Danske Bank A/S (CPH:DANSKE)

AGM 2016

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Mar 17, 2016

Summary

2015 produced record net profit before goodwill impairment of DKK 17.7bn and 11.6% ROE, with an 8 DKK dividend and a new DKK 9bn buyback. Priorities included digital transformation, Nordic growth and stronger customer experience, while shareholders rejected three proposals and a separate governance proposal.

Welcome to the general meeting of Danske Bank. As in previous years, Trond Westlie, the Vice Chairman, and Thomas Borgen, the CEO, and the CFO, Henrik Ramlau-Hansen, are up here at the rostrum together with me. The other board members and executives are on the two front rows down here to my right. As the Chairman of the Board, let me introduce the other members of the Board of Directors. Jørn Peter Jensen, Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Carol Sergeant, Jim Hagemann Snabe. Urban Bäckström and Lars Förberg, unfortunately, have had to be excused, they have been taken ill. Kirsten Ebbe Brich has been elected by the employees, together with Carsten Eilertsen, Charlotte Hoffmann, and Steen Lund Olsen. The Executive Board, that is Tonny Thierry Andersen, Jim Ditmore, Gilbert Kohnke, Lars Mørch, and Glenn Söderholm. The auditors, internal and external, elected by the AGM are also present. They are sitting just behind the Board and Executive Management. The entire AGM is being webcast again this year, so on our website, www.danskebank.com, you can watch the proceedings. I hope you have all received the annual report, the annual report 2015, or the excerpts from it, and that you also have an agenda in front of you. It was on your chair. On your chair, there is also a copy of our annual magazine for 2015-2016. If you have any questions or queries concerning specific products or customer relations, again, this year, you can talk to staff at the stand out in the lobby. Thomas Borgen and Henrik Ramlau-Hansen will reply to any questions that have to do with the daily running of the business or questions of a technical nature, whereas I will concentrate on the overall aspects and basic aspects. In accordance with the Articles of Association, the Board appoints the chairman of the meeting. Like last year, we have asked Klaus Søgaard, attorney at law, to take us through the meeting. So over to you, Mr. Søgaard. Thank you so much. I will do my best to ensure we have a good, calm AGM here today. First of all, I have to verify that the AGM has been lawfully convened and forms a quorum. There are a number of formalities you have to comply with. I am not going to take you through all of them, and I can tell you that I have reached the conclusion that the meeting has been lawfully convened. There are things in accordance with legislation that we must comply with. We must hold the meeting before the end of April in the capital region of Copenhagen, and we are in compliance with both of those. Under the act, you have to convene by 3 to 5 weeks' notice through the website and through the IT system of the Danish Business Authority, and separately to those who have so requested. I have verified that this has been duly done on the 22nd and 23rd of March, so we are in full compliance there. The agenda, in accordance with the Articles of Association, there are rules concerning the agenda, and we are in compliance. So I believe that we are lawful, and we have a quorum. Most of the items on the agenda can be adopted with a simple majority. Under item 6 on the agenda, there are four elements that require two-thirds majority because they deal with amendment of the Articles of Association. If we need to vote, we will use the eVoter system, so we can do it swiftly. I do hope that we can deal with most items without having to vote. We will see how it goes. I can tell you 974 people asked for an admission card, 707 of them shareholders. 5 minutes ago, we had 565 present, 365 of them were shareholders. So more or less the same percentage of those that register who actually turn up. As a shareholder, you have been able to vote in advance, and you can give proxy to the board, 120 have done that, and you can tick off the proxy forms in advance, 926 have done that. Personal vote is also possible, and 86 people have done that prior to the AGM. All in all, including the personal votes and proxies and those present in the room, we have 53% of the share capital represented. In a minute, I will give the floor to the Chairman of the Board, who will give the report. As in previous years, the first 3 items on our agenda, we will deal with jointly for practical reasons. Subsequently, I will be asking, and a number of people have already registered, have asked for the floor. Please come over here to the side rostrum. You can go over there and have your name on the list, and then I will be told who wishes to speak. I will be grateful if we can go through the AGM a little bit quicker than we have done in recent years. So if we can have brief and precise interventions, that would certainly be appreciated also in light of the good weather we are having outside here today. Mobile phones, please turn them off. As always, when we have the Chairman of the Board, the webcast will be there as indicated. So over to the Chairman of the Board. Dear shareholders, this is the fifth time I have the pleasure of presenting a report to the AGM as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Danske Bank. The pleasure has risen steadily over the years, not least because the development of financial results we have been able to report to you, the bank's owners, have been better every year than the year before. I am pleased to say that that is also the case today. In 2015, we had yet another year with significant progress for Danske Bank. Despite the headwinds from extremely low negative interest rates that present a challenge to the earnings of all banks, we did deliver a satisfactory net profit before goodwill impairment. The net profit, 17.7 billion DKK and return on equity of 11.6%. The net profit, 17.7 billion DKK, is the best ever in the history of the bank. The return, not however. That was the case because we have doubled our equity in the past 10 years, from around 75 billion DKK to around 150 billion DKK today. So in other words, we are a much better capitalized bank today, but it does mean that we must earn more money to deliver a reasonable return. With the financial results for 2015, which I will take you through in more detail in a moment, we have achieved all the financial targets we have pursued in recent years. Return on equity of at least 9.5%, improved credit ratings, a Tier 1 capital ratio of at least 13%, a total equity ratio of at least 17%, expenses below DKK 22 billion, and a dividend payout of 40%-50% of the net profit for the year. That's what we have achieved, and we've thus achieved an important milestone on the way to achieving our goal of a return on equity of at least 12.5% by 2018. The other important target is to be number one or two in customer satisfaction in our core markets, and here too, we have made significant progress in recent years, not least in 2015, but we still have some way to go before we are completely satisfied, and I'll revert to that a little bit later as well. When we gathered for the AGM in 2012, that was the first time that I was Chairman of the Board. Danske Bank was in an entirely different situation than it is today. For the fourth consecutive year, we had not been able to pay a dividend to our shareholders, and the net profit in 2011 was a modest DKK 1.7 billion. Our credit rating was not satisfactory. It contributed to increasing funding costs, and as you know, we saw a further deterioration before things began to move in the right direction, and our expenses were also much too high. Last but not least, we had not yet repaid the necessary but expensive loan that we got from the Danish government back in 2009. Obviously, it is satisfactory that with the annual report for 2015, we can tick off all the financial targets that we set for ourselves in 2013. It's just as pleasing that at the same time as the fundamentals are now in order, we have improved the underlying business significantly. Today, we do have a very strong starting point for increasing our value for customers and shareholders going forward. In 2013, we started an ongoing review of our business so as to ensure that we use our capital and our resources the best possible way. When we reviewed our business, we made a number of important decisions in recent years that have contributed significantly to strengthening our foundation. First of all, we were able to confirm that we are and want to be a Nordic universal bank with Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland as core markets, and servicing personal customers, SMEs, and institutional customers in these markets. Furthermore, we are a bank whose activities outside the Nordic countries are intended mainly to help Nordic customers abroad or international customers that have Nordic interests. That's also the reason why we want to strengthen our position, in particular in Norway and Sweden, where we believe we have the potential to create additional growth for customers and shareholders alike. In these markets, growth must come at a sensible pace that takes into account developments in these markets, and we must base ourselves on good credit quality so we can ensure that our growth is profitable and sustainable. Secondly, we have wound up our Irish activities, and we've decided to organize our activities in Northern Ireland as an independent, separate business unit. That simplifies our organization, enabling us to better expand the strong market position we already hold. We can increase our focus on creating value for customers, and we can strengthen our earnings. We've also decided to wind up our personal banking activities in the Baltics so as to focus on developing our business banking services. Further to this, in September, we signed an agreement to sell off our Lithuanian and Latvian personal banking business to Swedbank. We require the approval of local authorities for the sale, but we expect that to be completed in the first half of 2016. Thirdly, the review of our business has also led to significant changes in the Corporates & Institutions business unit, because we wanted to ensure higher, more stable earnings in that unit. We've invested in improving our products and services in transaction banking, in capital markets business, in lending, and corporate finance. Most recently, we've decided to gather our competencies in pension savings, as well as wealth and capital management in a new business unit that we call Wealth Management. This is a market undergoing rapid change, but it's also a market with considerable potential for us. We have a good starting point, but by gathering our competencies in one strong unit, we have no doubt that we can create even more and better solutions for our customers, thus strengthening our market position and our earnings. The new business unit, Wealth Management, will be responsible for more than 800,000 customers and assets under management worth over DKK 900 billion. Now, after this review of the results we've achieved and the changes we've made, if anyone then has the impression that we equate progress with completion, no, I have to say that's not the case. I can reassure you. We are satisfied with development, but we are not satisfied yet with the level we're at. That applies to the financial resources as well as customer satisfaction. Despite good results in certain parts of the business and solid progress in other parts, we are still a bit away from the situation where Danske Bank should be. Our target for customer satisfaction is to be number one or two among personal and business customers. As regards the largest corporate and institutional customers, we want to be in the top three of most of the 103 independent surveys of the Prospera Institute. At Corporates & Institutions, we service the largest corporate institutional customers, and there generally, we have very strong relations with our customers, and we have high customer satisfaction. But in the surveys of the Prospera Research Institute, we've been ranked as number one, for instance, in corporate banking, institutional banking, Nordic region, and cash management. Altogether, we are number three in almost three-fourths of the surveys made by the institute. As regards SMEs, the small and medium-sized enterprises that we service in business banking, we've made progress in all markets. We're among the top two in Sweden, Finland, and Northern Ireland. In Denmark, where we are number four out of five, we did make progress, and in the year under review, we acquired many new customers. But there is still some work ahead of us, and that is also the case in Norway, where we were number one but ended the year as number three. Moving up and down on a list like that in the course of the year simply shows that the competition to be number one is tough and that our competitors are also working