Danske Bank A/S (CPH:DANSKE)

AGM 2015

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Mar 18, 2015

Summary

FY2014 profit before goodwill impairments rose 82% to DKK 12.9bn, and a DKK 5.50-per-share dividend plus DKK 5bn buyback was proposed. Directors were re-elected as management pursued ROE above 12.5% by 2018 amid low rates and customer-trust challenges.

Welcome to Danske Bank's general assembly. Welcome to the annual general meeting of Danske Bank. As in other years, Trond Westlie, our Vice Chairman, and our Chief Financial Officer, Henrik Ramlau-Hansen, are up here in the podium with me and the rest of the board. The Executive Board are sitting to my right. In the second row from left, we have on the board Lars Förberg. Jørn P. Jensen, Steen Lund Olsen, Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Carol Sergeant, and Jim Hagemann Snabe. In the front row. Clockwise, that is from the right, we have from the board Andersen, Kirsten Ebbe Brich, and Urban Bäckström. Thereafter have Following from the executive board Jim Ditmore and Tonny Thierry Andersen. Revisors de o- The auditors are present as well. They are sitting here in front of me on the front row. Once again this year, we webcast the entire AGM, which can be followed live on our home page at www.danskebank.com. I hope that you have all obtained a copy of the annual report, and you have found a copy of the agenda on your chair. You have also found a copy of our annual magazine. If you have any concrete questions about customer matters or products, you can talk to our employees at the customers stand in the lobby. According to our statutes, the board appoints the moderator for the annual general meeting. As last year, we have asked attorney Tor Claus Sugod to take on the job as moderator. I leave the floor to Mr. Sugod. Thank you very much. My role at the beginning of this meeting is formal and very boring, so I'll try to do it very quickly. My job is to conclude that the annual general meeting has been duly convened, and we have a quorum for the item on the agenda. That has all been checked beforehand, so I will reach the conclusion that the meeting has been duly convened, but I just want to mention a few of the criteria that have to be fulfilled. The most important one is what we have in Article 8 that the meeting has to be held not later than April 30th in the capital region. That is Article 9 and is also in accordance with the law. It has to be convened 3-5 weeks before the meeting, that happened on February 3rd. In a bit of that period, we convened through the IT system of the Danish Business Authority and on our homepage. Also, the necessary material must be available at 3 weeks before the meeting, and I checked that, and it is. So it is my opinion that the meeting is duly convened. But I'd just like to give a few more pieces of information concerning decisions. We have item F on the agenda. Here we need a quorum of two-thirds of the capital represented. We have that in Article 14. Everything else may be decided by a simple majority. It's also good corporate governance to tell you how many have announced that they are going to participate. 1,023 announced they are present, 777 were shareholders, 565 are actually present. Apart from the people physically present, 136 have given a proxy to the board, which represents about 3 million votes, and a much larger number have voted, as 716 have ticked the boxes in the manual proxy, which has been sent out and which is available on the internet. 84 million shares are represented that way, and 77 votes have been cast between 202 million shares. So about 800 people have used the possibility of voting beforehand, which represent about 390 million votes. All in all, 52% of the share capital is represented today. Practical information, I'd like you all to turn off your mobile phones, or at least set them in the silent mode. Also, we have reached the point where it is normally no longer permitted to take photographs in the room. Now I'd like to move on to the agenda itself. As usual, we are going to present the first three items. The one heading that is point A, the Board of Directors report, submission of the annual report, item B, and the proposal for allocation of profits, item C. Once those three items have been presented, it's possible for the participants to take the floor to make comments or put questions. I'd like you to remember to go to the table to give your name before you do so. 10 people have already announced that they wish to take the floor. What you do is you go to the table, you show your access card, and you are then put on the list of speakers. Now I'd like to give the floor to Ole Andersen, the Chairman of the Board. Please go ahead, sir. Dear shareholders. It's been one more year since the last time I reported on how things are going for Danske Bank. In fact, it's precisely one year ago because last year, incidentally, the AGM was also held on March 18. But it's not just the date that's the same. As most of you have probably noticed, the AGM is held in the same physical premises as last year. And with more or less the same refreshments and basically the same agenda. Now everything seems to be the same, right? You might assume that nothing much has happened in the year under review, but that would be a mistake because 2014 was in many ways a year with great events and solid progress for Danske Bank. In a moment, I will take you through 2014 in more detail, but let me first mention some of the major headlines for the year. First of all, we delivered financial results before goodwill impairments that were the best since 2007. In April, we repaid the government loan of DKK 24 billion that we raised in 2009 during the financial crisis. Both Standard & Poor's and Moody's upgraded our credit rating, and we passed the European stress test with a solid margin. We made good progress in winding up our Irish business in the year under review, and we can put a full stop to that chapter now. In 2014, on the base of the results for 2013, we paid out a dividend for the first time since 2007. Now, on the base of the 2014 financial results, I'll come back to that later. But again, I can indicate that we are able to propose a dividend that is in line with our target. I'll come back to that. Overall, 2014 was an eventful year and there was solid progress in a number of key areas that we've been struggling with since the financial crisis. We can see increasing confidence in the bank. The share price has certainly indicated that. In many ways, 2014 marks the end of a number of very challenging years. We focus on management and we've used a lot of the organization's strength and resources to address more sort of acute and short-term challenges. Today, Danske Bank is a solid, well-capitalized bank with more than a good grasp of the fundamentals. That is capital, solvency, liquidity, and risk management. This is a precondition for being able to operate a sound, stable, competitive business that creates long-term value for all our stakeholders. That's our customers, our shareholders, and the communities that we are a part of. We have addressed the more urgent challenges, so we are now better able to look more to the future and see what opportunities that exist sort of in the more long-term run. We still have quite a long way to go before we meet our own ambitions, but I have been looking forward to presenting the results we achieved in 2014 because, as I said last year, it's more fun to be accountable to the general meeting when you can report progress. Before I start on the actual report, I just want to say a few words about language. I think it's worth noting that the word MobilePay in 2014 was named Word of the Year by the Sproglaboratoriet. That's a radio program and the Danish Language Council. There were other words, giraffe gate and necessary lie were other candidates as the word of the year. Few companies can launch a product that becomes so popular so quickly as MobilePay. We have more than 2 million users today, and more than 1 billion DKK is transferred with MobilePay per month. There are even fewer individual products that become so integrated in the daily life of Danes that they end up becoming a household word. For a long time, we have googled instead of searching on the internet, we've made Nescafé instead of instance coffee, and now we can MobilePay using that as a verb for transferring money via your mobile phone. So this word was selected the word of the year. So it's a question of popularity, but also language development because most companies operate internationally and therefore speak English to an increasing degree. That applies to Danske Bank, too. We are a Nordic universal bank. We operate in more than 15 countries. We have at least as many different nationalities. We are subject to the supervision of authorities in several countries. We collaborate with experts from around the world, and we compete globally to attract the most talented people. That is why we, like other companies our size, to an increasing extent, communicate in English. This also applies to the board of directors and the executive board. It's the directors and the executive board that present the financial statements. That is why we have discussed very thoroughly. We did it very thoroughly last year at last year's AGM, this question about the annual report. It was decided to take advantage of the opportunity to publish that in English, the official annual report. But as we said last year, we're very much aware that Danske Bank is a Danish company. So we are holding the AGM in Danish, or at least in Scandinavian. That is why the annual report is also issued in the Danish version. From end to end. That is a direct translation of the English version. The only difference between the English and the Danish versions is that in the Danish version, we have only translated the most central parts of the very extensive and technical notes. Both versions are available in this room in print and can also be found on our website. As a new initiative, we have produced an annual magazine, a Danish one, in which those who are particularly interested can read how things are going in Danske Bank, what we think about the market, our role in society, and not least, the major changes that the financial sector is undergoing currently. If you haven't received a copy, you can get it here today. You can also get it at our branch offices, and you can read it on our website. Banks, as is well known, they largely reflect general economic developments. If you are to put Danske Bank's result for 2014 in perspective, it is worth taking a brief look at economic developments in general. The global economy did improve generally, but there were also headwinds and setbacks. For instance, the crisis in Ukraine led to considerable uncertainty, contributed to a slowdown of the recovery in the Eurozone. The U.S. economy generally fared well, but the situation for emerging markets was more mixed. Here, growth was slow but still positive because consumer spending did begin to rise. We have also seen considerable economic and financial unrest recently. The ECB, the central bank, the European Central Bank, has announced that over the next 18 months, the bank will purchase up to EUR 1,100 billion worth of government bonds in the hope of creating growth in Europe. This program that has been announced has already weakened the euro vis-a-vis some currencies, particularly vis-a-vis the Swiss franc, which rose sharply since it ended its peg to the euro. The combination of the European Purchase Bank and the new policy from the Swiss Central Bank turned the attention of the financial markets to the Danish kroner. We fully support the Danish Central Bank's defense of the peg, even if, strictly speaking, it is not easy to operate a bank when the rate of the Central Bank certificates of deposits has fallen to minus 0.75%. Now, let me take you through the main points in the financial statements. Profit before goodwill impairments, DKK 12.9 billion, an improvement of 82%, and an ROE, a return on equity of 8.5%. Well, actually, we did deliver the best result, as I said, since 2007. We are on track, well on track towards meeting our target for return on equity. These goodwill impairments that we have made in December, I will explain that a little bit later, had a positive effect on the return on equity. That is the reason why we are adjusting the target return for 2015 from 9% to 9.5%. We are also adjusting our long-term target from 12% to 12.5%. That is ambitious, but it is also a realistic goal that we must reach by 2018. Now, before I continue my review of the accounts, I just want to say a little bit more about the goodwill impairments, DKK 9.1 billion, because they can distort the picture a bit. This impairment booking took place as part of our regular review of goodwill. It was also partly due to changing macroeconomic conditions and a dialogue we had with the FSA. The impairment charges relate to operations in Finland, Northern Ireland, and Estonia, which because of these changing conditions, primarily a prolonged period of low growth and low interest rates that we expect. They have meant that we are not likely to be able to create the same value over the long term that we had thought when we acquired them. This is technical accounting. It does reduce our equity by 9.1 billion DKK, so it is now 147.4 billion DKK, but it does not really affect our business, our strategy, our regulatory capital, or our liquidity. In other words, these impairment charges in practice do not mean a lot. But they do represent acknowledgment that with the knowledge we have today, it was too dear what we bought. Our acquisitions were too expensive. Having said that, I would like to stress that we are running a good business in those countries. They contribute well to the overall result. We expect them to continue to do so. If you look at the main outlines of the financial statements, you can see that despite generally low interest rates and low economic growth, we saw a sound development of our top line. Total revenue rose by 10% to 43.9 billion DKK. Part of that was one-off income, 1 billion DKK from the sale of Nets. But also there was increased activity in all of our business units and a positive development at Danske Capital and Danica Pension. Our focus on costs and our work to make the bank simpler and more efficient resulted in a reduction of expenses by 5%. Loan impairment charges also fell from 4.1 billion DKK to 2.8 billion DKK. This is the lowest level since 2007. Our customers, generally speaking, are doing better than they have for a long time, and we have good credit quality. Last but not least, in 2014, we made substantial progress in winding up our activities in Ireland, where losses were considerably lower than in 2013. Let us take a closer look at the individual business units and how they have each contributed to the year's results. Personal Banking, which services personal customers, delivered some profit before tax and goodwill impairments. 