nine of the AGM, we have the legal requirements needed in order to validly constitute the AGM at first call. Thank you very much. Given the attendance data, I validly declare this AGM constituted in a first call.
The board of the AGM is made up of myself and the directors that may have connected by video conference, as well as the secretary. I would also like to let you know that according to article 203 of the corporate law, and according and as we presented in the call, we have asked the presence of the Notary Public of Madrid, Mr. Fernando de la Cámara, to take notes, take the minutes of the AGM. I'll give the floor to the notary. Thank you very much. Good morning, dear chairman. By virtue of the regulation and article 101.3, I would like to know if anyone would like to make any complaints, objections, or questions about the amount of people that we have present, the amount of shareholders. If you do so, we'll include it in the minutes.
Thank you very much, dear public notary. I would like to thank the shareholders who wish to take the floor after my report and that of the secretary. If you haven't done so, please make sure that you give the question cards to the staff available in the room. Those shareholders who participate remotely, you can send your questions and ask to take the floor through the form that we have at your disposal.
Once the presentations will come to an end, the secretary and myself will answer any questions. If any shareholder wishes for the public notary to take literal note of their question, please send us a text that you will use, or please expressly say so on the remote on the form for the remote connection. Once all the questions have been asked, we will vote the proposed resolutions, and the secretary will now give you some information about it.
Let me just summarize the process as in the previous times. The system of negative subtraction shall be used to count votes on proposed resolutions related to agenda items. All shares present or represented shall be deemed in favor of the motion after subtracting votes corresponding to shareholders or proxies declare themselves to be voting against it or abstaining. If a person or online shareholder leaves before the voting starts, please inform us if you wish to vote against the motion before you leave. The system of positive subtraction shall be used to count votes on proposed resolutions outside the agenda. All shares present or represented shall be deemed against the motion after subtracting votes corresponding to shares whose holders or proxies declare themselves to be voting in favor or abstaining.
If a person or online shareholder leaves before the voting starts, please inform us if you wish to vote in favor of the motion before you leave. I would also like to inform you that for the shareholders or proxies who are here in person, if any of them would like to leave record that they are leaving the meeting once the voting has started, please make sure you inform us if you wish to do that, going to the table that states "Exit Registry" outside the room, and they will be able to take note of the quorum and voting. For those shareholders who are present remotely, please also inform us and remember that you can vote at any time before disconnecting. You don't have to wait for them to be presented to the AGM.
We will first vote proposed resolutions by the board of directors, and then we will vote those outside the agenda. We'll take into account all of them that are about the same topic, and we will vote them together. Thank you very much, dear secretary. Before we start with your interventions, I would like to spend some minutes looking into the activities of our company in the year 2023. Today, my presentation will be we'll have the different 6 sections that you can see here. I think it's very important for all of us to know what Naturgy is today, with 180 years of history, able to face the different thunderstorms that have come our way. We'll do a summary of the key variables of the year, bearing in mind the activities or the challenges we had to face.
We'll look at the scenario of our activities for the year 2023. We'll look into the results that we obtained in 2023. We will look at the position of the company when we look at the future and its contribution to energy transition, and to conclude the priorities that we believe are most relevant for the year 2024. I'm not going to go into every line that you can see here in this slide, but I would like to remind you that Naturgy was created in 1843. Its first customer was in the city of Barcelona. We wanted to provide public lighting to cities that at the time were lighted by gas. Through different milestones throughout its history, and we could highlight two specific ones, our vocation for internationalization. We started our internationalization process in 1992, over 30 years ago.
It took a step forward by buying Unión Fenosa, and it became a key player in the Spanish energy sector in the year 2023 that we are presenting this year. Our company is fully committed to energy transition as growth for the future. We are present in over 20 countries. We have total assets of about EUR 38 billion. And just to give you some brush strokes of the most important data, I would like to highlight, on the one hand, the 17 GW of installed capacity for electricity generation, of which 40% comes from renewable sources. A total electricity generated in 2023 of over 44 TWh, of which 30% were generated from renewable sources. Total distributed energy of over 410 TWh that took energy to over 16 million connection points through distribution networks that amount to a total of 293,000 km.
It's like going 8x around the globe. In terms of energy supply and not distribution, a total of 18 million customers distributed globally, to whom we supply total energy of over 270 TWh. Our company is supported in solid values, robust values that have been developed by the whole team, and that we summarize in four key ideas. First, we want to promote and capture all the opportunities of the new challenge entitled energy transition. And we have to do that at the same time as we generate value to all businesses, and we meet with rigor all the stakeholders' interests. We are committed to people, and we are committed to the environment and the society where we carry out our activities.