hard to improve. It is very good for customers because it sharpens our focus so we can get even better. In the personal banking market, where we face the greatest challenges, the trend was particularly encouraging in the year under review, not least in Denmark. Our customers became increasingly satisfied in the course of the year. For the first time in many years, we are no longer last on the list. We are slowly but surely catching up on the competition. Danica Pension and Danske Capital also saw rising customer satisfaction. Danica Pension is number 3 in Denmark, and Danske Capital is number 2 in the Nordic region. Satisfied customers, that is and will continue to be one of the most important preconditions for being able to run a healthy, a strong company. It is encouraging that surveys have shown that we are moving in the right direction according to our customers. We see the same tendency when we look at customer numbers. In Denmark, we continue to have a small net outflow of personal customers. Fortunately, we saw a net inflow of 3,000 so-called NemKonto EasyAccount customers. That is customers who have Danske Bank as their primary bank. At Business Banking Denmark, we also saw an inflow of new customers in 2015. We saw a net inflow of more than 5,000 new business customers. The positive trend in the number of customers and customer satisfaction shows us that the intense focus we have had on becoming more customer-oriented, simpler, and a more efficient bank, that that is working. [Foreign language] To a very large extent, Danske Bank is a mirror of the economy, and the trend in the economy therefore generally has great significance for us and for our results. The low and negative interest rates are, of course, good for those who want to borrow money, but less good for those who want to save. At the level of society, low interest rates are generally a symptom that the economy is still not running at full capacity. For banks, the low interest rates make it more difficult to operate, because they pose challenges for the conventional business model in which the earnings come mainly from interest margins on deposits and lending. For Danske Bank, this reduced income by DKK 2 billion in 2015 alone, not least because we have chosen not to implement negative deposit rates for our personal customers. On the other hand, we have benefited from 55,000 mortgage loan customers converting their loans in 2015. The customers have also benefited from this, since they have saved a total of DKK 1.6 billion in annual interest expenses. We expect that the negative interest rates will continue for a while, and in any case, for the remainder of 2016. In spite of the negative interest rates and relatively low growth, we delivered, as I mentioned in my introduction, a satisfactory financial result for 2015. Profit before goodwill impairments was DKK 17.7 billion, and thus return on equity was 11.6%. Those are results with which we are satisfied, and they show the strength of our broad and diversified business model. As a result of our ordinary review of goodwill in December, we booked a goodwill impairment charge of DKK 4.6 billion. The impairment charge concerned our activities in Finland and Northern Ireland. The impairment charge is of a purely technical nature and does not affect our regulatory capital or liquidity. We expect to be able to continue to operate a good, sound business in those two markets. Total income ended at DKK 44.2 billion, which is nearly the same as in 2014. Net interest income fell by 4% because of lower interest rates, but the drop was offset by a rise in trading income of 4% and a rise in net fee income of 9%, partly because of increased customer activity, a 5% rise in lending to business customers and significant mortgage refinancing activity in the first half of 2015. Our focus on always becoming a simpler and more efficient business contributed to an additional 4% decline in expenses, which ended at DKK 21.8 billion. Impairment charges on our core activities also declined in 2015, very sharply, in fact, and ended at DKK 57 million. All the business units made a positive contribution, and the drop was, of course, partly the result of better macroeconomic conditions, but also of our continuing focus on improving credit quality. We booked higher impairment charges for the agriculture and oil industries, however, because these two sectors are experiencing difficulties at present. Agriculture is still suffering from the trade embargo against Russia, and the oil business is suffering from very low oil prices that may have a negative effect on especially the Norwegian economy. 2015 also brought improved credit ratings. Good credit ratings are important because they have a direct effect on our funding costs. It was an important milestone for us when Moody's raised our long-term rating from A3 to A2 in June and Standard & Poor's changed the outlook for our A rating from negative to stable in July. Danske Bank is a very solid and well-capitalized bank. We have a target of a total capital ratio of at least 17% and a Tier 1 capital ratio of at least 13%. At present, we find that a Tier 1 capital ratio of around 14% is reasonable. At the end of 2015, the total capital ratio was 21% and the Tier 1 capital ratio was 16.1%, and so we fully meet our targets. Our objective is to pay out 40%-50% of the net profit in dividends, and for 2015, the board of directors is proposing that we pay out eight DKK per share, which equals 46% of the net profit before goodwill impairments. In 2015, we carried out a share buyback program for a total of 5 billion DKK, and these shares, with your approval, will be canceled at this annual general meeting. In 2015, we once again accumulated significant excess capital, and we want to give that capital back to our shareholders. The board of directors therefore began a new share buyback program for 9 billion DKK in February. There should be no doubt, however, that we want to maintain a solid capital base that ensures that we fulfill all regulatory requirements and that also enables us to support growth. As I mentioned earlier, we expect only moderate growth this year, and we have sufficient capital to support that. Therefore, it's right, and it's in accordance with our earlier announcements to give excess capital back to our shareholders. By the end of 2016, we will reconsider the situation, and on the basis of our desire to have a solid capital position, we'll make a decision on what to do with any excess capital. Now, if we look at 2016, we expect a little more tailwind from the economy, although we've seen a somewhat turbulent start of the year. 2015 was a repetition of 2014, with growth around 1.25% in Denmark, with disappointing exports, but a good increase in consumer spending. Not, however, because consumers borrowed more money, but because they earned more. That's not a high growth rate historically speaking, but it was enough to produce a good rise in employment. It appears likely to be more or less the same this year, but there are grounds for believing that business and housing investment will rise, and one hopes that this could add something to our growth. But much depends on global developments, of course. We've seen increasing concern about the global economy, we've seen unrest in the financial market recently, and we've seen worrying signs of weakness in the manufacturing industry. There are many uncertain factors, including the slowdown in China and the coming EU referendum in the U.K. Uncertainty is no good for the economies and for investments, and if it turns out that we face a decline in global growth this year, well, that will certainly affect our markets as well. Overall, low oil prices are positive for Europe, but we have already seen that the large drop in prices has caused growth to fall in Norway, however, without causing a contraction of the economy. Fortunately, both households and the public sector have saved up in the good times and thus have a cushion against a downturn. Anxiety in the financial markets should also be seen in relation to the United States' first step away from the zero interest rate. But in Europe, interest rates are more likely on the way down, and very low rates will be with us for some time to come. Our financial results for 2015 have brought us a big step closer to our target for return on equity of at least 12.5% by 2018 at the latest. The plan we have made for reaching a return of 12.5% is based on macroeconomic conditions and low interest rates continuing generally unchanged. For 2016, altogether, we expect net profit at the same level as in 2015. Trading income is inherently dependent on the trends in the financial markets, just as net interest income will depend on the trend in interest rates. We also expect moderate volume growth and a continuation of the sound trend in the fee income, just as, of course, we will continue working to optimize our use of capital and reduce expenses. We also expect lower loan losses and impairments. Now, let us leave the present for a while and look at the future. The financial sector is facing very large changes, driven particularly by development in five important areas. As a bank, we are, of course, a mirror of the economies in which we operate, and so economic developments mean a great deal for the financial results we are able to deliver quarter after quarter, but also for how our strategy will drive our business over the long term. As I mentioned during the review of our financial results for 2015, the very low interest rates and relatively moderate growth pose a challenge for conventional banking. Although the economy has improved, a continuation of low interest rates and low growth are still the basis of our planning. Customer expectations. The expectations that customers have of us are changing significantly in the present period. Fortunately, gone are the days when you accepted to come to a branch office with hat in hand, submitting one's desires and waiting patiently for the bank to do the calculation and give an answer. We use banks in a completely different way today than we did only a few years ago. Both personal and business customers expect that they can do their banking business 24 hours a day, and they expect us to make it as easy as possible by means of innovative digital self-service solutions, which for businesses are fully integrated with their own systems. But they also expect us to understand their finances and their situation, and that we can serve as a strategic sparring partner at a completely different level from what we used to. Digitalization and disruption. Technological development is accelerating sharply these days. We speak of a fourth industrial revolution, and quantum leaps are being made in a number of areas such as artificial intelligence, 3D printing, nanotechnology, and robotics. This will have great significance for all parts of society and thus also for the financial sector. We are of the opinion that everything that can be digitalized will be digitalized, and the diffusion of new ways of doing things will happen very quickly. Now, just take our own MobilePay, for example. It took only 20 months to get 1.9 million users on MobilePay, and today, just three years after launching MobilePay, we have more than 2.8 million users. That is only one small example of how new technology will continue to fundamentally change the way we do things. Competition. There is no doubt that we will see more intense competition, both from those we already consider competitors, other banks, which of course also follow developments and work hard to win customers' favors. But also from completely new players that, based on new technology and completely different business models and appealing offers for customers, will attempt to perform some of the tasks that we historically performed. Regulations. The supervisory authorities' requirements for the financial sector have increased quite significantly in the past 5 years. Although we don't expect that it'll continue with the same intensity as previously, nothing seems to indicate that requirements will not continue to be increased. This applies to fundamental factors such as capital, liquidity, and risk, but also to knowledge of our customers, control of transactions which we execute for them, and not least in areas such as cybersecurity and data protection. Particularly when it concerns the effort to prevent money laundering and the financing of criminal activities, the financial sector faces a very large and resource-intensive task. We don't complain about increased regulation, which helps to ensure financial stability and confidence in the financial sector, by the way, but it's important that our politicians assess on an ongoing basis the overall effect of all the regulation that's been implemented, so that it doesn't unnecessarily restrict our opportunities to support economic development and growth. In a world where the general business conditions are changing significantly and where the market is developing quickly and with much unpredictability, it's