4.6 billion DKK was the profit. A handsome increase of 60% over the year before. Net interest income declined slightly, but fee and trading income rose. All in all, the total income was largely unchanged, but expenses fell 9% and impairments 25%, and that is certainly satisfactory. At Business Banking, which services small or medium-sized enterprises, we saw very solid development in 2014, and our lending activities grew in several markets. The credit quality of our customers is good, so that impairments fell as much as 42%. Profit before tax and goodwill impairments rose 18% to 5.7 billion DKK. Total income rose 1% despite the low interest rates, and expenses were unchanged from 2013. Many of the activities in Personal Banking and Business Banking consist of lending through Realkredit Danmark, so that is mortgage credit lending. Realkredit Danmark delivered a satisfactory result, 3.1 billion DKK, an increase of 17%. We saw increased activity in the housing market, particularly because of these low interest rates on mortgage loans. That had a knock-on effect on the earnings of Realkredit Danmark. Realkredit Danmark has strengthened its market position because it has an increasing proportion of net new loans. Compared with 2013, 2014 was better for Corporates & Institutions. Corporates & Institutions, that is the section that services large companies, institutional companies. There were still challenges in the year under review. We focused on increasing customer-driven income to ensure more stable earnings, less dependent on developments in the financial markets. Customer-driven income rose by 17%. Impairment charges fell 21%. Expenses rose 1%. Overall, Corporates & Institutions delivered profit before tax of DKK 4.1 billion. That was an improvement of 23% from the year before. We are very much aware that particularly trading is challenged in terms of earnings because of higher capital requirements, among other things. Danske Capital once again delivered a good result. Profit before tax increased 24% to DKK 1.4 billion. This was mainly because of an increase in total income of 11% and an increase in assets under management of 9%. Danske Capital continued in 2014 to generate good returns for customers. 58% of the investment products outperformed their benchmarks. Over a three-year period, 73% of Danske Capital's investment products have delivered a return that is above average. Let us finish our tour of the business with Danica Pension. Earnings rose 117% to DKK 2.4 billion. An increase of 117% sounds like a fantastic result. It is part of the story, however, that Danica's earnings are very dependent on developments in the financial market, so there can be considerable fluctuations from one year to the next. In 2014, it was possible to book DKK 611 million from the special shadow account. The most important point for us is to be able to see that the underlying insurance activities and premiums are more or less at the level of the year before. Furthermore, the sale of insurance and pension products through Danske Bank rose 17% to a total of DKK 4.2 billion. We are very pleased with that development because it was actually a focus area for us in 2014. Overall, there is every reason to be pleased with the financial results and developments in the individual business units. As I mentioned briefly in my introduction, one of the major events in 2014 happened in April when we repaid the DKK 24 billion government loan that we raised from the Danish government in 2009. It was a happy day because it helped cement the end of a difficult period for Danske Bank, and also obviously because it helped reduce our funding costs significantly. The fact that we were able to repay the loan shows clearly that Danske Bank is strong, solid, a well-capitalized bank. This was confirmed in the European stress test that was conducted in October. In the test, Danske Bank, in the most extreme scenario, came out with a capital more than twice as high as the threshold value of the requirement set by the European Banking Authority. Our strong capital position is the reason why we believe it is sound and reasonable to pay out dividend to our shareholders for the second time since 2007. Last year, as you know, we paid a dividend of DKK 2 per share. That was 28% of the net profit for the year. I said at the AGM last year that we expected to be able to increase dividend this year, and our long-term goal was to pay out about 40% of the net profit. I am very pleased that we can meet both of these targets, because the board is proposing a dividend of DKK 5.50 per share, and that is 43% of the net profit for the year before goodwill impairments. Going forward, our objective is to pay out between 40% and 50% of the profit to our shareholders. As regards to the use of net profits in general, I refer you to the proposal under item C on the agenda. The strong capital position means that it was possible for us to launch a share buyback program, as announced. We expect to do that quite soon. It will run for the rest of the year, this program, or at least until we repurchase shares for a total of DKK 5 billion. The share buyback has the purpose of adjusting and optimizing our capital structure. In addition, Danske Bank shareholders have paid a high price in difficult years that we have been through. They have had to put up with share price drops and lacks of dividends and capital increases. We are pleased that we are able to return capital now to the shareholders. That we made significant progress in 2014 can also be seen by the fact that our credit ratings improved over the course of the year. In April, Standard & Poor's raised our rating from A- to A, and in November, Moody's raised our long-term rating from Baa1 to A3. This reflects a growing confidence in the bank, and not only is it significant for our funding costs and thus for our competitiveness, it is also crucial in determining which customers want to do business with us and what type of business they want to do with us. Our ambition is to improve our credit ratings further, and we may be a little bit more hopeful after Moody's announcement today that we are now on what they call positive outlook. The improved performance does not happen by itself, of course. It is a result of a clear strategy, a strong focus on implementation, and not least, the hard work every single day of our more than 18,000 talented and dedicated employees. Our focus on making the bank more customer-oriented, simple, and efficient seems to be bearing fruit. Although we are still a long way from delivering on our long-term ambitions, it is encouraging that the strategy we have laid out is actually producing results. Our vision of being recognized as the most trusted financial partner remains our guiding star, and we still measure our progress according to two parameters: our relationship with our customers and our ability to deliver return to our shareholders. Specifically, the objectives are that we want to be first or second when it comes to customers' perception of the bank, and that we want our return on equity to be in the top half of the six major Nordic banks. Those two objectives are obviously closely related. In order to be able to create value for our customers, we need to be competitive and operate a sound, solid, and stable bank focusing on developing and offering relevant products and services. This encourages customers to do more business with us, which in turn is a prerequisite for being able to create value for our shareholders. We have taken big steps in the right direction toward both of these objectives, but there is still some way to go. When it comes to our financial targets, in the past year, we were already close to achieving a return of 9.5%, which is the goal for this year. We are confident that the plan we have for reaching a return above 12.5% by 2018 is robust. This plan assumes that we operate in markets with continuing macroeconomic challenges and that we therefore should not expect much tailwind. We therefore include only very modest volume growth as the basis for our plan, but we will of course continue to work vigorously to strengthen our income by developing innovative products, by increasing our activity with personal business and institutional customers, and by continuing to work to make it attractive for customers to gather a larger portion of their business with us. Expenses are another cornerstone of this plan. In recent years, we have shown that it is possible both to invest in the development of new products and talented staff and at the same time reduce costs. We will continue to focus on this in the coming years. In addition, we expect that our funding costs will continue to decline as a result of an optimized capital structure and the support of improved ratings. We are convinced that the plan is realistic, but it is also an ambitious plan, and so we have a lot of work ahead of us. When it comes to our second objective, namely customers' perception of the bank, we must acknowledge that it is a long and hard journey. The entire organization is working hard every day to improve customer satisfaction, and we do see progress. Our Corporates & Institutions business unit was named as the best in the Nordic countries several times in 2014, and business customer satisfaction with the bank also showed a positive trend in all markets. In Sweden, we were named Business Bank of the Year in 2014. This is good news, and it shows that we are on the right track. In the personal customer market, there was good progress too, especially in Finland and Denmark. But it is no secret that this is where we have the biggest job to do. When it comes to a relationship with the customers, the results show that our strategy is working, but also that we must do even more to reach our goal. We must also recognize that our ambition to be in the top two in customer satisfaction in 2015 is not a realistic goal. But we are sticking to the target and will continue to work hard to achieve it as soon as possible. We believe that with a continuing strong focus on implementing the strategy, we can fulfill the bank's full potential for the benefit of both customers and shareholders. The strategy concerns mainly three focus areas. Competences. Danske Bank has a unique combination of experience and competencies. It has always been and will always be the backbone of our business that we have the expertise necessary to help our customers realize their ambitions, regardless of whether they are families, small and medium-sized enterprises, or some of the largest multinational companies. We must do this through a thorough knowledge and understanding of their challenges and by making our expertise available through relevant and helpful advice. In the past years, we have undertaken a number of specific initiatives to help strengthen our capabilities in this area. Digitalization and innovation. Technology is advancing at great speed these days. This makes great demands on our ability to develop products and solutions as customers' expectations and needs change. For many years, Danske Bank has been a leader when it comes to transforming technological opportunities into new products, efficient solutions, and better customer experiences. This is certainly something which we should continue to do. Technology also makes it possible for us to automate and streamline our processes, and this in turn helps to reduce our costs. Trust. In the difficult years of the crisis, customers, shareholders, and the surrounding community lost confidence in the financial sector, and not least in Danske Bank. We are now working to restore that trust, for it is the prerequisite for our continuing progress. We have come a long way in the right direction, but we will continue to focus strongly on continuing this development. This strategy is set, in other words. But the world is changing, and therefore we put our entire business under the microscope on an ongoing basis to see whether there's a need for adjustments to ensure that we use our resources and capital where we can create the most value