In the year 2023, we have faced a complex scenario with a lot of volatility coming from 2022 that, as I explained in the same meeting a year ago, had a lot of influence from all the unfortunate events of the war in Ukraine, and that meant that energy prices shot up. We have had a volatile scenario this year, but in a different way. There was a high correlation between the prices of gas and electricity that has been maintained, but we have recovered price levels that were recorded averages in the past. As we explained a year ago, we've also maintained constant and intense regulatory changes and developments. That meant that we have had to adapt to those new regulatory changes. Despite that, the results of the company, as you will see in a minute, were very robust.
We've had an improvement in the profitability and on the key management variables. The cash generated by the business has been strong, and that meant that we have been able to carry out important investment without increasing our debt level, keeping our commitment with the dividend policy. Moreover, and not just in terms of financial results, we have advanced in one of our other goals, which was to continue keeping the company in a competitive position, contributing to energy transition. First of all, we have increased our electricity renewable generation capacity, as you will be able to see in a minute. Secondly, we have strengthened the gas supply guarantee in the long term, thanks to our important partnerships. And I would like to highlight and congratulate ourselves that we have a very important partner to us, Sonatrach, here with us today.
We have also been a new vector for renewable gas transition. The scenario, as I said, has been a scenario where the prices have adapted over the year 2023 and have gone to the more normal prices before the war in Ukraine. Electricity, also thanks to regulatory measures, has been able to be very competitive in Spain compared to the other countries around us. In terms of the performance of energy markets, as you can see, all the international markets have seen impairments in terms of prices. For instance, the oil price, but also the gas price, TTF, Henry Hub, or JKM. As I have said, the decrease in the prices and the correlation between the gas and electricity prices means that the pool price for 2023 has been, on average, about 50% below the year 2022.
As I was saying before, as well as changes to the scenario, we have continued to see important regulatory measures and proposals. Both the European and the Spanish new regulations have impacted us. In terms of the E.U., I'm not going to go into detail. It's a very long list. I'll summarize here the most relevant E.U. regulations, such as the reform of the electricity market that was approved by the European Commission last year. Also, the exceptional measures taken due to the emergency situation to strengthen the stability of the energy system. Also, the European Commission's approval to an exceptional tax to the additional capital gains due to the energy scenario. This specific E.U. measure was then transposed differently in the different countries. In Spain, they've also taken many important new regulations.
For example, the temporary cap on the last resort tariff, the Iberian Exception that has put a price cap to the supply of CCGTs, a limit to the remuneration in terms of the infra-marginal generation. Also, measures to protect vulnerable consumers, changes to the methodology of what we call the PVPC. And finally, we've also seen a new version of the National Integrated Energy Plan developed by the Energy Transition and Demographical Change Ministry, including the ambition of the government so that by 2030, renewable sources are more relevant than was to be expected initially. Within this environment and this situation that I have summarized quickly, but you will all have access to the presentation on our website, the company has developed its activities generating the following results. Sales have been over EUR 22.6 billion, which meant that the EBITDA was a total of EUR 5.475 billion.
The net profit after tax was EUR 1.986 billion. That EUR 1.9 billion is the net result after paying a total tax of EUR 982 million. Moreover, and as we will see later in the balance sheet, we have generated enough cash to meet all our obligations. The total cash flow generated was over EUR 5.3 billion. That means that the largest part of the cash flow was devoted to investment, with an investment of nearly EUR 3 billion. About half of that will be devoted to dividends keeping a net debt level of EUR 12 billion. Similar, very similar to what we had in the year 2022. More specifically, this EBITDA is based on two types of businesses that are well balanced. Everything that has to do with distribution business, that we call network infrastructure, that will have contributed in 2023 with 47% of the company's EBITDA.
The businesses that have to do with what we call markets and regulated businesses of marketing generation and supply, a total of 53%. In terms of their activities, the company is still well balanced in terms of gas and electricity, although the gas business is a bit more important, 57% over 43% in terms of electricity activities. In terms of geographies, our first market is still Spain, which amounts to 59% of our EBITDA figures. As I said before, the balance sheet closed in a very robust manner. The billions I was discussing were in total EUR 37.893 billion. As you can see, the debt level in the company has been in a very cautious ratio of 2.2x EBITDA. This is a normal ratio for the sector. So we are able to see the financial strength and healthy status of our accounts.
That 2.2x EBITDA to net debt is really good. That means that both S&P and Moody's and Fitch rating agencies gave us a rating of BBB. Moreover, the company has been able to continue on liquidity sources in order to be prepared if there was a need for additional funds. Right now, our liquidity is over EUR 10 billion. As for what was presented before, where have we allocated our cash generation, the EUR 5.377 billion of cash generation that I mentioned before, there has been a lot of interest on investment. 50% of the cash generated has been devoted to investment, EUR 2.94 billion. EUR 1.45 billion was devoted to dividends and EUR 982 million to the payments of tax. If we focus on investment, I would like to say that investment has focused mainly into clear items.