important to be prepared for change, and also to have a clear direction and clear priorities so that one does not pursue arbitrary trends and loses focus. We have those at Danske Bank. Our vision is still to be recognized as the most trusted financial partner, and our long-term ambition is to be number one in customer experience. In addition, we have four clear focus areas across the entire group. Customer centricity. This may seem banal to some, but it is far from it. It means that everything we do must always be based on customers and their needs. It's our ambition to provide the very best consumer experience, but this requires that we understand our customers, their needs, and what drives and motivates them. We must get much better at this. It also requires that we have the development capabilities and competency that are necessary for us to be able to challenge ourselves constantly and develop the best and most innovative products. We have identified a number of ambitions about how we want our customers to experience the bank, and we are now in the process of making them a reality. Digitalization. As I mentioned before, our ability to take advantage of the opportunities of digitalization will be absolutely crucial in the years ahead. It's a matter of both digitalizing and automating existing processes so that they become more efficient, and also of using technology to design processes that give a better customer experience and greater efficiency. We are working to significantly reduce the time it takes to process completely ordinary businesses, such as loan approvals. With the housing portal, Sunday, we've taken the first step in the housing market. Now you can get a purchase approval in a few minutes, something that used to take up to several weeks. But it's also a matter of taking advantage of technology to create completely new solutions and services. Also, we'll invest additional resources in cybersecurity in order to protect our customers and our business. Nordic potential. We are a Nordic universal bank, and that has some very clear advantages. But we must become even better at exploiting our strong Nordic platform. We must optimize the way in which we work together across business units and countries, and we must also exploit our size and development capabilities when we develop and launch new solutions. People and culture. A precondition for our being able to reach our goal is, of course, that we have the competencies necessary to understand and take advantage of the opportunities that the future offers, but also that we have a culture in which there's always a focus on customers, regardless of where in the organization you are, and a culture which is flexible and dynamic enough to be able to adjust to the changes that characterize our market and the world. That makes demands on the way in which we organize ourselves and the form of management which we need. By means of a number of initiatives, we are therefore working to create a culture in which there is more focus on collaboration. A culture where there are fewer rules and business procedures, and where individual employees have the opportunity to make more decisions themselves without having to look something up in a manual or ask a manager for permission, and a culture in which one is measured mainly by the value one creates for customers. That's a large task, but it's completely necessary for us to succeed. Our more than 19,000 employees are the heart of our business, and it is they who ensure that our customers get the advice and services they need. Finally, I'd like to conclude by commenting briefly on the board of directors' work and focus areas. 2015 was another busy year. Since the last AGM, we've held 13 board meetings, and in addition, there's been a total of 20 meetings in the four committees of the board. In addition, selected board members have held so far four formal meetings with the Danish FSA, the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority. It's an element of the more stringent supervision of so-called systemically important financial institutions, or SIFIs in that terminology. Last year I said that the board was aware of the need for continual and gradual renewal. In 2015, the board, after thorough preparation by the nomination committee, has started working on this theme in order to ensure that we have the optimal composition of the board in relation to the bank's situation and ambitions going forward. On this basis, the board of directors is proposing changes in two seats. With eight members elected by the AGM and four members elected by the employees, the board of directors is of a suitable size. Jim Hagemann Snabe and Lars Förberg have both wished to resign from the board, and in their place, the board is proposing new election of Hilde Merete Tonne and Lars-Erik Brenøe. I'll come back to this under item four on our agenda, which has to do with the election of members of the board of directors. The Executive Board, we've also seen changes. Jacob Aarup-Andersen will join us on the 1st of April 2016. He'll be the new CFO, the Chief Financial Officer, responsibility for finance, legal, and compliance. Jacob comes from position as the CFO of Danica and has many years' experience in management positions with some of the world's largest financial companies. He replaces Henrik Ramlau-Hansen, who has wished to resign at the end of this month after almost 30 years with the group. In addition, we are currently looking for a head for Wealth Management. I would like here to thank Jim Hagemann Snabe and Lars Förberg, and not least Mr. Ramlau for their great efforts on behalf of Danske Bank. In January 2015, the board of directors decided to adjust the remuneration structure of the Executive Board so as to have a better balance between fixed and variable remuneration, and between short-term and long-term incentives. We are also creating a clearer, more coherent relation between the Executive Board's remuneration and long-term value creation for shareholders. With a net profit of DKK 17.7 billion, clearly improved return on equity and positive trend in the share price relative to our competitors, Danske Bank and its shareholders have had a good year in 2015. This is also reflected in the overall remuneration of the Executive Board. I refer you to note 33 in the annual report, where you can read about the management's remuneration in detail. The board of directors believes that the Executive Board's overall remuneration is at an appropriate level all in all. Apart from a minor adjustment for individual members of the Executive Board, it has been decided not to adjust the fixed salary of Executive Board members in 2016, and we are not making any changes in the remuneration structure for 2016 either. In the longer term, however, the board of directors wishes to change the remuneration structure so that the variable remuneration component will become larger. However, the board emphasizes that this should be done in a sensible way that does not lead to short-term and exaggerated risk-taking. At the time being, however, we are restricted by very strict rules that are specific to Denmark. They apply only to Denmark. Besides the legally required board tasks and ongoing assessment of Danske Bank's strategic risks as opportunities, the work of the board of directors in 2015 concerned mainly the four strategic focus areas I talked about before. Which we, together with the Executive Board, have designated as the most important areas going forward. One, to ensure that through innovation, development, and close collaboration with our customers, we strengthen and adjust our business model on an ongoing basis. Two, that we take advantage of technological developments to improve customer experience and so as also to create simple and efficient processes. Three, that we develop all of our Nordic potential, and four, that we develop our organization, culture, and competencies in line with the changes of markets and customer expectations. That will be the headings also for our work in 2016. In addition, the board of directors will focus on compliance and Danske Bank's efforts to prevent money laundering and financing of criminal activities. In 2015, we delivered a strong result. To a great extent, this was because of the many initiatives we have launched, the strategic decisions we have made, and the hard work performed every day to ensure that customers have a good experience. I would like to conclude, therefore, by thanking our 19,000 talented and committed employees for their sterling efforts. Thank you for your attention. Now is the time to ask questions and to make comments. As I said initially, if you would like to speak, please bring your admission card up here so you can get on the list. There are a number of people who have asked for the floor. First, we will hear from ATP, the Labor Market Supplementary Pension Fund. Jacob Johansen is the first speaker. Thank you for giving me the floor. As the chair of the meeting said, I am Jacob Johansen, and I represent ATP, the pension fund. Thank you, Ole Andersen, for a good report and for taking us through the annual report. 2015 was a good year for Danske Bank. You saw improved earnings, and the bank is moving in the right direction when it comes to complying with the earnings goals. So congratulations are in place. As it was said in the report, Danske Bank improved its return on equity from 8.6% in 2014 to 11.6% in 2015. Primarily, this was caused by two things, reduced costs and, not least, the very positive surprise, which was the very low losses on loans, on lending. Now you are only one percentage point away from your objective. In the present environment with negative interest rates, however, it would seem that this last percentage point is going to be more difficult to actually get than the previous ones. Now, together with the financial statement, you also talked about the bridges that will take you to the earnings level that you want. From an overall perspective, increased lending and cost reductions will take you most of the way. So at the overall level, it is quite clear what will increase the situation. But when you look at the individual divisions, Personal Banking, Business Banking, and Corporates & Institutions, it is not quite clear where you will see increases. We have been promised a new model for the allocation of capital. We are looking forward to seeing that, but I would like to ask you about earnings at the divisional level, the individual divisions. When you look at the overall perspective, where do you see the biggest potential? Which division or divisions, and what will be the main earnings drivers for each of the three divisions? Now, in the longer term, there is also another way that management can illustrate potential for the different divisions if the new capital allocation model is supplemented by earnings goals for the individual divisions. You have actually also created a new division, the one you called Wealth Management. This is pensions, capital administration, and private banking that you are gathering in Wealth Management. There will be economies of scale to be won by having these under one hat. As regards future communication, however, it will be important for the bank not to reduce transparency with this new structure, because there might not be individual reporting from Danica and Danske Capital of results. You have to ensure that the new reporting supports value creation and gives shareholders more insight into the bank's situation. Further to that, I would like to ask board of management, what about the new division? How do you see that in the light of the bank's overall earnings potential? How much do you expect Wealth Management to contribute? You have strong capitalization, and there's a balance between having a big enough buffer for future uncertainty and then offering possibilities for growth, and then ensuring also that the bank is not overcapitalized. In the present environment, we fully understand that you are not paying out more than 100% of your annual profit. That's very reasonable, obviously. In the present environment with negative interest rates, things are not easy, but you have a solid foundation. There will be opportunities for the bank, and I wish you all the best for your work going forward. Thank you. Thank you. I think these questions concern mainly the daily running of the business, so I believe Thomas Borgen will be the one addressing this question, and we will have from the Danish Shareholders Association, a speaker after that. First of all, says the CEO, thank you for your words of praise, and you can rest assured that even if the direction is good, we are not satisfied where we are at. We are working to get the extra one percentage point that you talked about. Now, if I understood your questions correctly, questions one and three, I have no doubt that the best, you might say the only way towards sustainable growth, is through satisfied customers. The board of directors knows that. The Executive Board knows it too. We've made some progress. We'll