for our customers and for our shareholders. It was this review of the business that in 2014 gave us an opportunity to reaffirm that we are and will continue to be a Nordic universal bank. We believe that we can offer something unique and thus create value in all the Nordic markets. This means that we consider Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland as our absolute core markets. In these markets, we will service personal business and institutional customers and thus take advantage of the synergies across borders. On this basis, we have launched initiatives to strengthen our market positions in Sweden and Norway. These are two distinct markets, but what they have in common is that we have solid skills, good products, and strong relationships with the customers. Especially in Business Banking, we have attracted new customers and run a sound business. That positive development we would like to follow up on in the personal customer market, partly by leveraging our strong IT platform and by strengthening our digital product offerings and advisory competencies. The conditions for Corporates & Institutions activities have changed significantly in recent years. We have, therefore, as part of our business review, changed the organization of our C&I unit in order to create a more diversified, capital-efficient, and customer-driven business model in which customer-driven income is more important than trading activities. We have done so on the basis of both regulatory and market changes. We expect in the future to see more stable and rising earnings from this area. Another area which we have been looking at pretty closely is our activities in the Baltics. Today, we service both personal and business customers in the three Baltic countries. We must recognize that in the private customer market, we do not have the necessary size in the Baltics to create a sound business. We have decided to exit this part of the business over the coming years. Instead, we will focus on the business market and strengthen our offers for business customers. We are going to invest, for instance, in a shared IT platform for the Baltic banks. We are going to launch leading solutions in areas such as cash management, among many other things. I have no doubt that these changes will help ensure that we fulfill our ambitions. As I said in my introduction, Danske Bank plays a large and important role in the Nordic region and especially in Denmark. With this role comes a large responsibility to operate a sound, stable, and competitive bank that creates value for the entire society by contributing to growth and employment. In 2014, we were one of seven Danish financial institutions, which was designated as systemically important financial institution, that is SIFI. Because of their importance for the Danish economy, these institutions are subject to especially strict capital requirements. Being the largest of the seven, we are subject to even stricter requirements. It is very natural, and we are satisfied with the fact that the capital requirement will be reviewed by 2017 to ensure that the Danish requirements are in line with the rules in other countries. We generally support the political and regulatory efforts that have been made in recent years, and which are intended to restore confidence in the financial sector and minimize the risk of new financial crises. It is important, however, that the regulations do not unnecessarily hinder the financial sector's ability to contribute to increased activity and growth. Europe, and Denmark especially, need very much to get their economies moving. Consistent competitive conditions and greater financial stability are also two reasons why we generally have a positive opinion of the banking union. The banking union is a logical development of the EU's single market for financial services. The union is mandatory for all countries in the Eurozone, while countries outside the Euro, including Denmark, may choose whether or not to join. The banking union will thus become a reality regardless of whether Denmark participates or not. In our opinion, the banking union will increase financial stability in Europe. It will also harmonize rules and create more consistent, competitive conditions across borders. Together with increased competition, this will promote growth and the competitiveness of our bank and of our customers. There are, however, elements of the banking union which are not fully settled. The ECB's quality test of the largest European banks was a step in the right direction, but there are still some issues regarding Danish mortgage bonds, Danish influence in the banking union, and the risk of double supervisory costs. If these matters are managed properly, it's our opinion that it could be beneficial for Denmark and the Danish economy for the country to take part in the banking union. We look forward to the clarification of these issues so that there will be a basis for a political decision about Denmark's participation. Financial business is closely regulated, and this also applies to the Board of Directors' duties and obligations, and reflecting this, ever-increasing demands are made on the board's performance. There was therefore also substantial meeting activity in 2014. Since the last annual general meeting, the board has held 16 meetings. In addition, the board's four committees have held 21 meetings. The board has taken on an entirely new composition since 2010. Since we believe that the board members generally possess the necessary competencies to manage the bank, all the current members are standing for re-election, and there are no new candidates for election. I'll return to this regarding item D on the agenda. The board, however, is aware of the need for a continual and gradual renewing of its composition. on April 1 of this year, Gilbert Kohnke will join the executive board as the new Chief Risk Officer, who's responsible for credit and risk management. Gilbert, who's a Canadian, has extensive experience in credit and risk management from major international financial companies. Gilbert replaces Robert Endersby, who resigned in November 2014. Last year, the Board of Directors kept the executive board's fixed salaries unchanged, but at the same time allowed for larger bonuses if the bank posted a profit that exceeded expectations. The bank has done this, and the total remuneration for 2014 reflects this. I refer you to note 33 of the annual report where the executive board remuneration is shown in detail. We have decided to adjust the structure of remuneration so that going forward, we improve the alignment between remuneration and value creation for shareholders. The board has generally sought to achieve a better balance between fixed and variable remuneration and between short-term and long-term incentives. I'd like to explain the main elements of the adjusted structure that will apply beginning this year. Since 2012, we've kept the executive board's fixed salaries unchanged. We've chosen to continue this line. We have, however, found it prudent to raise the remuneration of some key board members, while others' remuneration either remains at the current level or is even reduced slightly. The adjustments range from +5% to -5%. At the same time, we've decided to pay 10% of the fixed salary in shares. The shares are distributed on an ongoing basis along with the payment of the fixed salary. Remuneration in the form of shares has the advantage that it promotes a closer alignment of interest with shareholders. Overall, the change means that the cash portion of the fixed salary will decrease for board members. We are continuing the current short-term incentive program but are reducing its maximum value. While the executive board could reach a maximum of 40% of the fixed salary in 2014, in future, the maximum will be 30%. As before, the actual payment under the short-term incentive is measured and distributed annually on the basis of the Executive Board's fulfillment of a number of bonus criteria. For 2015, there are 6 to 10 criteria for each Executive Board member. At the same time, we are introducing something new, a long-term incentive program, in which the result depends on the trend in what we call total shareholder return over a three-year period in comparison with the corresponding trend in a group of seven other Danish and Nordic banks. Total shareholder return expresses the total value that a bank creates for shareholders. Under this program, the Executive Board may receive a payment of a maximum of 20% of the fixed salary, depending on the relative value creation in comparison with the other banks. Generally, for both programs, there is a clear and direct correlation between the size of the Executive Board's variable remuneration and the results in both the short and long term. The programs are also structured so that they do not encourage short-sighted and irresponsible risk-taking. By far, most of the Executive Board's variable compensation will be paid in shares. The short-term program pays 40% is paid out in cash, whereas 60% is awarded in shares released after 4.5 years. Variable compensation under the long-term program is paid only in shares, and 60% is deferred for 4.5 years. This ensures that the Executive Board members may, at any given time, have a significant amount tied up in Danske Bank shares so that their interest is more strongly aligned with that of the shareholders. For the sake of good order, I should state that the adjustment of the remuneration structure has taken place within the framework of the remuneration policy approved by the general meeting last year. In the coming year, we are going to continue working to implement the strategy and achieve the objectives for consumer and customer satisfaction, and return on equity. After some years of a necessarily relatively short-term focus, in 2015, we are going to lift our gaze and look further ahead, even beyond 2018. We will look at how the bank can best manage the threats and challenges, and also how it can best exploit the opportunities that present themselves. All of this will, of course, be based on the bank's strengths. As is customary, I will conclude with our outlook for the financial results for 2015. As I mentioned earlier, we do not expect much tailwind from the economy. On the contrary, we base our expectations for 2015 on a continuation of fragile growth and low interest rates. In 2014, the sale of Nets, among other things, had a positive effect on income. But even though, unfortunately, we cannot repeat that sale in 2015, we expect that income, as a result of lower funding costs and increased customer activity, will end up at about the same level as in 2014. We also expect that expenses will drop below DKK 22 billion and that impairment charges will remain low. Overall, we expect a net profit for 2015 of more than DKK 14 billion. As I said in the beginning, 2014 was an eventful year for Danske Bank. The bank delivered its best performance in 2007, and we made progress on many fronts. I would like to thank both the Executive Board and all the employees for this. The good results do not mean that we can afford to rest on our laurels, however. There is still much to do before we reach our goals. We have embarked on a long, hard journey, but I am convinced that we are on the right track. We can now therefore also begin to lift our gaze and look at how we prepare the bank for the future. Thank you for your attention. Ja, og der er nu lejlighed til at komme med- Right. So now is the opportunity for comments and queries. Please go over here to register where it says indskrivning. Claus Wiinblad from ATP will be the first speaker. After him, we will hear Mads Gensmann and then Keld Beyer. Thank you, and thank you for an excellent report from the chairman of the board and a good full annual report. As you could see from the report, 2014 showed clear progress in a great many areas, not least clear progress in terms of the return on equity. However, with the return on equity at 8.5% before goodwill impairment, there is still, however, quite a long way to go before you reach the goal of 12.5% by 2018. Prior to the accounts, the presentation of financial statements, there were great expectations. We were going to hear about the so-called bridge that will take Danske Bank to that level. The Chairman of the Board just talked about the various elements there. These elements are a bit generic, I think, not very specific about what's going to be done within the different areas to reach the 12.5%. In the present macroeconomic environment, low interest rates, more and more regulation, very big digital changes, the banking sector is still facing major changes going forward. In that environment, it is important to maintain flexible. I believe it makes sense that you have really not presented a very detailed plan. That's very sensible not to do because there are bound to be changes to any plan going forward in this world. I do expect as we go forward, there will be more details about how you will reach the goal. In the third quarter, we had the reorganization of C&I and we had the review here of the business in the Baltic States. We expect to get more details as we go forward. Continued reduction of expenses, capital allocation, and targets for Personal Banking and Business Banking. Those are some of the areas where I'd like to see more details as we go forward. As regard expenses, how are you going to carry out the reduction you have promised? We expect to see more initiatives to become more efficient and to reduce costs