We wanted to grow in renewable assets, and we wanted to strengthen the distribution networks. If we talk specifically about the growth of renewable generation assets, they represent over 6.5 GW of power. And those assets are mainly in wind or hydraulic assets. PV assets have a lower contribution. With regard to the shareholders' remuneration, one of the items of the agenda that we'll be presenting to the vote is the dividend for the year 2023. We have made already two interim payments, one in August and one in November, amounting to EUR 1 per share. We are waiting for a third interim dividend that we want to increase to EUR 0.40.
So it will be a total of EUR 1.40 for the financial year, which means that we will be at the 31st of March 2024, we will have a yield per dividend of 7%, clearly above the ratios of our peers in Europe, but also of other companies in the IBEX or the E.U. stocks. With regard to the performance of our shares and the share price, during the year 2023, we continued with the performance of the most relevant we followed the most relevant index of the E.U. stocks utilities, as you can see here. And there's a key figure that we should stress, which is the date of January 2024. That was the date when the MSCI indexes were reviewed, leading to Naturgy's exclusion from those indexes. The MSCI are the most relevant indexes to many financial and algorithmic investors.
If we belong to those indexes, it leads to huge amounts of buying and selling activities. As you could see, we saw the effect this had on our performance. The MSCI indexes are related to the company's free float. As you can see, the company's free float over the last eight years has clearly decreased, reaching in the year 2024 the total figure of 12% in 2024, which meant that the MSCI indexes reviews led to Naturgy's exclusion from those indexes. I now move to the fifth section that has to do with what we're doing in order to contribute to that key vector of energy transition. Naturgy not only does it not want to lag behind, but it also wants to move to be very practical.
We want to look at the energy transition, trying to answer three specific questions, which are the following: guaranteeing the supply to our customers, providing and giving our customers with competitive prices, and advancing in all our sustainability objectives. Any solution that means that this triangle may lose balance would not help us towards an orderly and sustainable energy transition. With regards to guarantee supply to supply guarantee, sorry, I spoke before about the amount of distributed and supplied energies through our electricity and gas networks. But I would also like to highlight that we have had 23 groups of CCGTs available to guarantee the supply. They have been 100% available to be used when the other generation technologies couldn't guarantee the supply to the country.
With regards to the competitive prices, we have seen that the prices in Spain, the electricity prices in Spain, have been of the most competitive in Europe. What we have done from Naturgy has been to adapt this price to over 2 million customers. So there has been a clear will for our customers to have the best price, whether their requests came directly from them or from us. And finally, we have moved forward in everything that has to do with sustainability. We explained before that 40% of the installed power comes from renewable sources. And this is increasing, as I will explain later. And we have what we call a pipeline, a current pipeline for the future that shows our commitment to continue advancing in sustainability and energy transition. It's not just greenwashing. This is a reality.
We have over 19 gigawatts of renewable generation in different states of development. We have over 4 TWh per year pending in projects that will be executed in terms of biomethane. In the year 2023, we also looked into the evolution of what we call ESG that has to do with improving the environment, social contributions, and improving our governance. In terms of ESG, here we have some of the key variables that are explained more in detail in our non-financial results report that is available now on the website. I would just like to highlight a few but I recommend that you read all of them because the level of progress has been very relevant for all of them in terms of the environment. I would like to highlight the constant reduction of CO2 emissions. We emit less CO2 without putting at risk the supply.
We've also increased the amount of biodiversity projects, and we have increased our installed capacity free from emissions or zero emissions in a very relevant manner. In social terms, we have intensified our actions in two different ways. First, by improving diversity, increasing the number of women in management positions. Right now, 36% of the management positions at all levels are held by women. And something else that is very relevant is that through the actions of the Naturgy Foundation, we have improved the lives of over 250,000 people thanks to their plans to help with energy vulnerability. This data has also been audited, so it's also included in the sustainability report. In terms of our contribution to distributed economic value, over 80% of the distributed economic value has gone to our suppliers. We have strategic alliances with our suppliers that go beyond financial aspects.
But you can see how important a part of our economic value has gone to our suppliers, followed by the public authorities and others. In terms of governance, we have also evolved significantly, and we have made sure that the company's remuneration policy has become also an incentive in order to move forward with our ESG goals. A fifth of the employees' remuneration variable remuneration comes from these ESG goals. And there's also been a recognition from the most prestigious entities in terms of governance. And they have given Naturgy several international awards. And we are now starting the month of April, so we've closed a first term of the year 2024. And we could inform you of what are the priorities, the management priorities for the team given the challenges that we have this year. We've summarized them in 8 main goals, which are the following. First, regulatory management.