continue our work in this field, but we are not there yet. But we certainly have enormous potential. Obviously, we will continue developing our products and services. We have made progress with innovation in all divisions, and we will continue that development. Thirdly, we must remain a cost-efficient organization. It is to be expected that we will see low growth, and therefore we need to be competitive. If you're cost efficient, you can be more efficient overall. Those are the main elements, and those elements apply to all of our four or five divisions. We're going to do the same thing in all of them. We also see a lot of possibilities, as the Chairman said, in the four Nordic countries, and we will develop our business in the Nordic region. We really appreciate the dialogue we have with you, with ATP, one of our biggest shareholders. We get a lot of good input, and we will certainly increase transparency to the benefit of all stakeholders. At the present time, we do not believe we should have goals at divisional level. We believe it's better to have them at the group level at this juncture. As you know, you can monitor the results of the divisions on an ongoing basis, but divisions are so interdependent, and that's why we believe the overall picture serves us best. The Wealth Management unit, the most recent division, we have a lot of confidence in that. We see a lot of potential, and we are certain it will also contribute a lot going forward in Danske Bank. Next speaker, Jens Møller Nielsen from the Danish Shareholders Association. Thank you so much. Yes, I am Jens Møller Nielsen. I'm the manager of the Danish Shareholders Association. An association for all Danes who are interested in sound long-term investments, also investments, obviously, in Danske Bank shares. Thank you for the report from the chair of the board. I'd like to congratulate you with the result you achieved in the group in 2015. A financial group such as Danske Bank, your risks are very complex, obviously. You could have described the situation more pedagogically in your annual report, but at least you have quantified your risks well in the notes. Your lending amount looks robust. You have only 2% commitments that are at risk of making a loss. What about the non-financial risks, the total risks of the group? In these times that are turbulent politically and in societies, you write in the annual report that you have a responsible risk profile. We also heard from the chairman that Danske Bank, to a large extent, reflects the economy and society. What does that really mean? What is the sensitivity of a financial supermarket, is my question, vis-à-vis major surprises in the world economy, such as oil prices or the Danish or Nordic property market, or a Brexit. What about Danske Bank's business trends? Are you moving in the same direction as general trends in society, as the chairman indicated, or are there areas that could have a particular impact on your group? If you're very interested, obviously, you can look at the separate and very instructive risk report 2015 that you have produced, but we would have liked to see a summary in normal language. What are the most significant risks for the Danske Bank group going forward? What types of changes in society would have the biggest significance for the ability of Danske Bank to live up to its goals? Further to that, I would say that there is another Danish financial enterprise that has run into a lot of trouble recently because it sees a strongly increasing need for capitalization going forward. It's a bit thought-provoking that Danske Bank is paying excess capital back to shareholders. You have DKK 8 billion dividend and you share buyback DKK 9 billion. As a shareholder, that's great to see such a nice return to shareholders in the short term. Your solvency ratio of 21% is excellent, has even gone up considerably in 2015. However, it seems as if you are gazing into different crystal balls in different Danish financial enterprises, including the one I'm talking about, which is just down the road from where we are here. What about Denmark, the EU, and Basel? What's happening? If the other people's crystal balls are better, how are you going to meet with further and higher capital requirements? The chairman mentioned digitalization as a driver of change. Obviously, we are seeing the digital revolution, the fourth industrial revolution, if you like. It's going to be humongous. I believe none of us can really understand and grasp the perspectives. There are all sorts of innovative ideas coming out, disrupting, challenging, changing the financial sector with IT solutions that none of us knew that we needed. Like the chairman, we've seen MobilePay that created and conquered the market for mobile payments faster than competitors were able to do anything. MobilePay is now being used at least once a week by 35% of smartphone users in Denmark. That's impressive. When you have a technological revolution flooding an industry, the old giants run the risk of being swept away by new innovative solutions. Think of Kodak, think of Nokia, think of Blockbuster. When was the last time you went down to rent a tape from Blockbuster? You made a great start with MobilePay and Sunday, the housing portal. Is it good enough? Can there be a digital disruption that comes so that traditional banks don't understand what's happening? An old company such as Danske Bank, how are you preparing for transforming possibly fast enough so as not to be overtaken by new disruptive players on the market? How do you avoid MobilePay just resting on your laurels with MobilePay and doing nothing extra going forward? Digitalization in society also means that when you convene an AGM, you do not need to do it by physical letters, and that's fine. It does mean that only shareholders that actively have stated their email address are actually reminded that this is the AGM, and you can turn up, as we're doing here today, and get an insight into the company that you invested in. Other companies are telling us that they used to send out letters to 100% of shareholders registered by name, but today it's less than 10% or 20% that actually get a convening notice by email. I think that's a main explanation for the declining attendance at many AGMs in recent years. So what is the percentage of the Danske Bank shareholders registered by name have been convened by email? What is the percentage? What is Danske Bank doing to encourage, not least new shareholders, to state their email address so they can get the invitation to turn up here at the AGM and know more about the company that they invested in? Finally, I'd like to say that the Danish Shareholders Association is very pleased that you communicate in Danish with shareholders also because many shareholders do not understand financial statement English too well. You are doing it as regards the annual report, well, at least an excerpt, and you also have the annual magazine. A C20 company such as Danske Bank should translate the full annual report into Danish, but at least we praise you for working with good alternatives. Regardless of the language, Danske Bank is not going to win any prizes for the best visual presentation of an annual report. Private and professional investors would, I'm sure, like to have seen more graphical presentations of the business. At least the annual magazine is an excellent initiative that many other companies should be inspired by. That was it from me. Thank you for listening. Congratulations on a wonderful 2015, and I wish you all the best in the group and for you and your employees in 2016. Thank you. Thank you very much. I will give the chairman the floor for comments. The next speaker will be Mr. Erik J.M. Pedersen, and then Mr. Frank Aaen. Thank you, Jens Møller Nielsen. Thank you for your kind words. I noted four questions. The first one was about business risks. Every year, we publish a so-called risk management report as a supplement to our annual report. It is available on our homepage, and it is available through Danske Bank's investor relations app called Danske IR. In that report, we explain in great detail and, of course, I will be the first to admit that the level of detail may somehow render the message less clear, but it explains very clearly the risks and our risk sensitivity and our risk management. The yearly report contains a summary of all this. Of course, we will take on board that we have tried to explain things as pedagogically as possible, but I am sure we can still improve, and we will try to do so in the future. What are the most important risks? We operate a bank, and the most important risk is credit. When we lend money, we do so because we hope and we believe that we will get our money back eventually. Credit risk will, of course, depend on developments in especially the Danish economy. We are a Nordic universal bank, but we are much larger in Denmark than in the other Nordic countries. A gradual improvement of the Danish economy will have a positive impact on our credit risk. As we all know, the world does not stand still, and the risk profiles change constantly. What is important is what I said a while ago, that we have the ability to change, to be agile, and to manage our risks. An important prerequisite for this is to have a very strong risk management function. We have that, and we have improved it significantly over the past years. In my report, I pointed to five trends which we can see lead to great changes now and in the future. I also talked about our response to those changes, mentioning four strategic themes with which we work. The five changes were macro, customer expectations, digitalization, regulation, and competition. The second question was about capitalization and dividends. Danske Bank, after paying dividends and buying back shares, has a very strong capital position with significant buffers, both vis-à-vis regulatory demands and our own goals. We are prepared for the effects of coming capital demands. Of course, the ones we know. Also our earning power is so strong that we will be able to adapt to even stricter demands for capital if that is going to be the case. Also, we have stopped using the crystal ball. We believe much more in strong risk management. The third question was about digital disruption. We should remember that we have a very strong point of departure. We see technological developments as possibilities rather than as threats. With MobilePay, we show that we are able to disrupt ourselves before anybody else does it. The housing portal, Sunday, has been developed by our MobileLife team, and it is yet another example. Every year we expect large sums in developing new innovative solutions to make it easier for Danske Bank's customers to handle their banking business. But it is also about competencies, and that is why it is so important that we work with the themes, culture, and people to ensure that we develop our employees and attract the best possible talents also within the area of IT. The last question was about the turnout for the AGM, and I can say concretely that 23% of our shareholders have used the VP Investor Portal to receive the invitation for the AGM, and the large majority of those who have asked to be invited have asked to be invited via email. When we are in contact with private shareholders, typically, we ask them to give us their email address in order for us to record it with VP. We have worked more systematically with this. Previously, we have written letters to all our shareholders, but those initiatives, unfortunately, have not given results which make them worthwhile. The next speaker is Mr. Erik J.M. Pedersen. Thank you. My name is Erik Pedersen. I am an independent minority shareholder. I would like to begin by thanking the bank, its board, its executives, and its employees for the excellent result and congratulate my fellow shareholders. I have two questions which are somehow connected. They are about the immediate future. Two weeks ago, on March 4, the European Union Commissioner for Financial Services, Jonathan Hill, who is British, visited the Danish Financial Council. And what interests Danish financial institutions right now are the new capital requirements, the Basel requirements, which are implemented by EU rules, and they may mean higher demands on capital for mortgage institutes. In Denmark, we find that unreasonable because those bonds are so secure. So my first question is, what do you expect will be the outcome of those negotiations? And if Denmark loses, so to speak, loses the battle for having our point of view accepted, what will the consequences be, in particular for borrowers? And the second question is connected to this, because Commissioner Hill is also at the head of the Capital Markets Union, a new EU invention, a sort of prolongation of the Banking Union, and Denmark is hesitating, unfortunately, to be part of it, but it will come whether we like it or not. The Capital Markets Union is designed to give companies other ways of financing themselves by loans in pension funds, for instance, or by