further. We have been promised that Danske Bank will publish a more detailed plan for the allocation of capital. Further to that, I would like to see clearer objectives for returns in Personal Banking and Business Banking and how you expect to reach these goals. One positive step in the financial statements was the decision to pay a dividend of DKK 5.5 and the DKK 5 billion share buyback program. There's about 80% actually paid out before our goodwill. We could have had a better share price reaction if we had seen all of that as dividend. I think you've done the right thing. You've combined dividend with share buyback, and that's the right thing because it gives you more possibility of flexibility. Flexibility becomes more possible in adjusting the capital structure going forward. The capital structure is important when you want to reach a return on equity of 12.5%. Of course, there's a delicate balance between maintaining a strong capital base and optimizing the return. You shouldn't have more capital than necessary, but you should pay back excess capital to shareholders. The potential for further dividend and so on, I'm certain we'll hear more about going forward. I think Danske Bank is undergoing a positive development. I expect that Board and management, as we go forward, will be able to demonstrate that the goal of a return on equity 12.5% is ambitious but also realistic and attainable even in a different macroeconomic environment for the banking sector. Thank you for your attention. Og det næste indlæg er- Next speaker, Mads Eg Gensmann from Parvus Asset Management, and after that the Chair of the Board will comment on those two first interventions, and after that, again, we will hear from Mr. Keld Beyer. Good afternoon, dear fellow owners. I am Mads Eg Gensmann, co-founder of Parvus Asset Management. Parvus Asset Management has been a shareholder in Danske Bank since the spring of 2011. We hold and represent 25.1 million shares, about 2.5% of the share capital. As a major shareholder for a number of years, I would like to thank the Board of Directors, the entire Executive Board, and not least all of the very skillful employees at Danske Bank. Good piece of work in 2014. If you look at the macroeconomy and regulations, you have not had much of a tailwind in the year under review. In the light of that, the results you have achieved are even more impressive. I sense now in the bank a lot of focus on things that you can control, such as credit quality and level of costs. There are interesting and new measures in terms of products and services with the potential to stimulate top line in the medium long term. All the key ratios, earnings, return on equity, capital base, and also customer satisfaction are moving in the right direction. Last but not least, the dividend has gone up, and the share buyback program has been announced here. Very sensible, and we appreciate that. Still, it is going to be a long haul going forward. The return on equity 8.5% in 2014. It does not qualify you for the Champions League among the best Nordic or European banks. Obviously, you should play in the Champions League given the many qualities of Danske Bank. So I have the following questions. Question one, return on equity better than 12.5% in 2018. That would assume 0% interest rate from the Central Bank. Now it is a minus 0.75. So how can you still reach this objective? Question two, given the major collective provisions that have had to be made in recent years, combined with slightly better macroeconomic situation, is not there a potential of improvement with the strong core capital with 15.1% and also not so big an increase in lending? I would expect more share buybacks and more dividend rather than M&As. Is that a reasonable expectation? Thank you. Thank you, Claus Wiinblad and Mads E. Gensmann. First to Claus from the Labor Market Supplementary Pension Fund, ATP. Thank you for your words of praise. You didn't raise many questions, but I do believe that you would like to see more details going forward. We have tried to increase the level of information. We plan to continue that. You wanted more clarity about capital allocation and objectives. We'll take a positive look at that and take that on board in our considerations. Let me say to Mads E. Gensmann, first of all, that as regards the present level of interest rates, in our assessment, the present level may well continue for quite a long time, perhaps for the rest of this year. But we do not expect Denmark to see an interest level of -0.75 from now until 2018. That simply doesn't match basics of the economy. If that were the case, there would be something fundamentally wrong with the Danish and the European economy, and there would be very different things to be considered. So we believe an interest level of around zero, perhaps a little bit higher, that's more realistic as we look at the period from now till 2018. Nevertheless, today we do have -0.75%, and we expect that to continue for a while. We've taken a number of measures to reduce the effects. We are trying to keep private customers and small, medium-sized customers out of that. But there are also a number of areas that are affected positively, trading and fee incomes. A number of private customers are converting their mortgage bonds. They are rescheduling into lower interest rate bonds. Now, to answer your question, if -0.75%, contrary to expectations if that level were to turn out to be of a permanent nature, as I said, it would probably mean that both the European and the Danish economy will be developing fundamentally different from what everybody believes. I cannot completely exclude that in that situation, we would have to reduce our expectations. But we maintain our expectations, and even if we do expect that the present level could last for a period, perhaps the rest of the year and a little bit longer, we still maintain our expectations. There was also a question as to whether it's realistic to believe that we could have a situation where we would have to, I think you were talking about actually converting impairment charges, reversing impairment charges. Let me say, we are not at a level where we can see that we can totally carry out a net reversal of impairment charges. We do the impairment charges on the financially weakest customers. Experience tells us that they are the ones that take the longest to actually see improvement when the macroeconomy improves. Then you talked also a bit about future dividends and share buyback programs. As I mentioned in my report, it is our ambition to pay out 40%-50% of the year's profit to the shareholders, always provided that we maintain our strong capital base and capital position. Since there will probably be low economic growth, there's uncertainty about macroeconomic developments and future regulation of the sector, and therefore, we see a core capital percentage of about 14 as appropriate. If you look at the effect of the dividend and the share buyback, if we were to carry out a pro forma calculation as if that were on December 31, we would have been over 14% still with our core capital ratio. We can still see a possibility for profitable growth in certain segments in Sweden and in Norway, for instance. If growth does not materialize or is lower than expected, excess capital will be paid out to the shareholders. That's as close as I can get to answering your last question. Next speaker is Mr. Keld Beyer and then Bente Anderskouv from LD. Thank you. Danske Bank has some very good auditors. Very good, no doubt about it. But they are hired only to make sure that the decisions made by the Executive Board are reflected correctly in the financial report. They do not assess the quality of those decisions from the point of view of shareholders. We need shareholders to check on that. But it's very difficult to check on things if the language is changed from Danish to English. Who is the culprit here? The Danish government is. It has let down the Danish population and Danish shareholders. Gentlemen of the press, please note that the Danish government has let down shareholders by making it impossible for us to get full accounts in Danish to understand what goes on in our company. The Danish government also allowed mortgage to be merged with banking activities. They allowed loans without payment of anything but interest, and that all contributed to the financial crisis. Then they decided to help out the Danske Bank, but requiring also that the bank pay part of the increased share value after the crisis. But the bank was wise enough to say no to that offer, and thank you very much for that. But we should make sure that the Danish government actually work for the Danish population so that we get accounts which we can check on. I do understand that the bank wants to save money by not sending out a set of Danish accounts of I don't know how many pages, but you could produce an internet-based set of accounts so that it would be possible to see the full report in Danish and in English. I asked for that in a proposal made to Danske Bank this year. By agreement, I've abstained from making that proposal, waiting to see what the bank was able to offer, because I'm thinking it would be wiser to negotiate with the bank than to make a proposal which will simply be voted down. My proposal is also that it should be possible to click your way through the bank's report so that you could choose different layers or levels, operating results or the balance, and then click on the various notes so that you could look at the notes linked to individual items. That would make it easy for shareholders to check the report and the accounts. If the whole thing were to be digital, you wouldn't need to send it out to the shareholders. It would just have to be present on the internet and be present in a correct translation. I don't think that very many of the people present in this room understand English well enough and understand British English accounting terminology well enough. I don't, at least. Danske Bank have experts in exactly that, and I don't want to hear the cost of that. What's the cost per shareholder? It's not the absolute cost. It's the price per shareholder. We invest our money in your bank, and so you have to service us properly. The only thing I think should be sent out together with the invitation to the AGM and information about the changes of the statute would be the three or four most important pages, that is of the account, that is the five-year report, the capital, the balance and what I call the explanations of what's in the purse. Simply, I don't think that people look at that closely enough, because in Danish companies, a lot of things happen in the wallet or the purse. Money are streaming out of the coffers, and I'm very worried when I hear about these share buyback programs because it takes away attention from the fact that you are actually using the shareholders' money and not the executive board or the board's money. So I'd like simply to say, keep your bonus schemes away from our cash. I don't think I have much more to say because there are so many more people on the list of speakers. So I'd just like to wish the bank good luck in the year to come. We're pleased that you're now out of the crisis, so congratulations on your work. It's excellent work seen from my point of view. Thank you very much. The next speaker. The next speaker is Bente Anderskouv from LD Pensions. While you approach, I'd like to say to Keld Beyer that the Chairman is going to speak about the language question in the context of a specific item on the agenda later on. Thank you very much. I'd like to begin by expressing our pleasure with results for 2014, which, seen from the point of view of LD, marks a turning point with a return of 36% for 2014 shares. It turned around and results are going the right way. LD would like to praise the bank's management for the excellent and very hard work done turning the bank around. Just three years ago, it seemed very uncertain whether the bank could regain its position as a leading Nordic bank. This just is shown by the fact that the bank is now buying back shares and paying out dividends. It shows that it still has a very strong foundation in its capital structure. This bodes well for the future. Thank you. That also leads us to admire the leadership of the bank for not resting on their laurel, but it expresses its expectations for 2015. It explains how to achieve a return on equity of 12.5%, which is 4% points higher than what has been achieved so far in a very difficult business environment with very low interest rates. It is going to be interesting to follow the initiatives to improve earnings in the coming year, initiatives comprising in rationalization and savings, but also belief in the ability of the bank to maintain volume and reduce losses and keep them low. However, it is remarkable that it has not been possible to find a female candidate for the board so that the goal of female members of the board of 25% could be achieved. I hope that the nomination committee is focusing on achieving this goal. I hope that next year we are going to see at least one more female candidate for the board. To end, I would like to say that LD Pensions is looking forward to traveling towards the fulfillment of goals which will ensure that the bank keeps having a good return on its investments and ensuring a good performance for the shareholders. Thank you very much. We take one more speaker before giving the floor to the Chairman. We give the floor to Nanna Bonde. Thank you. Thank you. Dear