We have to continue advancing in everything that has to do with proactive regulatory management. The energy sector is still on the spotlight for any type of discussions, financial discussions or political discussions. That translates into new regulation and new legislation. The proactive management of those regulatory changes will be very important. Also, strengthening the distribution networks. We have to be ready to provide service to all the customers that require more amounts of energy. And that means that we have to strengthen our distribution networks both for electricity and gas. And we need to adapt the gas distribution networks to decarbonization. The third pillar would be gas contracts.
We are a company that is committed in the long term to gas markets, but we have to ensure that the gas markets are and that the gas contracts are at a market level or according to the market so that we do not miss potential gains both for the trader and the supplier. Fourthly, we have to obtain the essential role of the CCGTs and how important they are for the energy stability. They still have a very important role according to the regulation, even though there's been an important growth in the participation of renewable sources. But one of our objectives for the year 2024 would be to make sure that the essential role of CCGTs is officially recognized as a way to give stability to the system. Continuing with electricity, we also want to execute the growth plan for the renewable generation.
Without a doubt, we are already doing that, and we will continue to do so. The year 2023 was an important milestone in that sense, but the next few years will also have to be an important investment milestone in order to reach the figures that some of our customers who are here or who are following us remotely demand us to have in order to have a better mix of supply, which is more compatible with the environment. We want to grow also in renewable gases in the short term with biomethane. That's another of the challenges for our company in 2024. We have a plan which we all executed.
We believe that together with natural gas, with the blending, we will be able to supply more decarbonized energy without our customers having to make any specific investments or without having to change their way of living. We will also continue to improve our experience, our customer experience. AI and other technologies need us to help us improve our experience. We have 18 million customers, and we have to make sure that we give those customers what they need, improving their experience. And finally, as I said before, we must not abandon our strong evolution in terms of ESG topics, environment, sustainability, social, and governance. ESG topics are also part of our company, of our board of directors, and the management team. We will be able to have a better and more long-lasting company for our shareholders and for our society.
I'll finish here my explanation on 2023. I could have talked for long, but you have all the financial and non-financial information available to you in the company's website. So I would like to thank you for your attention. Now we are going to open the floor for comments.
Ladies and gentlemen, if there are shareholders that would wish to speak and they haven't submitted a question form to the staff present in the room, please be so kind as to do it now. I would like to remind the shareholders that are attending online that right now they're not allowed to submit questions anymore. We've received five questions. I'm going to read them in order. First of all, a question regarding preferred shares by Mr. Enrique Moreno Abad. I'm 76. I'm shareholder. I have preferred shares.
I've been complaining for many years, starting in 2015, because we've been tricked. We never thought that our investment back in 2005 was permanent and forever. Everyone knows in Spain that preferred shares in Spain were the highest, the biggest fraud in this country. And we don't know why do you continue to have them? I've talked to Mr. García Cobaleda in previous occasions, and he made a commitment to give us an answer. They've made EUR 96 million in the repurchase offer in 2015. And thanks to that, Naturgy received profit. The National High Court of Justice denied EUR 26.8 million. They consider that this is an accounting income, and it considers preferred shares as a hybrid between shares and profits. This was never said to us. And I would like to know who. The board is shareholder of Naturgy since 2005.
After 20 years, we have the right to use our savings. Second question, it's similar to one asked last year regarding energy poverty by Mr. Josep Babot. It's a question on behalf of the Alliance Against Energy Poverty. In March 2021, the Catalan government, and in this, after years of pressure by citizens, signed a historic agreement to condone the debt from 2015-2020 to 35,000 families in Catalonia a year later. And this announced the condonation of the debt for 2021 for 40,000 households in our alliance. Year- after- year, we take part in your meetings, and we'll repeat the same question. Is Naturgy ready to negotiate with the new regional government in Catalonia to sign similar agreements and condone the debt to vulnerable households in Catalonia? Last year, we got the commitment by the Secretary General of the company of providing us information.
We haven't received any information so far. The data we want is number of subscribers since 2017, number of households with CUPS identification that have continued supply since the state moratorium enforced since April 2020, the debt accumulated by said households, fourth default index in the industry for every month, number of households in Catalonia with CUPS with the report on residential exclusion risk, and debt accumulated by said households since 2015. Are you going to give this to us this time? The third question asked by José Antonio del Barrio Colmenarejo . Mr. Chairman, dear board members, officers, and Naturgy staff, in our AGM, I would like to congratulate you for the great job carried out in 2023 that has given us the profit you've mentioned, which is higher than in 2022.