emitting corporate bonds instead of going to banks. So my question to the management would be, do you see this as a possibility for new forms of business, or do you see it as a threat against your existing business? I give over to Thomas Borgen. I'll give the floor to Mr. Borgen to comment on this, then I'll give the floor to Frank Aaen. First question, the one about risk and the Basel regulatory demands. I think we should begin by saying that it is rather uncertain what the Basel Committee will decide, it's even more uncertain how that will be treated by the European Union at the political level, how it will be treated in the European Banking Union, and how it will be phased into Danish national schemes. My main answer is we don't know exactly what is going to happen. What happens in the political discussion today is that people want the banks to support growth and development. That is the basis of our discussions with politicians and regulatory authorities. Today, we find that there is an understanding of the fact that regulations of the banking sector has to take a break to get an overview of what the sum of all these regulations mean. Will they support growth, or will they impede growth? Now, having said that, it may be that the Basel Committee reaches the conclusion where certain minimum levels will be set for certain types of loans, this may mean that requirements will be introduced for Danish authorities to do the same thing, that may have an impact on Danish financial institutions. That is what the previous speaker talked about. That's exactly what has been happening with Nykredit, which was the institution he hinted at. We don't have any better information about what's going on in Basel right now, but we must be prepared for a situation where the requirements for capital may be increased because the risk threshold may be raised. But we feel that we are in a good position. We have a strong position if that happens. Also, we believe in a risk-based management, it may not necessarily be wise to discuss things as they are being discussed. It may not be wise to impose further restrictions on the Danish system, for instance. So we defend the Danish mortgage system. The second question was to do with the European Capital Markets Union. We are great supporters of that idea. We believe that there is a huge potential in that, we think it's important that it be developed further, it would be a great business area for us. It would be an opportunity for our customers and for Danske Bank. We are ahead of the field in the Nordic market for bond emissions. Certain adjustments have to be made to the regulation of the Danish market to get it to function at all levels, including the smaller businesses. But we see it as a great opportunity. Thank you so much. Next speaker, Frank Aaen, and after him, Holger Bigum. About seven years ago, this bank was going down the drain. Actually, it had actually gone. There were speculations abroad, in Ireland, in the U.S., Lehman Brothers derivatives and all sorts of things that had been happening, and all of a sudden, the company was losing billions. At that time, the Danish government saved the bank. Without the contribution from the Danish government, this bank would have gone bankrupt. Unlimited loan guarantees, incomprehensible amount, billions, and also a cash input, DKK 24 billion influx into the bank as subordinate loan capital. Now, if you have any doubt about how much the DKK 24 billion was at that time, you can bear in mind that in March 2009, the bank had a value on the stock exchange of DKK 22 billion. It was essential money that came from the Danish government at the time. I'm not an expert entirely, but a bit of an expert perhaps. In a liberalistic world, what I've understood is that if you invest and take a risk, you run a risk, and you get the gain, if there is a gain to be had. But that's not what has happened here. There was a requirement, a big majority of the Danish parliament supported it until things were changed the very last second, that the government would have shares and therefore benefit from the investment if the share went up. That was removed overnight. That was done because this bank or the people and the Finansrådet, supported by a small shareholder, A.P. Møller-Mærsk, went to the Danish government and said, "No, we don't want that," and it was removed overnight. The government did not get any shares when it invested this amount in the bank. We can see what that led to. We can see it today. The government has earned interest on the deposit made, yes, like anybody else, that's obvious. But there's been no payment for the risk. All others made the gain because there was a price increase of the share. But that was only because the government gave guarantees and made this deposit. In our association, Kritiske Aktionærer, we've had a calculation made by Experian to find out we're talking about. If you look at the increase in the price of the share and you offset capital increases and so on and so forth, you include the fact that a dividend was paid in 2013 and 2014, the gain for the shareholders in this company is DKK 145 billion since the share was at its lowest level and then up to the level at the end of a period. You really must see and understand that if the government had gotten only a small part of that gain, it would have been a double-digit amount in billions, as it was done in Sweden in the previous crisis, where Nordea had a crisis, where the Swedish government intervened and actually got shares in Nordea. As a fact, they've made a lot of money from that. But here, this bank, through its main shareholder, the Financial Council, and particularly the main shareholder who has some significance in the Danish society, because there was a government that didn't dare to support what had actually been agreed by the parliament, and because of all those elements, the government did not get any part of the price gain of the share. That's one thing. As a society and as a taxpayer who took the risk, the government did not get any part of the gain, and in addition, the government has had to pay for the gain. Society has had to pay for the gain because we're seeing these increasing fees that explain the increase in the bank's income. So the taxpayers in the country have been cheated twice. First, they didn't get part of the gain, and secondly, they're footing the bill through increasing fees to Danske Bank. We, in the Kritiske Aktionærer, do not find that reasonable. You could say, well, we are fine with that, but you could take a more reasonable approach and think also as a taxpayer, not only as a shareholder, right? Because the customers of Danske Bank are also taxpayers in this country. That is why Kritiske Aktionærer is proposing instead of payment of a dividend, and instead of the plan for buyback of shares, DKK 8 billion plus DKK 9 billion, that's a lot. Instead of those things, fees and contributions should be reduced in Danske Bank. In this way, the money should go back to citizens at large. First, to those who are customers of Danske Bank, but we know what it's like. That will spread to the other banks, so that that would be the situation for everybody. Let me just add that the crisis in 2008 and 2009 came about because the international financial market broke down. But Danske Bank was hit particularly hard, particularly hard because of its expansion abroad in Ireland, right? And money invested in Lehman Brothers, speculation and derivatives, financial instruments of various sorts. It was a tsunami that Danske Bank entered. Do we want to go that way again? It sounds a bit like it, doesn't it? You want to expand again, you are saying. Is that a good idea? So that's my question to the board. Has the board learned from its experience in 2008, or is it just going back, business as usual? I think that is really a good question. There's also a question concerning the significant institutions, SIFI. Danske Bank is one of them. Too big to fall, they're called, right? Institutions that are too big to fall. Therefore, they've been given a government guarantee, a government guarantee that they cannot fall. If you lend out money to banks, it's good to lend out money to a bank that has a government guarantee. That's why the interest rate paid by Danske Bank is lower than that paid by other banks. What about that advantage? What's the amount of that? That's actually government support, isn't it? It's like you're getting a government guarantee again. I've understood that for the big banks that we have, those that are significant, we're talking billions, aren't we? How much is it in this bank? Finally, wouldn't it be a good idea to thank the taxpayers of the country for their help so that Danske Bank didn't go bankrupt? I think you should pay back some of what you have won through lower fees and lower contributions in your mortgage credit activities. Thank you. I give the floor to the Chairman of the Board, to Ole Andersen, and after that, we will hear Holger Bigum. If there are others who wish to speak, I assume that they have been registered up here to my left, says the Chairman of the meeting. Thank you for your intervention, Frank Aaen, even though I have to say that it is obviously an unusual intervention in this context where all the people in the room are owners, shareholders. We are proposing a dividend, as we have, in order to maintain Danske Bank as an interesting investment for our shareholders. The dividend is within the framework of the objectives laid down by the Board of Directors. It is our goal to return 40%-50% of the year's profit to you, the shareholders. This year, we are proposing to pay out 46% of the year's profit. We find that entirely reasonable, and it actually does benefit the many people who save for their pensions in the form of Danske Bank shares. I would also like to remind you that in the financial crisis, we did not pay out any dividend for five years, and twice we had to get capital from our owners. I take it that most people would agree it would not have been appropriate to increase prices rather than getting capital from our owners. I do not agree with your assumption that there is a conflict between paying dividend and giving our customers competitive prices and good products. Let me add also that there was a calculation that you presented here, which was based on the financial crisis in 2007 or 2008. You can do a different calculation. In overall terms, shareholders in this bank have not received any dividend the last 10 years, even if they made venture capital available to the bank. In 2006, the stock exchange value of the bank was about DKK 140 billion. Today, it is about DKK 180 billion. Meanwhile, shareholders have invested more than DKK 40 billion in the form of new capital. In my calculation, that is a zero return. That is why we are working hard to improve our earning capacity. We cannot do that if we do not have satisfied customers. You had something also about mistakes. I think I have admitted many times that mistakes were made in this bank, as in many other financial institutions prior to the financial crisis. We do believe we have learned from our mistakes, and certainly we are doing our very best to make the bank much more solid. We are increasing our risk management, and as I said before, we have a capital base which is twice as big as it was 10 years ago. Then there was the question about the significant institutions, SIFIs. Let me point out to you that the price for being one of those institutes is that we have to retain more capital than other banks have to do. So there is actually a cost also involved in that. Thank you. Next speaker is Mr. Holger Bigum. You have the floor. Yes, my name is Holger Bigum. I am from the town of Fredericia. I don't know if it's peripheral Denmark, perhaps. For many years, I've been a shareholder of Danske Bank. I've seen ups and downs, several of them. When I had seen quite many ups and gathered some money for my pension, there was a storm, a tempest rather. I'd like to say that I do not share the opinions of Frank Aaen about the operations of Danske Bank. I brought my part of the DKK 20 billion that Danske Bank needed. My expectation was that as a shareholder, I will get some sort of return at some point. It seems you've been working to ensure that I'm getting that. I'd also like to say that if I'm not satisfied with Danske Bank and I find shares that I believe I can earn more from, like any other shareholders, including critical shareholders, I have the full freedom to sell my shares and buy some other shares. No more about Frank Aaen. The Chair of the Board and the CEO wrote as the first line in the financial statements for 2013 that we dealt with in 2014, that it was the best year that they had taken part in, and 2015 was even better, so congratulations. However, I do have two points that I think are worth mentioning. The cost towards goodwill in 2014 and 2015 for mistaken acquisitions, as we now know, or things in Ireland and Finland that were bought at a too higher price in DKK 13 billion over 2014 and 