fellow shareholders, I'm here as a representative for Danske Bank's conscience. We were here last year also. It says here on my T-shirt, young people say no to tax havens. Our proposal last year that we should talk against tax havens, it was voted down. I'm not here to ask about the same thing, but because I'm very worried about the development that we see today. Since 2009, the amount channeled through tax havens has doubled. DKK 130 billion is sent via tax havens. We see a tendency in Denmark, tax havens are beginning to get on the agenda. The European Parliament has now put a ban on these anonymous credit cards, and there is a task force working against tax havens. As the biggest bank in Denmark, we should follow that trend. It would only be natural for the bank to focus on disassociating itself from tax havens. Can we, with DKK 130 billion in tax havens, look at ourselves in the mirror and say we're the biggest bank in Denmark, we have nothing to do with that? No, a responsible bank should really talk against it, work against it, make sure their shareholders or the bank customers do not use tax havens. I think an AGM is the right place for Danske Bank to speak out against tax havens. Let us assume that a customer comes into the bank and wants to talk about the possibility of sending some tax money out of the country. What's then the position that the employee is in the CSR report? I can read nothing about what the employee is supposed to do in a situation like that when there's talk about tax havens. If an employee is faced with a customer who wants to transfer money to a tax haven, what is the employee supposed to do? Thank you. Thank you for these interventions, Bente Anderskouv and Nanna Bonde. Bente Anderskouv, let me say thank you for the nice words. You said there was one question about another female candidate for the board of directors. If I may be frank, it's not that we haven't been able to find a female candidate, but we haven't tried, because we didn't really need a new candidate to nominate to the board this year. But we always have a long list of potential candidates that we can draw on as and when we need to identify new potential candidates for the board of directors to be nominated. There are a number of women on that list. So we are fully focused on that. We will certainly reach the goal that we have set for ourselves. Let me say to Nanna Bonde the same thing I said last year, Danske Bank does not pursue tax haven activities. I think what you said was political. I do not know if it really belongs here at the AGM, but I can repeat once again that we do not operate tax haven activities. We do not wish to take part in business that involves tax evasion or has had the purpose of tax evasion. The procedure for our employees is certainly not something we put on the internet and write to everybody, but I can assure you that our employees know precisely how to handle situations like that. Thank you very much. To Keld Beyer, I just repeat what I said a short while ago, that the chairman is going to get back to the language question in the context of an item on the agenda. Our next speaker is Anne Marie Skov Ringive from the Danish Association of Shareholders, and then Nicole Andersen from Best Women. Thank you very much and congratulations to the executive board, the board of directors, and all staff members for this excellent result. Thank you to the chairman for a thorough explanation of the results. Once again, I represent the Danish Association of Shareholders, and my name is Anne Marie Skov Ringive. In a letter to shareholders, it said that the bank focuses on creating value for the shareholders, and this is a positive step because it is no secret that banking success is based on the bank showing respect for customers, for its staff, and for the products offered. One of the visions of the bank, according to your report, is to expand its business in the private market in Norway and Sweden. In 2014, the market share has not been significant in those countries. So I would like to ask how you take into account the drop in oil prices in Norway, which has a strong impact on the economy of families in Norway, and the situation in Sweden, where private debt is on the rise and there may be an increased credit risk, and the fact that the Finnish economy is under a little pressure. The Danske Bank finds that the Nordic countries too have a great deal of potential. I would like you to be a bit more precise. I understood the chairman as saying that we have excellent competencies and useful product and so forth, but still, I would like you to be a little bit more specific. Danske Bank should remember the Irish adventure, which cost more than DKK 40 billion, and also the impairment cost concerning the Sampo Bank of DKK 9 billion. I understand from what the chairman said that this is just a matter of accountancy, but still, the ability to make money outside of Denmark has been very limited so far. Danish customers create the bank's earnings, and the same customers and shareholders pay the bill for any investments that go wrong. In principle, there should be a complete set of accounts in Danish, but the Shareholders Association is satisfied that the bank has invited us to a dialogue concerning the yearly reports, and we note that we are almost there concerning a Danish version, even though this number of important notes still need to be translated. Dear chairman, isn't it very un-Danish that Danske Bank sets so lower priority on Danish shareholders. We are pleased, however, that so larger part of the report is still on Danish. The return on equity of 8% is still quite low, but the goal has been adjusted upwards to 12.5% for 2018, is very ambitious. We are focusing very much on operating costs and for instance, by getting rid of wastepaper baskets near desk. I don't think that that could give any kind of savings. We have seen so many problems in companies which invented that idea. How to achieve the goal? We can see only two ways, either saving money on staff, which would have to be paid less or be sacked simply, or the customers paying higher interest or higher fee. The shareholders may be pleased with savings, but if quality drops as a consequence, then perhaps it would be better to show responsibility to the Danish society by keeping on board good Danish staff members instead of outsourcing handling of, for instance, inheritance cases to offices outside of Denmark. This has given quite a number of problems to Danish lawyers trying to figure out what was done abroad. About DKK 3 billion of Danske Bank's profits are made in Denmark, and we have seen that these fees come from especially the Danish agriculture, which is very capital heavy, and it would be difficult for the agriculture to support an increase in fees, but they are still increasing. Danske Bank is also trying to increase fees further on mortgages, but mortgage customers are still under a great deal of pressure and will be even more so, and they are now required to pay even more to make the shareholders happy. The goal is to pay out 40% to shareholders, and the DKK 10 billion is being paid, and of course, that is very positive, and it's better to pay out dividends to shareholders than to make bad investments. The low interest rate means that the margin will probably not be a way for profits. Profits will have to be found elsewhere, for instance, in the level of fees. Does the board and does the chairman find that it is really defensible to increase the level of fees in the years to come in order to ensure a return on equity of 12.5%? Now to something completely different. IT security is a great challenge for banks today. The banks are there to take care of our money and to keep us safe. Is IT security a focused area to a sufficient degree? Can we get an update on that so that we can feel really safe? The very extensive assortment of products for individual customers is quite unique. There are products for customers who want personal advice and customers who want digital solutions. Once again this year, the private bank has been given a prize by Danish magazines and institutions, but still it could be better, and the various scandals concerning the share prices have not benefited the image of Danske Bank. Police are still looking at these matters and how Danske Bank would rehabilitate the two staff members who have been under suspicion now for two years and who are paying a very high price together with their families. Last year, I referred to Thomas Borgen's words about openness and dialogue with customers, and I mentioned that you might begin by showing openness in your dialogue concerning fees for business customers. It is important not just to talk about it, but to act, and especially after a number of years when customers may have thought that Realkredit Danmark is a cash cow for Danske Bank. The whole thing seems very fragile. So it is important to have a strong and open dialogue. This is very difficult. Arrogance is still to be found in Danske Bank. Danske Bank has a duty to make do without having to be saved by the Danish government once again. So it is important to see a certain restraint in the remuneration of management and the board. We see an increase of only 3% vis-à-vis 5% last year, but still I would like to ask a question. You can see from the yearly report that the executive board's remuneration is kept at bay, and we would like to know what it looks like for 2015. The board has explained that to us now. But if we look at the ability to make money, the return on equity, it would be very fitting if the board of executive showed a certain modesty when it comes to remuneration as do people in the rest of Danish society. And with this, I would like to wish you all the best for the year to come. Thank you very much. Thank you, Anne Marie Skov Ringive, and thank you for the questions you asked. There were quite a few. Let me see if I can remember them all. First, there was a question about our growth strategy in Norway and Sweden. A bit about oil prices, how we take that into account. Let me start by informing you that we have actually succeeded in growing in Norway and Sweden in 2014 in Business Banking, that is the SMEs. We grew 19% in Norway, and 13% in Sweden, 7% in Finland. Unfortunately, just 1% in Denmark, all in local currencies. As regard the dip in the oil price in Norway, we have obviously adapted our growth estimate to the new oil prices. So we have, in our growth scenario expectations for the future, we have taken into account the fact that the oil price is where it is. We expect less activity in the oil sector in Norway, but we still expect higher growth than we do in Denmark generally. It's quite clear that our credit policy takes into account the changes in the oil price and the other changes in the economy. You also had a bit about Sweden. You talked about private debt that is growing and a bit about housing prices. It is true that house prices are increasing in Sweden. Very regionally, though, price increases vary quite a lot from one region to the next. Our credit policy is adapted to the situation, and there are also certain legislative initiatives in progress in Sweden to sort of put a damper on the increase in property prices. So we believe our credit policy, and our planning, and our growth expectations take these matters into account in a sensible way. As regards to the potential in the Nordic area, I'm not going to say a lot more than what I actually said in my report. I talked about the initiatives that we will take to be able to expand our business in Sweden and Norway. We've proven it in Business Banking. Now we'd like to transfer so that two other areas, such as Personal Banking. A little bit about the financial statements in Danish. I think we've gone very far. We really try to accommodate and service our Danish shareholders. We do not print financial statements for customers alone. As financial statements are intended mainly for shareholders, right? Those of you that are here today are owners of the bank. You are shareholders, and it's for you that the financial statements are actually made. Most of the people in the room today are probably Danish, and that is why we've taken on board the comments from last year and the year before. So we have made a complete set of financial statements in Danish, identical to the English language financial statements, except from the very complex and extensive notes. Following a dialogue with the Danish Association of Shareholders, we have included in the Danish version the most significant notes. It's not a question of costs, really. We could manage that, but it's a question, as I said in my report, of the fact that the Executive Board and Board of Directors, they work in English. So the question is, which version is going to be the official version? And the official version is the English language version. We have then produced these Danish financial statements, and we've produced the magazine that I mentioned. If that's not enough, you can also find a lot of information in Danish on our website. You had some comments also concerning our focus on the return on equity and what that takes in terms of focusing on costs. There was a question, who is going to bear the brunt of that? I don't really like that terminology because we operate a business. It's not a question of anybody, customers or employees having to bear the brunt of it. No, we operate a business and we compete against others, and we do it also to create a good return for our shareholders. If we're going to do