You've made history in the company, always with the support that IBEX 35 had its best years since 2019. I would like to give you an applause. Mr. Reynés, in 2024, Naturgy Energy Group has value reductions of 25% in value capitalization in the stock markets. This was caused by the exit of one of the majority funds, CVC. As a consequence, 80% of the analysts following the share recommend to sell. Our price is lower than Iberdrola, Endesa, or Repsol. In my particular case, I bought my shares in 2018 at EUR 25, and today, five years later, they are listed at EUR 20. What can you tell me about this? If there's anything that you can say. Mr. Reynés, the corporate governance requires a separation of powers between the chairman and the CEO.
You've recently appointed five general directors, and I would like to ask, does this mean that so far you're not appointing any CEO? Mr. Reynés, Naturgy Energy Group has currently 13% of free float, as you've said. The CNMV has urged recently all companies with low free float to protect minority shareholders in these situations. I would like to ask you, are you taking note of these recommendations by the CNMV? Mr. Reynés, in case Naturgy's capitalization continues to drop in 2024, would you continue with the committed dividends, or would you reduce the amount? Don't reduce the dividend, please. Let's look at what happened in Enagás. In a week, they've lost 35%.
The funds that control the equity of Naturgy Energy Group hired you because of your professional value, no doubt about that, so that the company improves in every parameter compared to its peers, and that would mean a remuneration according to your position. You know that as of today, your remuneration has been questioned because it's a bit opaque. It doesn't show comparable parameters. I need to ask you whether you would agree to not increase your salary until Naturgy shares are not above EUR 25. I think congratulations are in order because the company is doing a good job. Please continue to work hard in 2024 to achieve your goals. I trust you, and I would like to encourage you to do this. For you, Mr. Reynés, I think the time of this AGM is a bit complicated.
Those of us who live outside of Madrid need to get up really, really soon. You don't have any parking spot for visitors. It's everyone for himself. So my request for next year is that if you don't do it anywhere else because with just a few I don't care why you do it, but please give us some breakfast or something. I need to request this because otherwise I think that you're a bit tight-fisted. We have another two questions. By Belén Pérez Morales on renewable gas. A few weeks ago, the company announced the creation of a new business directorate, Renewable Gas, to strengthen its focus in biomethane and biogas. I would like to know how this materialized and what particular projects you're working on.
I also think that because of Naturgy's experience in natural gas, we should be able to lead the growth in biogas in Spain in the following years. And the last questions by Emilio Guerra Soriano . It's called Exclusion of MSCI Index. The question is, is the board concerned by the exclusion of Naturgy's shares from the MSCI Index? Is there any measure to be included in this index again in order to favor its current shareholders? Thank you. These are the five questions.
Well, thank you very much. I would like to thank all of you that participated, and the secretary and myself are going to answer them. With all due respect to the shareholder that's present here, we're going to answer them in order. We should have started with yours because you're here, but anyway, we're going to answer.
Regarding the first question related to preferred shareholders, this has to do with the secretary's job, and I would like to give the floor to the secretary. Mr. Enrique Moreno, well, I'm aware the last year you tried to ask the questions, but you weren't able to connect online. The answer was given in writing on the company's website, last year's AGM. Your current question is very similar, and therefore the answer is more or less the same. But I would like to thank you for the acknowledgment to myself because I've had 10 or 12 calls with them. Other colleagues of mine have had also several calls, and we've explained the difference between share and investing in preferred shares. It's not correct that we made a commitment. The only commitment the company has is what's been published, and this is general for preferred shareholders.
They cannot buy shares to one shareholder and not from others. You mentioned data from a judgment by the National High Court of Justice. You don't give more context, so I don't know what you're referring to. I'm not aware of any legal proceedings related to Naturgy or its preferred shares, so perhaps this is related to another company. You've said that this is a fraud, but no, it's not. There's no legal judicial decision regarding to Naturgy's preferred shares, and quite the opposite, it's not a bad investment. I would like to remind the shareholder, who's also a preferred shareholder, which the profitability of 165 basis points is according to our data. I don't think that's 100% safe shareholders that give you 5.6% right now. So we can hardly say that an investment giving you 5.6% year-after-year could be considered a bad investment.
In the past, you've asked us about liquidity in this investment, as it's the case for shares. There's a liquid market where they're sold and purchased, so there are no liquidity-related issues. So it's not a fraud. The second question, and again, the secretary is going to answer it because he was referred to in the question. It has to do with the request by the Alliance for Energy Poverty. They're requesting data that they were previously requested. In our last AGM, we had Ms. María Campuzano on behalf of this association. She asked this question on site. She asked the same thing, more or less, in these years, something is added, a detailed request of information. Regarding this request of detailed information, it even refers to CUPS or monthly amounts. This is not given because it's not possible. This is an AGM regulated by the Companies Act.