2015. I think that we still said we are bringing DKK 20 billion. It means you can continue running the bank. I think it was a good thing that it was okay what happened, and Peter Straarup was there before, and those that are here now, I do believe you're doing a better job of it. I think that requires no further comment. Then there's the question of the brief version of the financial statements in Danish. We now have to go to the English version to read the notes. Actually, what I need here, I had hoped a little bit that Ole Andersen, as you were talking last year about what's the cost of accommodating our Danish shareholders, I had hoped that you had come to a better, more positive result than what I've seen so far. Because there's one thing I cannot see in the Danish excerpts from the financial statements. One thing that I, as a state-authorized public accountant, would call a natural part of the financial statements. I'd like to say this to Mr. Ramlau, that any financial statements have a number of key points. But there's one key element, contingencies. I don't know if you have any contingencies, but there was something that I was able to spot, which I hope that you have been good at avoiding. The swindling act that our politicians committed, including Holger K. Nielsen, the politician who said that he hadn't read the report, and an attorney, a listener, have been involved in that. This thing about DKK 9.1 billion dividend tax leaving Denmark through fraudulent actions, according to the Danish Inland Revenue. Can you give me a reply? Can you respond to that? How close were you to all of the things that happened in that regard? Finally, once more, I would really have liked to see the full financial statements in the Danish language. I have seen non-core. I agree with you is that you cut away everything that was not core, and that is really good. It inspires trust. The so-called shadow account that I discussed with the previous CEO, you have sort of removed that, so it is not going to be a problem going forward. When you look at the individual divisions, some of them are doing well, some not so well. That is the way it is in such a diversified business as you operate. Thank you for your attention. Excellent financial statement, good increase of the price of the share, a good dividend. All the best going forward. I give the floor to the Chairman and then Mr. Frank Aaen would like to give us a short comment and then there are no more speakers on the list. Thank you very much to Holger Bigum. Also, I would like to thank you for supporting our capital increase. It needed support from our shareholders, and thank you for your kind words about our statement of DKK 13 billion you are talking about. Well, that is partly investments, which seen in hindsight, should not have been made, but we still aim at running a sound business in Ireland and in Finland. Now we have only DKK 5 billion left in goodwill in our balance. We are not going to bear those, and they are to do with our C&I business. Now, the Danish language account, we have listened to your comments, and if there is a possibility of translating selected notes, we will look at that. I know that you asked Mr. Ramlau about something, but I would like to answer briefly, and if there is need for it, Henrik can supplement my answer. These accusations of laundering dirty money is completely unfounded. We cannot accept any of the accusations published in the media. Our policy is very clear. We do not participate in any transactions which have the purpose of not paying tax. You can see that on our homepage. We offer loan of shares as part of activities within securities lending. It is an ordinary part of our ongoing business in supporting the capital needs of our customers. We help customers with that. They are all year round. It has a completely legitimate purpose, but it is not the same thing as participating in financing illegal activities. Thank you. Frank Aaen, a very brief remark, and then after that, the speakers list is closed. Well, I just want to pick up on the answer given. Thank you for that answer. I understood you as saying that you agree that the bank was close to zero, and since then, DKK 145 billion have been earned for the shareholders and those who gave the guarantee that saved the bank should have had part of that money. It may be that more money has been earned earlier, I am not saying it has not. But from a point where the bank was about to go bankrupt, the government which saved the bank and made it possible to earn DKK 145 billion, that is thought-provoking. Also, I understood the answer as meaning that an active effort from this bank and from the financial council in Denmark secured through all night negotiations that the Danish government did not get a part of the shares of the bank or of the DKK 145 billion. Now, the thing about significant institutions, I understand the bank is saying that they agree that it gives you an advantage when you have to borrow money to be considered a significant institution, but it may have some cost. There will, of course, but what is the net gain for Danske Bank being a significant institution? Then my last question, I did not get an answer to that, has the bank's management learned anything from 2007, 2008, 2009, or are you simply going ahead with new expansion because you think that is the right thing for the bank, but it may be a threat to the shareholders who got hurt the last time because of speculations that went wrong, and which may be harmful for shareholders and for Danish society as a whole in the future? Thank you. I noted that we have no more speakers on the list, and the board sees no need to comment Mr. Frank Aaen's remarks further. With that, we have finished the debate for point 1 to 3, so I just sum up the board of directors report on the company's activities in 2015. There are no more comments. The report is noted without voting, so we do that. And 2, Submission of Annual Report 2015 for adoption. There is rarely a need for a vote, so I suppose we can make do without that. Makes that good. So we consider the annual report is approved. Item 3, proposal for allocation of profits according to the adopted annual report. The board proposes DKK 8. We heard Mr. Frank Aaen's comments concerning the dividend, of course, that will be noted. You already asked for a ballot, and you are not going to do so today? No. Good. So item 3 is adopted as well. Item 4, election of members to the board of directors. The rules are explained in the statutes. Article 15, the AGM elects 6 to 10 members, and right now we have 8 members thus elected and of course, the members elected by the employees. As the chairman said in his report, Urban Bäckström, Bechstrand, Jørn Peter Jensen, Røsted, GuldSmedsro and Lovnsted are running. So the board proposes that instead of the two who are not running, Bechstrand and Bechstrand will be elected instead. And I give the floor to the chairman. Now, structurally speaking, we work on a profile of competencies for the board as a whole, and we adapt that on an ongoing basis as the world change and as our ambitions and the situation of the bank changes. The competence profile can be found on our home page. The board today has a broad composition concerning competencies, international experience, and nationality. And if you look at the composition of the board vis-a-vis the competence profile, we have an excellent match. But the part of the board elected by the AGM, apart from one minor change in 2014, has been unchanged since March 2013. That was the right thing to do looking at the situation of the board. But as I mentioned in my report, the situation is changing rapidly. That is to do with the external conditions under which we work and our strategic focus areas as well. All that, looking forward, will pose new demands for the competencies of the board and thus the composition of the board to ensure that the board, in the future, will have an optimum composition. We are now initiating a gradual renewal, gradual in order to ensure a good balance between history and renewal. We propose Lars-Erik Brenøe and Hilde Merete Tonne. Lars-Erik Brenøe has been head of the Chairman's Secretariat in A.P. Møller-Mærsk. He is a member of the board of the A.P. Møller Foundation and a number of other organizations within the A.P. Møller system. Lars-Erik has a great knowledge about corporate governance, regulatory matters, and stakeholder management. Hilde Merete Tonne is Norwegian, and she has a great deal of management experience from large international corporations, and for the past nine years, she has been working in the telecom sector. Hilde will contribute with her deep knowledge of customer needs, and especially concerning private customers and her knowledge of IT and digitalization also. Hilde Merete Tonne has a great deal of experience with change management and the carrying out of cultural changes. Overall, the candidates are going to add important competencies, which are in line with our strategic focus areas. With these candidates also, we maintain a high level of diversity in our board. Both candidates are independent based on the criteria from the Danish Committee on Corporate Governance in its recommendation. Thank you very much. Any comments to this proposal? No, that is not the case. Then I assume that there are no other candidates, so I declare the two candidates elected, and I wish the board good luck with the coming year. The next item 5, is usually uncontroversial. The board proposes to reelect and reappoint Deloitte. Any other proposals? No. In that case, I congratulate you on one more year. Item 6, here we need a two-thirds majority because we are changing the statutes, but I think it is fairly uncontroversial what we have on the agenda, so I am just going to run through it rapidly. The first one is proposal to reduce the bank's share capital. It is not money leaving the company, it is simply a matter of the shares bought during the year in the buyback scheme mentioned. So it is a technicality, rather. Item B, proposal to cancel the option of having shares registered as issues to bearer. We have a new law as of July 1, 2015, which excludes the possibility of issuing bearer shares, so most companies will do away with that possibility. Item 6C, the proposal to cancel the calling of the annual general meeting by announcement in Danish Business Authority's electronic information system, and that was something which was linked to the bearer shares, which we are now probably doing away with. Item D, an authorization of the board of directors to make extraordinary dividend payments during the year, so the possibility of greater flexibility concerning dividend payments. Any questions concerning these more technical matters? If not, I expect that we can adopt them in a very simple fashion, and this is done, adopted. Item 7, another standard item which this bank and all other public companies have on their agenda every year, proposal to renew and extend the board of directors existing authority to acquire own shares. They are asking for an authorization to buy up to 10% of the share capital. That's a standard request for public companies, and there's a request to have it prolonged by one year. It may be prolonged up to five years at a time, and there are only four years left of the existing authorization. So there's a request for five more years. Usually, that's quite uncontroversial, and it was in this case as well. Our next item, 8, the board of directors' proposal for remuneration to the board of directors in 2016. There's a description of the proposal, which will comprise an increase by DKK 15,000 of the basic fee. I give the floor to the Chairman to explain the reasons for this proposal. Basically, the board finds that fees for the board should reflect the work burden and the responsibility of managing and leading a company of the complexity and size of Danske Bank. The fee committee has noted that the complexity of the board work and the time consumed by meetings and preparation for meetings has been on the increase, and not least after the bank has become a so-called SIFI institute. The SIFI establishment requires more regulation and more overview of the number of areas, and there's now a limit, a very low limit actually, defining the number of management posts which may be held by a board member. This means that the board members, present members, and future members, may have to give up or say no to other posts which might have given them an income. Generally, the nomination committee and the board have noted that it is now harder to attract and to retain the best board members. The proposal has to be seen in this light. With the proposed change, which would mean an adjustment of about +3% of the total compensation, we'll still be in line with the other big Nordic banks. I'd like to add that the total board fee in Danske Bank has had an increase of 6% over the past six years. Right, I can refer to item 8 on page 4 on the agenda, the program for the meeting. Any questions? If that's not the case, well