that, we must have motivated employees and satisfied customers. We are not yet where we want to be. We know that, but we are working very hard to get there. We know that if we are to generate the right return for our shareholders, we must have motivated, committed employees, and loyal and satisfied customers. We are operating a business. We are exposed to competition. In the light of that, we have to balance different considerations when we set prices. Also, we need to make sure that at all times we are cost efficient, because if we are not, we are not competitive. You also had a question concerning the fees, the contribution fees in regard also to mortgage debt and other fees. There can be increases, there can be reductions. I can give no guarantees there. But I would like to make a comparison. We have a wonderful mortgage credit system in Denmark. If we compare the price of mortgage credit in Denmark and Sweden, we are much, much cheaper than what you see in the Swedish market. The contribution fee or contribution charge is lower in Denmark than in Sweden, even. Again, we operate a business. We have super low interest levels. I do believe that we cannot just get to 12.5% by adjusting interest rates or contribution charges of fees or what have you. We are in a competitive situation, and in the longer term, we want satisfied customers in order to get there. You also mentioned something about IT security. We focus a lot on security and cyber security. You also talked about security in regard to MobilePay. I cannot remember the specific number, but I do believe that we have less of a problem with the use of MobilePay than we have with the Dankort. We are not just talking 10, 20% lower. We are talking clearly lower problems with the use of MobilePay instead of the Dankort. We will do what we can to continue a good development there. You also had a question concerning remuneration for the executive board and board of directors. It is true that we are proposing a 3% increase of the remuneration of the board of directors. You said last year it was 5%. That is not correct. The total cost for the board of directors of Danske Bank has been unchanged. The total cost has been unchanged since 2012. There have been some adjustments, so that we have increased the remuneration for board membership and reduced it for committee membership, but the total cost has been basically unchanged since 2012. It is correct, we are proposing an increase and also a kind of redistribution so that the total cost will increase by about 3%. I am not going to say anything more about that right now because I will come back to it when I talk about this remuneration. I hope I answered all the questions. Nicole Andersen. Nicole Andersen, and then Erik J.M. Pedersen. Hello, I'm Nicole Andersen. Today, I speak on behalf of the shareholder association, Best Women. We are an organization working to get more women into the management and the boards of large Danish companies. We have board shares in large Danish companies and also in Danske Bank. I'd like to begin by thanking the Chairman for the report and congratulate the employees, the Executive Board, and the Board, congratulating them with the satisfactory result for 2014. I'm here to speak about women in management positions, and on that point, the results of Danske Bank are far from satisfactory. Today, we have only one woman on the Board and no women on the Executive Board. Still, it's been like that for many years. In Best Women, we, as shareholders, are very unhappy with the lack of progress with the proportion of women in the management and Board of Danske Bank. We find it unacceptable that there are still large Danish companies, which year after year after year can get away with not taking responsibility for increasing the number of female Board members and executives in Denmark. This in spite of the fact that over the past years, we have seen legislation in this field in Denmark as well as in Europe. It can be done better. It has to be done better. It is our clear opinion that if you are a public company in Denmark, you also have a duty to live up to a series of guidelines and CSRs and other rules and regulations. You need to take all that seriously. It's fine to express good wishes and a set of goals, but there also needs to be action and not just words. Otherwise, it's just empty talks which can mislead shareholders and interested parties, and that is not what we need today. We need trust and confidence. Let me mention an example. In the CSR report of Danske Bank, it says that the bank works in a focused manner to increase the number of female executives since the bank, in 2010, signed a charter for more women in management positions. When we ask Danske Bank how they work to achieve this, we get no concrete answer. The HR department explained the bank's policy in order to improve gender diversity in management consists in giving equal opportunities for men and women in the bank. If that's true, then how does the bank explain that among the chosen participants who participated in the bank's business leadership program in 2013, women amounted to only 20% of the total number of participants. Is that the definition of equal opportunities? No, it's not. Of course, it's not. Maybe that explains why we have only men here on the executive board of Danske Bank and why it's going to be like that for many years ahead if dramatic change is not made. I don't know why only 20% of the participants in that program were women. But I know one thing, you are not born to be an executive. You become an executive if you have the right kind of environment and the right kind of possibilities made available to you. That is why today we say to the board, give your women possibilities, create a framework which allows them to develop their leadership potential. Actually, Danske Bank could do a great deal to promote female management talents. Danske Bank could, for instance, make sure that women who come back after maternity leave have the possibility of keeping their previous area of responsibility, or they get tasks which correspond to the level they were at before going away. Danske Bank could also stimulate their male employees to take on a larger part of the family responsibility, or they could have more flexible working hours or have the goal of having important meetings between 8:00 and 5:00. They could have mentorships for young women with leadership potential. Danske Bank could also work in a focused way to reduce the pay gap between men and women in all areas. Equal pay is absolutely decisive. It's vital for equal opportunities, and it's also an expression of an appreciation of the work of women on the same footing as that of men. Speaking of more women in leadership position, the great salary gap is a barrier to women seeking top jobs. It's been proposed to have a gender-specific recruitment and evaluation of salaries. It's an excellent proposal, and we support that also. Danske Bank could make sure that more women participate in their top management executive program. There are many reasons why there are so few female top executives in Danish business. Unfortunately, the lack of action and responsible leadership is one of those reasons. As I didn't get a concrete answer from the HR department, I'd like to end by repeating this question to Mr. Ole Andersen, the Chairman of the Board. Now, according to the Danish law on more women in management and boards, companies have to work out a policy for getting more women into these positions. Does the bank have such a policy, and can the chairman of the board give us specific examples of initiatives taken by Danske Bank in order to promote the possibilities of women to become executives in Danske Bank? Thank you very much. Thank you so much for that intervention from Nicole Andersen. There is no doubt that what I will be saying now is going to sound like a very defensive speech. First, I'd like to start by thanking you for the intervention and thank you for the constructive proposals you made. I'm certain my colleagues in the room have made a note of them, and it's certainly something we will address. There is no doubt that even if we do a lot, we can certainly get better, and we do welcome input and good advice in this regard. This is an area that we've been working with for many years. There is no doubt for me and my colleagues that it does give value to have a diversified management and composition of leaders. It is a long haul, and there is no quick fix in this area. Specifically, we have worked to increase the recruitment of female managers. When we work with recruitment firms, search firms, we always insist that there must be more than one female candidate for a job opening. We have held a number of events under Personal Banking only for women. These events, not for employees, but these events have had the purpose of showing that Danske Bank is an interesting workplace for women. In Finland, at the university, we've held so-called ladies nights, the purpose of which is to recruit more female candidates from the university environment for the bank. As it was indicated, we have signed the charter about more women in management, and we have to report on an ongoing basis on our progress. I'm convinced that even if the speed does not satisfy Nicole Andersen, but I'm convinced that gradually we will see more female leaders and managers in Danske Bank. It does take an active, persistent effort and perhaps a bit of innovation, and there we can certainly use some of the proposals that you put forward. Specifically, there was a question on equal pay for equal work, for the same work. Well, we do practice that. We do that, pay the same wage or salary for the same job. There was another comment concerning the number of women on the board. We have one woman on the board out of those elected by the AGM, but we have four elected by the employees, and 2 of those are women. So we do have 3 women board members. Perhaps it does not count in your book, Nicole Andersen, but it does count when we talk about diversity and the environment, if you like, in the boardroom. As I mentioned previously, we have decided to nominate all the existing members of the board of directors for re-election. This year it has not been necessary to nominate new candidates for the board of directors. But it is quite certain that when we get into that situation, and we will, over time, obviously, because it is our ambition also to gradually renew the composition of the board of directors, women will be prioritized. But we do need to put competencies above gender, and diversity consists of many other things than the question of men or women. There was a question that you understood you had not received a reply to. Do we have a policy in this field? Yes, we do have a policy in this field, and if you have not been able to find it or get a reply, please come back to us, because obviously, we have a policy in this field. We are in compliance with all the rules that exist in this field. This is not a question of rules, really. It is a question of us taking it on board, believing in diversity, and working to ensure that we get improved diversity, which includes a better gender composition. So yes, we do take it on board, and we are certainly working to improve the situation and are working to get more women into our management. Thank you. Yeah. Let us go to Erik J.M. Pedersen. Erik J.M. Pedersen and then Mr. Holger Bigum. Thank you. I am Erik J.M. Pedersen, and I represent only myself. First of all, I would like to thank the board and the executive board for the excellent result, and also, I would like to congratulate the shareholders. Then three brief questions. The first one is about transparency. The press has talked a great deal about support for political parties and politicians, and Danske Bank has mentioned that instead of stepping forward and saying that we support these or these people, the bank supports an organization which renders the support anonymous. It is not illegal, but it is not the right way to do things. So why do we do it? The second question is about the banking union. The chairman has already talked about it, but I think it needs a few more words, because in October 2014, the organization of Danish financial institutions sent out a very fine, detailed report on the pros and cons of the banking union. In spite of all the advantages, the conclusion was to wait and see. One of the reasons was also mentioned by the chairman, the question of the Danish mortgage system. But from what I have been told and what we can read on various home pages, the EU Commission has solved that through a dedicated legislative act, so that the specific types of bonds, as for instance, Danish mortgage bonds, have been classed in the highest liquidity group, that the 70% is now permissible with a haircut of 7%. So that problem should be solved. My question about the banking union is, what are you waiting for? Why don't you say yes simply when the president of the Danish Central Bank says yes and asks you to do so as well? My third question is also about this in a way. It's about the Capital Markets Union. It may be a new thing to many of you, but quite recently, the EU Commission has put forward a new proposal for a thing called a Capital Markets Union. The reason is that they want more sources of funding than just banks, and especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, it's being said that it may be difficult for them to obtain loans from banks, so they're looking for alternative sources, pension funds or