Article 197 says that additional information can be requested. Other shareholders do this. But the Section 3 in this article says that the company, and in particular the board members, should not give the information in two cases. One, if this information is not necessary to protect shareholders' rights, and we don't understand why this detailed information is necessary to protect your rights as a shareholder, and more importantly well, the first one is enough, but there's a second one, and I would like to draw your attention to this. We should not provide this information when this information, due to objective reasons, could be used for aims outside or purposes outside of the company. The shareholders or the AGM. This question is asked on behalf of the Alliance for Energy Poverty.
This is an entity with the aim of exercising pressure on large companies to assume the responsibilities in situations of energy poverty. So this is outside of the company's scope. Therefore, we cannot give this information. Regarding the rest of your question, which is similar to last year's, as it was acknowledged in the past, there are different regulations. There's a royal decree from 2017 that regulates vulnerable consumers and royal decree law 2018 establishing the scheme of social bonus. Naturgy complies with this regulation. We have more than 200,000 customers in this regime. We have different decrees published after the pandemic. We have one that prevents cutting the supply to vulnerable customers. But we have several problems. There are different regimes in different regions, which causes huge management problems for us. Sometimes we make mistakes, and we apologize for it.
To my knowledge, there have been no mistakes this year, but anyway, we apologize. There are some administrations that do not abide by these regulations. There are a significant number of local administrations across Spain, and in particular in Catalonia, that don't issue the vulnerability report. They have to according to the legislation. There's another element that we don't have, which is the regulatory development of this piece of legislation you've mentioned. As long as it's not developed, we cannot act. We've requested this over and over, and we would like you to support us in this request that we have so that this regulation is developed and so that we can know what requirements we need to meet in addition to the law. The company acts as a company and through its foundation.
As a company, as I said, we protect almost 200,000 customers with this social bonus. We created a plan in 2017. We provide them special advice to optimize the energy consumption. In particular, remember the company that came paying last Christmas to recommend its customers to transfer to last resort type, which was better for them, not for the company, in terms of cost. There are fractioning policies for payment and more than 400 agreements with regions and municipalities. I would like to finish by saying that Naturgy's foundation during this year has carried out several actions. Refurbishing of houses, almost 5,000. It has created a school of energy. It has benefited 35,000 people with 3,000 sessions. PV panels have been installed in shelters with a significant volume. Naturgy gives its foundation around EUR 6 million. I would have to add different subsidies from the administration. We've trained 1,000 volunteers.
16,000 people have benefited from this, and we've created a specific vocational training aiming at employability focused on vulnerable populations. It has been considered a mandatory degree according to the Ministry of Education. So Naturgy abides by the law. It would be better if the administrations complied with the regulations by issuing vulnerability reports. And in the meantime, the company is making efforts with its customers and through the foundation. Thank you very much. Now, I would like to answer the third question asked by Mr. Delvarrio. You've asked many questions. Some of them were positive. Others were negative. This is life, right? This happens every day. The share evolution, I think I've explained it. And you've used some figures, so that proves that you paid attention to what I said.
I think the chart clearly shows that belonging to some indexes, one of the most liquid indexes in the stock market, which are MSCI, has a direct correlation with the evolution of the share price compared to our peers, other utilities. I have to say that I consider this part as explained. Regarding corporate governance, I would like to tell you something. Today, we are submitting the corporate governance report. The REMCO and the board itself decide on the right structure for the right corporate governance of this company. Right now, the decision made by the board is the structure that we have. I don't raise my own salary. It's precisely the remuneration committee, the one that's in charge of it. I'm sure that all the necessary inputs needed to make this decision are considered.
In particular, in 2023, even though the company registered record income, my nomination has been 7% has not had an increase of 7%. Has dropped by 7% compared to 2022. You said that we need to make decisions. I think the free float is a consequence that we have very relevant shareholders, institutional shareholders that believe in the company with a significant share. So this doesn't leave a lot of room for free float to grow. I think this proves trust by these important institutional shareholders. But from a negative perspective, the free float is limited. It's what it is. The amount of dividends, whether it will be related to capitalization or not, well, our dividend policy, as you know, is related to the company's results. It's prudent in terms of the company's result.