then, I will consider this proposal as adopted. That was item 8, and now item 9, which in principle is connected to the previous item, the board of directors' remuneration policy, which covers the board and the management in general. We have a supplementary document describing the policy. I've been told that there's no dramatic changes. It's simply an attempt at adapting this document to the European Banking Authority. There's some more detailed text, but it's all in the text which has been sent out. So I'd like to know if anybody has any questions or comments, and if not, this is considered a minor point. I see no hands, so I consider item 9 as adopted, which leads us to item 10. As you may have read, Nanna Bonde Ottosen, the National Chairman of the Youth of the Socialist People's Party, on behalf of six shareholders who have together called themselves as Conscience of the Banks, they have made four proposals which are on the agenda. I've agreed with the four shareholders that they'll come up here to explain their proposals. Astrid Haller will talk about item 10.1. Nanna Bonde Ottosen will introduce proposal 10.2, a cap on golden handshakes. Then Morten Bejner will talk about item 10.3, a tax on speculation, the FTT tax. Anton Thule Skalleboe will motivate item 10.4 about an increase in the number of traineeships. You are welcome to come up here one by one in the order I mentioned, and we'll allow the four of you to present your proposals, and then our Chairman will comment on all four of them. Thank you so much Dear general meeting, I'm Astrid Aller, and together with the youth section of the Socialist People's Party and the organization called Conscience of the Banks, we are proposing that Danske Bank should stop its investments in fossil fuels and phase out the existing investments in fossil fuels. We've done that because Danske Bank must assume the responsibility that it is to be Denmark's biggest cover and lender. I have some good reasons for it. One of them is that two out of three Danes believe it is important to invest in renewable energy, even if in the short term it is more expensive than fossil fuels. As the Bank of the Danes, Danske Bank has listened and acts accordingly, or it should do, because, I mean, what's the good of Danes going to work on their bicycle if their savings are being spent on investments in coal and oil? Secondly, it makes good business sense to invest green and bad business sense to invest in black. BlackRock, one of the world's biggest money funds, has told its investors that it's high risk if your investment is not climate guaranteed. Even Goldman Sachs, which is not known for not being risk-prone, right, is investing DKK 1,000 billion in green investments. Not for the fun of it, I'm sure. More than DKK 3,000 billion a year is given in subsidies in regard to fossil fuels, but after the climate agreement in December, it's very likely that many of these subsidies will be phased out. It will become more expensive to invest in fossil fuels. Why doesn't Danske Bank do away with that kind of investment now and be the company that's already prepared when these subsidies disappear? A third good reason is that it's quite easy to implement. Danske Bank already has a list of companies that they have chosen not to cooperate with for societal reasons. There are 30 companies on the list, but only one of these companies they've not invested in for environmental reasons. I think that list should be extended. It should add more companies. Companies that invest in coal and oil and other fossil fuels should be on the list that you don't want to invest in. Danske Bank has already signed the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, and they include environmental awareness. We are part of Carbon Disclosure Project and other political environmental projects. We, in the Conscience of the Banks, think that Danske Bank should live up to the responsibility that they have already accepted to assume. Danske Bank is saying right now, "No problem. It is youth that will pay going forward." But if Danske Bank is going to be the Bank of the Danes, they must also take responsibility for Denmark of tomorrow. Thank you for your attention. Dear fellow shareholders, thank you for listening. I am Nanna Bonde, and I am National Chairperson of the youth section of the Socialist People's Party and Co-founder of the Conscience of the Banks. It is wonderful to do something about the gender representation up here at the rostrum. What we think is that Danske Bank should introduce a ceiling, a cap on golden handshakes. It is essential for us that the bank should spend its money on running the bank well. I think we can all agree on that. The bank's most important task is to cater for the interests of its customers, and that is why it makes us wonder when we see the bank spend millions on golden handshakes to managers that they dismiss. Golden handshakes, there is a bit of a media attention about those at the moment, and I can understand why. Kåre Schultz was a recent example. He used to work for Novo Nordisk as a vice president. They gave him around DKK 73 million when he left the company. A golden handshake, which is a life income for six unskilled people. Now, what is that got to do with us and Danske Bank? Well, here at this bank, golden handshakes are also very common. Only a few years ago, we saw the latest example, Eivind Kolding, who was given DKK 23 million when he was dismissed by the bank. He went from here to Novo Nordisk, where he got sacked again, and again, he got another golden handshake, this time around DKK 20 million. Anders Drejer, professor at the Institute of Economics and Management at Aalborg University, was asked about our proposal, and he said the following: "When you have been dismissed, it can be years before you can get back to the same level of pay. So if you are used to earning, let us say, DKK 7 million a year and you get dismissed, you need to be able to manage until you can find your next top position." Can you hear that? I mean, what other place in society are things working like that? No regular people get a huge bonus when they get dismissed. No, the reality is just the opposite. In the Danish parliament, they are voting right now to put a ceiling on cash benefits. They are cutting back on unemployment benefits. Everybody at the bottom of society have to pay and foot the bill. But this bank is giving golden handshakes to the upper class. The problem is also that at the same time as management receives golden handshakes, regular customers have to pay extra fees. We should not have these golden handshakes. Danske Bank should take responsibility. Actually, the board has accepted our proposal to put a ceiling, a cap on golden handshakes, but we think it should be much lower than it is today. No one deserves DKK 23 million, not even Thomas Borgen, when he stops or is dismissed or whatever. Thank you for your attention. Dear shareholders, I'm Anna Brandemoser. I also from the Socialist People's Youth organization. I support the introduction of a tax on financial transactions at European level. A tax on financial transactions means that whenever a purchase or sale of shares or bonds or derivatives, other financial products is made, a tax has to be paid of 0.1%. Speculation makes the market uncertain, has led to crisis, and this is why we've made this proposal here at the AGM. The board is not supporting our proposal. They believe it will have a negative impact on the growth in society. The European Commission, however, has said that that is not going to be the case. It's going to be a marginal negative impact, a long-term loss of growth of 0.53% of GDP, and they have not taken into account the positive effect that there will be from the reinvestment of the money that will be generated. The board is also rejecting our proposal because this is something for the politicians to do what they say. But we think it's in the interest of the bank and the shareholders to protect against future crises. So we think you shareholders should support our proposal and vote in favor. Thank you. Dear general meeting. I'm Anton Steiner. I am an unskilled office worker. Today, more than 14,000 young people need a traineeship in Denmark or an apprenticeship to complete their program. That's also the fact in commercial schools, trading offices, and what have you. The way we have it with our educational program, the schools and companies should work together to give us a strong basis. That system is not working when companies do not assume responsibility, do not take in trainees or apprentices. That's why we are proposing that over the next year, Danske Bank should establish more traineeships than they've done last year. Banking is changing. There are more and more specialized requirements from the employees of the bank, so it's important to have skillful employees if Danske Bank is going to keep tabs with competing enterprises, and you're doing that very well, as you are saying in your reply to our proposal. But unfortunately, it's all over the financial services that there is this problem with youth education and youth training. I've met many young people from the commercial schools, commercial colleges, which are very sad, because banks seem to favor the general high school background over the commercial background. We see it in banking as well. There's nowhere that you can find traineeships when you come from a commercial school. But let me remind you, there's a superstructure, financial economist, it's called. There is a 3-month placement period there, but in the youth training programs, for 4 years, you're supposed to change between the school, the college, and your placement periods for a 4-year period, to give you the right competencies. But instead, you are simply putting more weight on the regular high school, which has no placement period at all. Because of that, the bank risks having staff and employees that have never had any traineeship or any placement periods at a bank, and you could have access to young people who have actually had that placement. A big company such as Danske Bank, there are many different assignments. A financial economist cannot be the best at everything. The superstructure people cannot be the best at everything. We need skillful office staff, and therefore you should take in office trainees. I can help you and explain to you how to do it, and I hope the AGM here will support our proposal. Our world is not built by people like me, who work in an office but is unskilled. No, our world requires people with proper training and education. Danske Bank, you must assume your part of the responsibility. Dear shareholders, please support our proposal. Thank you. Thank you for these four comments. I am giving the floor to the Chair of the Board, who will comment on all four proposals. Thank you for these interventions. As you have seen in the convening notice to the AGM, 10.1 and 10.3 and 10.4, the Board cannot support. As regards 10.2, has to do with putting a cap on golden handshakes. We already have that cap, and that is why we can support this proposal. Since the 1st of January 2014, we have had this kind of cap. The 1st of January 2015, we even honed this further, stricter now even in this particular field. It means that golden handshakes, severance pay agreements, can now maximum be an amount of two times the fixed pay for a year. This cap, this ceiling, which is in accordance with international standards for good corporate governance, has been continued without any changes in the remuneration policy we have just adopted at this AGM. Let me stress that the bank generally has a very restrictive policy in this field. No member of the Executive Board has the right to any severance pay or golden handshake, if you want to call it that, as you are calling it, Nanna Bonde Ottosen, in your proposal. And the executive managers who have left the bank in recent years have had no right to any severance pay and have not received any severance pay. I do not know where you have this information. Well, perhaps I do know. We did not give a golden handshake to any executive manager who has resigned from the bank within the last few years. I will come back to a specific example that you mentioned. Like the other employees, they have a termination notice in their employment contract. Of course, we respect termination notices, if we choose to terminate a person. That being said, we still have a few old contracts of employment with leading staff members, not members of the Executive Board, but other leading managers. Their contracts still talk about two years pay if the bank terminates their contract of employment. We do need certain flexibility. It is because in some situation it can make sense to everybody involved to find an arrangement as an alternative to an actual termination. Let me give you an example. When just over three years ago, we shut down our branches in Ireland, we had to say goodbye to a number of loyal employees there. It was in a period when the Irish economy was struck by a very high rate of unemployment