business bonds or private savings or others. It's been worked on for a couple of years, and it's now still only a proposal. My question is still, do you see this as a new opportunity, or do you see it as a threat that there'll be new competitors on the market which may take away a part of your business? Thank you. Thank you, Erik J.M. Pedersen. You had three questions. Just a second. The first question had to do with political parties. Which political parties do we support, and how much do you give? Let me try and give a very direct reply. We do not support political parties or candidates. There are some elections where we have supported the association of the financial sector. We supported that association in connection with the parliamentary elections in 2011. DKK 500,000 was our contribution. It's the association that decides who they want to support, and they are open about who has received support from that association. There will be an election quite soon here, general election coming up in Denmark quite soon. We have not decided yet what we will do in connection with that coming general election. The banking union, what are you waiting for? Well, I have very little I can add. It's not me or my colleagues who will make decisions about whether Denmark is to join the banking union. It's a political decision. Danske Bank, we are very much in line with what Erik J.M. Pedersen said, that the Danish Bankers Association says there are still things that need to be clarified. I said it also in my report. If we end up with good clarification of outstanding issues, we are certainly positive about Danish participation in the banking union. Then you talk about capital market union. Well, we welcome competition. That's all I can say. Alternative sources of capital. Let me mention as an example that we just took part in establishing a foundation that will finance SMEs. It's a foundation that has Danske Bank and two pension funds joining forces. There's DKK 1 billion in that foundation. It is going to be for entrepreneurs, companies with a turnover of minimum DKK 50 million, but companies that need capital to grow. But where the present owners will then maintain full control of the company and receive funding. Danske Capital is participating with some millions, and we participate as bankers with consulting and with resources for assessing applications to the foundation for assistance with funding. Thank you. Next speaker, Mr. Holger Bechum. After him, we will hear Anna Nielsen. Holger Bechum is my name. I also only represent myself, and I have some savings, and I want to make sure they do not decline. You have given good replies this afternoon, so I think my money will stay with you where it was. I have a couple of points. Goodwill, non-core, shadow account, and then your proposal for a new auditor. Dear chair of the board and CEO, you write in the first line of the financial statements for this general meeting, you said 2014 was a year with major progress. You can look at that in different ways. It is just a thought, like if you have a glass of water, is it half full or half empty? Working as an auditor as I do, you look at the result. You have the equity at the end of the year minus equity at the beginning of the year, plus what the owners got for owning the company. Because that is what the management has earned for us, board management, through their work for us. We would like to see equity grow, and companies that can give us the best return, we will invest in. Then you are giving your explanations. Yes, when we took over, there were assets that were valued too highly. In this case, I can only agree. There were assets you bought dearly. Very high prices. Investments in Ireland and Finland, and you cannot be blamed for those investments. That is true, but the asset, the value is gone. Had these bad investments not been made, I would have had maybe DKK 20,000 more in my savings than I have now. It is not you. But when the media are saying that Peter Straarup might get influence in the bank again, because he worked for the bank all his life and knows the bank very well, why would we have to have that cost of DKK 9 million? He could come and pay that then. You are saying impairment charges are a result of changes in the economy. That sounds nice, but it is not your money, it is ours. Now you are saying you discussed it with the FSA. Everything would have been easier if we had not had those guys. If I were you, Ole Andersen and Thomas Borgen, I respect your professional skills, and if anybody wishes to get Peter Straarup back into Danske Bank, I would find other challenges. You could easily find better challenges then. You do not have to comment on that one, obviously. Now the financial statements. I was happy what you said. You said that the cost of doing this in Danish, what does that cost? It is a heavy volume, but what extra does it cost to do it in Danish, right? There can be no doubt that if it has been decided that the English language version is the official one, then it is the one you submit to the Danish Business Authority, and that is fine. But this is for us, is it not? These financial statements are for us, and we are many Danes here in the room. I think you should have spent the money on a full translation. Non-core, I have discussed that with you before, and you said you really have worked hard on that. You still have assets, DKK 30 billion, reduced by DKK 10 billion over the year. What if you were to write off the DKK 4.5 billion, you would get better return on equity quite soon. That would be prudent accounting, the way I have learned it in my life. You have an unqualified report from your auditors. I can shrug my shoulders. It is a little bit elastic, is not it? You could get a better return on your equity. Then you have the shadow account, and you put DKK 438 million into expenses, and now you take DKK 611 million as an income. That is over DKK 1 billion. I got a good explanation from Ramlev last year. He does not have to repeat that. You are a little bit too flexible here. An asset is an asset. You can assess it like that or like that, or value it like that or like that. Thank you for good financial statements. Thank you for the nice share price increase, and thank you for a good AGM. Take one more shareholder before this Chairman speaks. Anna Nielsen. Take your time, please. Yeah. I Anna Nielsen. I come over- Thank you. My name is Anna Nielsen, and I come from about as far away as you can come from in Denmark, in Lemvig, on the west coast of Jutland. In Lemvig, people have always been a bit different. The ground is not sand, but clay, and people have been a bit particular there, and a few of us still know that 2 plus 2 is 4. It only increased to 5 when VAT was added. I worked a little bit with the AGMs in the Vestjysk Bank some years ago, and I used to own a bar in Thyborøn, and we had some savings, and we invested in a bank, and it wasn't easy. I didn't ask about the share price. I didn't ask about the dividends, but I asked about whether it was a sound business or not. And I said, "I want a share so that I can participate in the AGM." But in Lemvig, it was difficult. So Vestjysk Bank are good to keep their customers, people said to me, but still they wanted to expand. Danske Bank wanted to expand. They have a tendency to expand. If Denmark isn't big enough for them, they go abroad. Then things seem to go well, but then they found the cupboards full of skeletons. Now I seem to understand that when you deposit money in your bank, you don't get much out in interest again. Actually, you have to pay to have money in the bank. That's not the bank's fault, so to speak. You have to pay a lot if you want to loan money. And I find it difficult to understand, but it would be so good to get somebody to take care of your money so you don't have to think about all that. And I think that it's difficult with all this new technology. If the electricity breaks down all of a sudden, then what to do with your bank card? But if you have a checkbook, you can always cash the check, but it's difficult still because it's also a good thing to have account in many different banks. But it's much easier to cash a check in our local co-op or in our local bank than in Danske Bank. But now, Danske Bank, it's very nice to have a large bank, so we don't have to go abroad to participate in the AGM. Sometimes you can be a bit unfortunate. I asked about the financial statement, and they didn't quite understand what I was asking about, but we really had to wait a long time on the phone trying to get through to ask for the financial statement. And I said to myself, "Well, it's okay to reduce staff, but you can't hire people with more than two hands and one head, so people can only take so many calls." But of course, if that's subcontracted, then things will really go to hell if people can't figure out the Danish personal registration system. We talked about mortgage contribution fees. That is difficult because homes are worth nothing on the periphery of Denmark outside of Copenhagen. But if you have a villa of 3, 4, or 16 million DKK near Copenhagen, then things are easy. But if you have a house where I come from, the house is worth only 200,000 DKK, 300,000 DKK. And so what? And I think it's always a very good idea to treat your staff well. When people are lying down, it's easy to kick them. You do not even have to lift your leg. All banks say that we do not participate in illegal activities. We all say that. You must have a few farmers among your customers. It is not possible that my local bank has taken away all the farmers, and I was actually a little bit angry because a lot of pressure was put on others. The farmers have all these animals, and it is a very difficult situation. I think that it is difficult for them to get the machinery they need. They cannot cooperate, but that is not Oh, yes. Okay, I need to end. Yes. Well, I was slightly distracted because when I was on the train hostage, my knee locked, but it is good to be here, and I just decided to come here and stay away from Vestjysk Bank. Well, you were asking for my question. I just need to think. Did I say all the Oh, yes. Yes, the thing about women. Do you know what? I want to say one thing. I think that we need to change our bank before it gets really attractive for women to work here. I think that in some jobs, when you work in a slaughterhouse, for instance, you can leave your head outside when you get into work, but I do not think that is the right kind of environment for a woman to work in a bank. Over to the Chairman of the Board to comment. Lars Wismann and Peter Esbensen have also asked for the floor. If there are others who want the floor subsequently, please come up here and register. Over to the Chair of the Board who will respond. Thank you for these interventions from Holger Bechum and Anna Nielsen from the town of Lemvig. If I could start with Anna Nielsen. I would actually thank you for the intervention. I think it made it very clear, much better, this thing about language, than what I was able to say in my report on languages. Perhaps in your intervention, there were some ideas for our new app. So maybe not MobilePay, but something different. I think many of my colleagues up here did not quite understand what you said. I come from the northern part of Jutland, so I could understand some of what you said, but not all of it, because Lemvig is western Jutland, and that is an entirely different dialect. Still, anyway, thank you for your intervention. Holger Bechum, you had some questions. Firstly, about goodwill. There is not a lot to add, but I will say that the goodwill impairment of DKK 9.1 billion does not concern Ireland. It concerns Finland, Estonia, and Northern Ireland. That is the way it is as the Chairman. When you acquire a company, you pay an amount. It could be higher than the book value. The difference gets entered in the books as goodwill. No matter how well you fare, you can never appreciate the value of goodwill, but as soon as it goes a little bit the other way and you can see in the crystal ball that earnings will not quite match what you thought at the time when you acquired the company, you have an obligation to impair the value of that goodwill. Once you have purchased a company, you have paid for it. Adjustments of goodwill, impairments of goodwill, really, they do not influence your business basis or your liquidity as such. The FSA does not include goodwill amounts in our equity. It really does not matter in regard to the equity that we have and which we reported to the Danish FSA. As I mentioned before, our decision to write down goodwill, to impair, to take impairment charges there must be seen in the light of long-term macroeconomic expectations, which have changed since a year ago when we made the impairment test last time around. We still have very low interest rate levels. In the very long term, when we look, say, 10 years ahead, this will have an effect on our long-term earnings expectations. When we make these calculations, we then decided in the light of that to take an impairment charge of DKK 9.1 billion of the value of our goodwill. It is a technical exercise, it is an accounting exercise, but it really does not say anything about how we are fairing in the underlying Danish Danske Bank business. As mentioned, it does not affect our core capital percentage or our cash flow. About non-core. I have very little to add other than to say that we made quite a lot of progress in 2014, and for all intents and purposes, our non-core, our