The payout for our company is in the lower rank in 2023 compared to our competitors. The dividend for 2024 will be subject to two considerations. Obviously, the results, and as we said in our strategic plan, keeping a credit rating of BBB. As of today, we don't expect the dividend to drop because of any of these two reasons. Then you've mentioned time and breakfast. We can count on the breakfast, and please apologize. Perhaps you're right to remind me of this. I tend not to eat much. My family tells me the same thing. Regarding the time, we will bear this in mind. Since 9:00 A.M., we've realized, not just because of you, but for others, it's not the best time, so we will change it. Three years ago, the time was irrelevant because it was completely online.
I'm sorry this person is speaking off mic. We cannot translate what they're saying. We take due note. And the breakfast. Ms. Pérez, our fourth question, she asks about biomethane and whether it's appropriate to have this strategy and the responsibility this new development driver has. Well, first of all, I would like to tell you that in Naturgy, we are convinced that decarbonizing is not just electrifying. Other people think that it is, but we don't. It's not that we don't think it. It's that we see it. Decarbonizing makes sense, but there are many technologies that supplement the possibilities so that a company is decarbonized. But at the same time, all of its customers are not forced to abandon investments that are still active. For us, renewable gas plays a paramount role within decarbonization.
Considering that it's the potential energy that could be more easily stored, electricity cannot be stored for a long period of time when there's an excess in good times. We've seen it this week with an excess of water in dams and with this scarcity of electricity, for example, in December and January. So our focus on biomethane, it's sound and strong and real. Biomethane has another important characteristic. It's 100% compatible with our current distribution networks and consumption equipment in our customers' homes. We don't want to force an acceleration of electrification. For example, in Spain, there are 8 million households with boilers, and these people would need to change the boiler. This means between EUR 10,000 and EUR 20,000 according to SEDIGAS to decarbonize when they can decarbonize in a different way by using renewable gas. There's another group of gas consumers, which are industrial consumers.
They account for 55% of the total energy consumed in gas. They have productive processes that are not easy to change, and sometimes it's not even possible. We need to give them an alternative. Also to these small, medium, or large industries to continue with their current production processes. And perhaps in the future, they could consider a transition. But not because there's not a current alternative, because there is. We are convinced that the potential of biomethane is higher than the goals of the new Energy and Climate Plan. Actually, SEDIGAS has established that renewable gases could account for 76 terawatt-hours of energy a year. In terms of the capacity to be supplied by renewable gases, this figure is well above the figure established by the plan. We're going to work on it.
The fact that the general director has been appointed to lead this division, that we are focusing on a specific strategy, this shows that we want this to happen as soon as possible. We think we have the skills built after many years of working in the world of energy and in particular in the world of gas to be able to turn this into an alternative for the future and not a residual thing, as some people say. The exclusion of MSCI, this is not an index where we have a share. This depends on third parties. They decide whether you are there or not. The main reason why you're included or excluded is the free float. Therefore, with this, in my previous explanation, this has been answered. There are no other questions.
So the secretary is going to state the information regarding the degree in which we follow the recommendations by this CNMV, which is mandatory to do in this AGM.
As the title says, these are recommendations that we have to inform the shareholders about. There are 64 recommendations. However, six of them do not apply to Naturgy. So I'm going to focus only on the other 58. Of the 58, 46 are fully complied with, and therefore, there's no need to talk about them. We fulfilled nine partially, and for the other three, we have given an explanation why we don't fulfill them. So I'm going to focus only on the last two groups. With regards to the recommendations for which we have given explanation, the board believes that they are not appropriate for a company such as Naturgy, for instance.
There's one that recommends a big number of independent directors. Well, as you can understand, this, for a company such as Naturgy, cannot be complied with because the law recognizes the right. It is an obligation, not a recommendation. Full proportional representation that has been exercised by the shareholders. The board of directors represents 80% of the shareholders. So it's impossible to fulfill that recommendation, and it's good that we don't because it means that we are abiding by the law. There's also another recommendation in order to divide the Appointments and Remuneration Committee into two, to split it into two. The board of directors continues to believe that this goes against the streamlining that is typical of Naturgy. With regards to the recommendations, only partially fulfilled, they depend. For instance, with regard to the long-term incentive, the recommendation is that it is for a three-year period.
As you know, in 2019, we approved a long-term incentive that was going to be for a five-year plan. And in 2022, the AGM extended it to eight years. So it goes further than the three recommended. However, this is not a typical system, and that's why it doesn't fit properly with the recommendations 58 or 62. Another recommendation talks about making sure that the board of directors are not present in more than an X number of board of directors. We believe that we don't need to apply that because the directors have been coming to our meetings in 100% of the cases. So there's no need for that. Okay. So in that case, we'll move now to reading the proposed resolutions and their votes.