and was not doing well at all. As opposed to Denmark, Ireland does not have a finely meshed social security network. In that situation, we did conclude a number of agreements, which meant that the employees involved received compensation that went beyond what was required in accordance with the normal terms of employment. Let me comment on the reference to the payment of DKK 23 million to our previous CEO. I do not recognize all these figures that you mention and that have been mentioned in the press. Generally speaking, the managerial contracts of the bank agree on a termination notice, which is 18 months. If the bank terminates the contract, the termination notice is 18 months. There is actually a non-competition clause running for 12 months from the time when the manager resigns, so the person cannot go to a competitor and work for a competitor within that period. If we terminate, we obviously respect the agreed termination notice. Other than that, the bank's managers have no requirement concerning any additional payment. Conversely, in accordance with the general rules of Danish law, the bank can actually offset other income that the resigning manager may get. For instance, if he finds another job before the end of the termination period. We do utilize that. The terms that I'm outlining here also applied in regard to the previous CEO that you mentioned here. So it's completely misleading what is being said up here from the rostrum. I do know that you found it in the media. But obviously, if one newspaper writes something that's wrong, other newspapers will write the same. It is completely misleading as regards to the number, the figure, but it's also misleading to call it a severance pay or a golden handshake. So I hope that can finalize that case. As I said initially, the board cannot support the other proposals here that Nanna Bonde Ottosen and others have presented to us. We do sympathize with some of the elements in the proposals, including this thing about finding jobs for young people. But in the convening notice, we have given relatively detailed explanations why we cannot support these proposals. I'm not going to reiterate all this here, but I would like to point out to you that two years ago, in 2014, the AGM dealt with a proposal, also from a group of shareholders linked to the youth section of the Socialist People's Party, which was more or less the same as we see here in 10.3, the introduction of a so-called FTT tax. As I said back then, the bank does not want to engage in politics. If this tax becomes a reality at a certain point in time, there's not a big likelihood of it the way it looks now. Obviously, we will comply with legislation completely, if and when that is introduced. Thank you. Thank you. The four proposals have now been introduced and commented on. Of course, that should not. The proponents would like to have a vote on number one, three, and four. We have now the electronic means to do this very fast. It would also be a pity to have this instrument and not use it at all. We have also agreed with the four proponents not to vote on 10.2 because the wish to present the proposal to the AGM has been fulfilled as it is printed in the convening notice on page 20. We will now have three votes, 10.1, 10.3, and 10.4. Before doing so, however, we are going to see a little film. Those of you who have been here before have seen it previously, but in a few easy moves, it will show you how to operate this brave new world. eVoter is your personal ballot paper which you use. Your eVoter was recorded when you arrived. You can vote only when the voting is open, and this screen will show you when. Outside of the vote, your choice will not be recorded. Wait until the vote is open. When you vote for or against, you use only the buttons immediately under the screen. If you want to vote in favor, you vote for. If you want to vote against, you vote imod. If you want to vote in a particular blank vote, you vote blank. Your eVoter sends your vote to the computer, and this screen will show what you did vote. It is important that you receive a receipt. That is your guarantee that your vote has been received. It may take up to 20 seconds before you receive your confirmation. As long as the vote is open, you can change your choice by pushing the button again. When the vote is over, the result will be shown on the screen. If you need help, please contact a representative of the company. Remain seated and raise your hand. So what did I say? It is very simple. There are only three buttons. The ones right on the display are the only ones you need to use. Forget about all the other ones, and the primary ones are for or imod, for or against. In a very short while, I will open the vote on proposal 10.a about sustainable energy investments and scale down existing investments. SF Youth proposes that you vote for, and the board proposes that you vote against. Now, I hope that your displays will be illuminated, and you can see the word for or imod or blank, for, against, or blank. If your display is not illuminated, it may have been turned off. You can turn it on by pressing a button in the bottom right corner, or you can raise your hand for help. So I hope you have all received a receipt confirmation in the display. Any problems? Anybody who dares admit that you do not understand what is going on? Otherwise, I will consider the vote as over, and in a very short while, your display will be turned off. When the signal have been sent, now on my dummy, the display went dark. We are now waiting for the result. I see it on a little screen up here, and a few seconds may feel very long. Somebody is counting out in the back room, and we now have result. I am afraid that the proposal was voted down. We move on to. We skip item 10.2 as agreed, and this leads us to item 10.3, the FTT tax. Danske Bank must support the introduction of a tax on speculation at European level, and SF Youth asks you to vote for, and the board proposes a vote against. This time we do not need the film, I think. We open the vote. You may push the button for or against or blank for Imor. Blank. Once again, any technology challenges? Otherwise, I will consider the vote as over. The display should go dark. It is now darkened on my machine, and they are counting in the back room. Think about the time we are saving. We have a result. Again, I am afraid that the result was voted down, which leads us to the last proposal. Item 10.4, SF Youth proposes that Danske Bank create an increased number of traineeships, and SF Youth proposes a vote for, the board proposes a vote against, and we open the vote. My display is now illuminated. You may press for or against or blank and make sure you get a confirmation. I have received a confirmation on my dummy. Any challenges with the vote, of course? No. The vote is closed. My display is now dark. Once again, we wait for the counting to be completed in the back room. It is very exciting how this last vote is going too. We have the result. Again, I am afraid that this proposal, too, was voted down, but we have now reached 2.43%. Well. That was item 10, and we now have item 11 on the agenda, a proposal from shareholder Ove Nørgaard, and I ask Mr. Nørgaard to present your proposal. It has been Ove Nørgaard. I am Ove Nørgaard. I am from central Denmark in Haslev. I had an account with Danske Bank ever since it was called Landmandsbanken, so you understand I have not been unhappy with the cooperation. I have proposed that when nominating candidates for election to the board or directors or top management, that the board look only at the background, education, training, and suitability of the person and not the person's gender or age. I may exaggerate a bit, but I could say that if an 88-year-old fisherwoman from Thyborøn would be the person, or eight 88-year-old fishermen from Thyborøn were the most suited, they should constitute the board. If eight 35-year-old CBS graduates were the most suited, they should be the board. The board speaks about things like competence profiles instead. They do not take into account my proposal. Anyhow, the moderator allowed me to make a couple of other remarks. Two of them positive, one negative. I am very satisfied with your telebanking service. You dial 70 11 11 77, and then dial 1, and you enter your account number and your PIN code, and you get information on your account, and then you enter 5, and you move to your next account, and so forth. I have never had it not work, and you are never told that you are number 38 in line. No, you get a response immediately. It is excellent. Another thing is that we have reintroduced the yearly statement. A shareholder asked for it, and now it has been reintroduced, which is excellent. I've also been allowed to put forward a little bit of criticism, and this is to do with the annual report, 164 pages plus the cover. Printed in A4 format, 80 grams Black C4 paper, a total weight of 169 grams. I estimate that the number of words in the text are between 36,000 and 41,000 words. Nobody can be bothered to read all that. In comparison, and this comparison is good for only one year, because this text is good only, the Danish standard version of the Ten Commandments, which are now a couple of thousand years old, 76 words. 76 words. Couldn't you perhaps express yourself a little bit briefer? I've got the impression that information is being hidden, willingly or unwillingly, but in the sheer quantity of information. Another thing which has been mentioned by many shareholders is that it is written in English. The name is Danske Bank, Danish Bank, but the statement is in English. Our great playwright, Ludvig Holberg, wrote exactly 300 years ago in Copenhagen. He just returned from Paris. He wrote his excellent comedies, one called "Jean de France." If he'd been alive today, he would have written something like "John of England," and he would have poked fun at all this silly use of English. We have graffiti English and disco American, and now we have banking English. Couldn't we please be allowed to read Danish? Anyway, thank you very much for giving the floor. Back to the chair of the board for a comment concerning the proposal, I'm sure. Over to the chair of the board. The board finds that diversity creates dynamism and contributes towards better decision-making. The nomination of candidates for the board and engagements and promotions are always based on an overall assessment, the competencies, relevant experience as the primary criteria. If we were to exclude other good criteria in advance, we would make poorer decisions. Actually, legislation and the recommendations from the Committee on Good Corporate Governance assume and presume that we do focus on gender and age when we compose the board of directors. So we cannot support your proposal, but I hope I've been somewhat accommodating in my reply. Thank you for the nice words concerning our telebanking services. You are right, we have reintroduced the annual statement following a proposal at last year's AGM. Concerning the scope of the annual report, I actually agree with you. It's quite comprehensive, but there are all these regulatory requirements that exist. We are endeavoring to see if we can reduce it a little bit. In that connection, I can tell you that when I joined the board, we measured board material in kilos. We are now using iPads. It's a little bit easier. The CEO has asked me to say that Ludvig Holberg was not Danish, he was Norwegian, according to the Norwegian CEO. I thought maybe we should have the vote now if there are no further comments. If not, we will do as we did with item 10. We will have a vote. The vote is now open. The proposal that we heard is that when you take on people and you promote and engage people for leading positions in Danske Bank, you should only look at background and suitability, regardless of gender and age. Mr. Hiorthøj is proposing that we vote for, and the board is proposing imod, which is against. Have you all voted? Voting is over. We're doing extremely well, aren't we? Says the chairman. My display is now dead, which is good because it's the last time we're going to use the technology today. Let's wait for the result. We have it. Unfortunately, you didn't win, but there were positive words from the chair of the board for you. Let us move on to item 12. That's any other business. Anybody can speak under any other business. You can be critical, you can be positive, but please say it in a nice way, whatever. We cannot vote on anything under any other business. If nobody wishes to have the floor, I will give the floor to the chair of the board to round off. I'd like to thank you for allowing me to take you through the AGM in a peaceful and quiet manner. The chairman of the board has the floor. I'd like to thank the chair of the meeting for taking us through the AGM. To you shareholders, thank you for your trust. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the interventions. I wish you all a wonderful evening. Thank you. Bye-bye.

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