In order to make it faster, if we have big majorities, we'll only inform you of whether it's been approved or not depending on the amount of votes that we already have. Without having to go into detail in each case on the number of votes in favor, against, or abstentions. However, you will have all the details of votes in favor, against, and abstentions on the website as of tomorrow. Also, those of you who are present in the room and wish to vote against or abstain, please just raise your hand after reading each proposed resolution. At the end of the voting, instead of interrupting for each of the proposed resolutions, and at the end of all of them, please come with myself and with the public notary to the board so we can take detailed information about your name and the shares you represent.
For those of you who wish to vote remotely because this is a hybrid AGM, you can do it through the voting form that is available to you. So your votes will be counted and will be informed to the public notary to be included in the minutes. Finally, I would like to let you know that the items of the agenda well, I will summarize them given that the full text was available to you. The first proposed resolution to approve the annual accounts and Naturgy's management report for the year ending 31st of December 2023. Approved. It is approved. Second proposed resolution is similar but for the consolidated accounts and for the same financial year, 31st December 2023. Approved. It is approved. The third proposed resolution to approve non-financial information report or consolidated information included in the management report. Approved. It is approved.
Fourth, this has to do with the dividends. It's to approve the following proposal for the year ending 31st of December 2023 distributed in the following manner. First, to the dividend, an amount whose gross amount is made up of the following amounts. First of all, EUR 969,373,801 corresponding to the two interim dividends for the year 2023 that have already paid out by Naturgy and that amount to EUR 1 per share. So the amount of shares, that's the amount of euros, and that's already been distributed.
However, those that are on the treasury stock will not receive the dividend. Secondly, a complementary or additional dividend, which is the amount that results from multiplying EUR 0.40 per share for the number of shares that are not considered in the treasury stock when we have specific holders that have the right to receive it. We have about 0.9% of treasury stock. Of that dividend, we have already paid out the amount of EUR 969 million on the 7th of August and 7th of November. The additional dividend will be effective from the 9th of April 2024. We give powers to the board of directors specifically.
So the directors who consider this important will carry out all the necessary or recommendable actions in order to carry out the distribution and decide on the amount. And to the remnant, all that is left. So the total amount that will be distributed is EUR 3,803,719,666.39. Is it approved? Approved. Fifth proposed resolution to approve the management done by the board of directors in the year 2023. Approved? It is approved. The sixth proposal, compared to the others, this is only for consultation purposes, is about the board of directors' remuneration report that was approved on the 26th of February 2024 when we called for this AGM.
So it's been at the disposal of the shareholders as well as all the other documents for the AGM. Approved. It is approved. So the re-election of auditors, we appoint as auditors of the accounts and of the group for the next two years, for the years 2024 and 2025, that will start on the 1st of January and will end on the 31st of December, KPMG auditors as well. And all of this is on the proposed resolutions documents. And it's regarding well, it has to do with Article 264 of corporate law and Article 42.4 of the trading code. KPMG would accept their position separately and manifests that there is no legal incompatibility to do so. Is that approved? Approved. Eighth proposed resolution: authorization for the acquisition of own shares. The one that was approved five years ago is about to expire.
That's why we are asking for its extension. We have to authorize the board of directors so that according to Articles 148 and 509 of the corporate law and for a period of 5 years since the adoption of this resolution, we can go ahead with the derivative acquisition of our own shares, either directly or not according to the limits and legal requirements established. Is it approved? Approved. Ninth proposed resolution to authorize and approve according to Article 515 of the corporate law that AGMs, if we need to call for or convene an extraordinary AGM, can be done with just a 15-day notice and not 30, provided that we give the shareholders the right to access the AGM remotely. And this would be we will have authorization for 1 year until the next AGM. Is it approved? Approved.
The last proposal, because this year the AGM only has the minimum legal resolutions, which is to delegate the board of directors with all the powers of replacement for the chairman, secretary, or whichever director is considered necessary, as well as give them all the powers that are considered necessary in order to develop, execute, interpret, solve, and formalize any of the adopted resolutions by the AGM, making sure that we will be able to execute them. Also delegate and give the powers to the chairman, the secretary of the board. So any of them two indistinctively can sign as many private documents they need to and public documents in order to execute the prior resolutions without changing the scope, nature, or content of those resolutions, obviously. Is it approved? It is considered approved.
Ladies and gentlemen shareholders, we have reached the end of this meeting and of this AGM. On my behalf, on behalf of the whole board of directors, I would like to thank you for your attendance and for the attention you have given us. I would also like to congratulate and thank the whole team of Naturgy, all the employees of Naturgy in Spain and in the other countries where we are present because, as you can imagine, without their support, these results would not have been possible. Thank you all very much. Thank you to all of them who are following this AGM here and those who will follow us in the future remotely. Thank you very much and see you next.