Ireland activities are a closed chapter. You had a question concerning Danica. I think Henrik Ramlau tried to explain that before. I will try once again to explain from the overall perspective what the shadow account is all about. If I do not succeed, Henrik Ramlau will be available outside this room afterwards. You can go and talk to him, and he can have another go at it. It is a complicated area. There are some technical accounting rules that actually disturb the picture of how Danica is doing and how, therefore, the Danske Bank Group is doing. Seen over the last year, the insurance result has developed positively, also because of strict cost management. The variation in the profit before tax is a result of this so-called shadow account. In periods of low return, it is not possible to take the so-called risk supplement as an income in the traditional business. The risk supplement is then transferred to the so-called shadow account. The shadow account you can then take as income in periods with good return. These are corresponding to prepayments and accruals, really. The clear increase in the profit before tax in 2014 was a result of money recognized as income. Money from the shadow account. In 2013, we had a negative impact because of the poor return on investment led to a transfer of some of the risk supplement. We had to not put that as income, but had to put it into the shadow account. In 2014, we had the opposite situation. Danica had a good return on their investment, so the accounting rules thus allowed us, permitted us, not only to take the full risk supplement as income, but also to reverse the 611 million DKK from previous years. In addition, the return on the equity was also improved from 348 million DKK to 441 million DKK in 2014. I hope that this explanation threw a little bit more light on this. It is a complicated area. Because of the accounting rules, it does lead to variations in the results that do not quite reflect how the underlying business is faring. Holger Bech also had a question about change of auditor. You didn't really mention it in your question, and since I'll be talking about it later on, I will come back to it when we come to the item on the agenda that concerns election of an auditor. Two more speakers, Lars Wismann and Peter Esbensen, and unless more people are going to put their name to the speakers list, I will close the list hereby. Thank you very much. I'd like to correct what was said by Ole Andersen earlier on. He said that we have openness and transparency about mortgage contribution fees in Denmark. I represent more than 100 business clients, and I'd be very happy if I could go out and tell my customers what's the lowest level and the highest level in a given business area. For instance, a building in the center of Copenhagen for an office building, shops or a co-op building in Østerport. But it's not like that. You can read about it in the paper I just showed you. One of our clients had his contribution fee doubled by 900,000 DKK from 0.45 to 0.9. We had a so-called negotiation meeting. We received three guests, three employees from Danske Bank, Danske Kredit. We pulled a customer who had also a loan with Realkredit Danmark, and that customer had three times the amount in debt as the one I was representing. That customer paid 0.15% in his openness and transparency. We asked Realkredit Danmark and Danske Bank, what should we do to reach that same low level? We can't talk about other customers. What's the highest level? What's the lowest level? We can't speak about that. I live in a building which has received an offer of 30,000 DKK per square meter, 10 years without down payments, a new co-op on the center of Copenhagen. I represent all the customers who experience this kind of thing with Danske Bank and Realkredit Danmark. We experience that the customers who have the money to pay are made to pay, and those who can't pay, well, they don't get to pay anything. When they pay next to nothing and you ask Realkredit Danmark, how much is the discount on our contribution fee, we who owe you 53,000 DKK per co-op square meters, and they tell us we can't talk about that. Back to openness and transparency. Can we expect Realkredit Danmark to inform us about the highest and the lowest levels and inform customers about how to get down to the lowest level? When discounts are given, then explain how and why that discount was given. Did you understand the question? Please say yes or no. The next item is to do about cost consciousness in Danske Bank. Trying to keep costs down. I had just a little bit of time before coming here, so I looked at the figures for 2009 and saw that the executive board had received a payment of DKK 29 million, and the highest remuneration was for the formerly very respected banker, Mr. Thorup, who knows much about banking, who had been given DKK 9 million for his work. Now we have a CEO, which seems to be much more expensive than the title that Mr. Thorup had, because the expenses have increased by 100%. I'd like to quote General George S. Patton, who said, "I cannot lead from behind." As you all understand English, I just repeat the same thing in Danish. I can't lead from the bank. I need to be in the front of things. If I want to show willingness to reduce costs, then I should also take the first step. The executive board has done so by doubling his fees. How can you get good people to work for us? You are all good people. You are all very capable in the executive board and the board of directors. You have worked for us all your lives. We have a brilliant CEO of the Danish Central Bank. He gets paid DKK 10,000 a day, one-fifth of what Thomas Borgen receives. I don't understand why these costs explode that way. My third question to Ole Andersen is about corporate social responsibility. In 2014, Danske Bank wrote in the CSR report that in 2007, by the latest, that's a year and a half from now, at least 25% of the AGM elected board members must be women. Now we have nine. 25%, at least three of those should be women. This year, we are told that, we propose to re-elect the existing board, and next year there'll be a new excuse. I also count the board members elected by the employees. Ole Andersen, would you please repeat that as of January 1, 2017, at least three out of nine board members elected by the AGM are women. Thank you. Tak for indlægget fra Lars Wissmann. Thank you, Lars Wismann. As regards openness and transparency, I will start by saying that what I said, ambition is to increase the level of information, was a comment to what Claus Wiinblad said about the level of information in our financial reporting. As regards prices of loans, they are fixed on the basis of a number of variables, including risk. We do not share that information with the general public, how we fix the price for the individual loan and the individual loan applicant. We want to be transparent and open does not mean to say that we want to tell everything. We are also exposed to competition. I have very little to add. This question, obviously, has been the subject of extensive exchange of communication. You sent emails to me, to our Executive Board, and to the Executive Board of Realkredit Danmark, and the board secretariat. I do believe you have received the replies, and all your views and your wishes have been taken into our considerations. I do not think I can contribute anything more to that discussion. About cost awareness, I cannot discuss here what was paid to previous CEOs of the bank. All I can say is that we have to meet obligations that were entered into previously. The goal of 25% women of the board members elected by the AGM in 2017. Well, it is a bit thought-provoking that we are being criticized here at the AGM at the beginning of 2015 because we are not in compliance with that objective. Since no one has proposed to replace any board member, I can confirm that we maintain our wish to have 25% of the AGM elected board members as women. There are eight members, not nine, so that means two women. Thank you. Next speaker is Peter Esbensen. After that, there is going to be one more speaker. Does anybody else wish to speak after that? Because I would like to come to a point where we can stop the list. Yes, I am Peter Esbensen. Thank you for the report. Financial statements, very good, DKK 3.8 billion. Last year, I thought it was even better, DKK 7.1 billion. What is the reason for this decline of about DKK 3 million? Your so-called service. Well, when you want to call your branch, you get some sort of switchboard. You should not have that. I think it is not satisfactory when you call your branch, you get some sort of switchboard somewhere. You cannot really call your branch directly. You get someone who is trying to reply to your questions. I called, and I was told there was a long wait, so I hung up. Then the other day, on Thursday, when I called, I was transferred from one person to the next, to the next. Took about half an hour. It did not give anything for me. The telephone company earned some money, but that was all that came out of that. I think the service is very poor. Why can't you call your branch directly and talk to a person there about your things? I'm not happy with that. I had an account that was simply closed, an account that I opened 50 years ago. They closed it, even if there was a bit of money in the account. They didn't tell me that they were going to close it. It happened 5 years ago. I was the treasurer of an association. There was an account we didn't use, and we got a message saying that if you don't use the account, we will close it. That's okay, but I didn't get that this time around. I thought that was very poor service. I've been a customer for 50 years. It was part of Handelsbanken 50 years ago, but that's part of Danske Bank now. The service I think is very poor. About the annual report, I think it's very strange. We only get this little one, that you can't get the big one. Ole Andersen is saying it's not a big cost. Most of it is in English, and your working language is English, but it is a Danish company, Danske Bank. I think many shareholders-- I can manage when I travel. Other than that, I don't speak English. To read a financial report, I just can't do that. I think it's very strange not to be able to get that information in Danish. You're saying it's not a big cost. About the remuneration of the board of directors, now you want extra money, 3%. It's as if everybody else in society has to be modest. Top managers, you just can't get enough, can you? It's terrible with you top people. You just can't get enough. Try and be modest and delete that proposal. Thank you. There's one more speaker. It's a speaker we've heard from before, so please be brief, Anna Nielsen. Nobody else has asked for the floor, and I don't see anybody asking for the floor at this point. We want to give Anna Nielsen the time to get up here. Then I take it that there are no further interventions in regard to the report and financial statements. I'm very sorry that I now have not- I am sorry I did not speak the Queen's Danish. I can do it, as you can hear now. I did not have a script, so I will do it as well as I can because it is embarrassing that you simply could not understand me, and I did not get any replies to my questions. So I will try again in the Queen's Danish. I was born in Dybbøl, Ramme, on the very west coast of Jutland. Out there, we have had free farmers always. Now they are not free anymore, the farmers. At least we know that there are limits to things. Danske Bank also, they thought the sky was the limit, but it is not in western Jutland and not for Danske Bank. You should have thought twice before making these dubious investments. You have not had as many farmers as customers, so you are not in as much trouble as other banks, but you invested in dubious property speculation. Now you want to cut back on your employees. That is not a good idea, but you cannot really get through on the phone. There are too few people at the switchboard servicing you. Other banks, you can actually get through. You just need a suitable number. Sometimes you will have to wait, sure. You can do it if you have a suitable number of people. It seems like you can only talk to one customer at a time. I do not know. I think it is a bit of a mess. So I think you should treat your employees properly and think very carefully about that. I will recommend you to do that because when I talk to people, I can hear it is not all that good. I was a bit distracted. I have a person standing next to me here, and some people are shouting. This thing about women, I think maybe you did not understand that. I think we have to change what happens in the bank before it becomes attractive for a bank to even join. The way I see it is like it is only the head that you use in your bank. If you want to do something properly, you must have both your head and your body, meaning your feelings into it, and you are not doing that very well. I am sort of ambushed here, so I cannot remember everything. If you could just reply to some of it, that would be useful. I can then be glad that they- Right. It may please you to hear that the moderator comes from Lykkeskov, so I understood you before, and I understood you again this time. I did not see anybody else asking for the floor. Would the Chairman care to make a concluding remark? Yes. Thank you once again to Anna Nielsen. Concerning the dubious investments, which you mentioned something about housing speculation. Well, I think that you may have been referring to our investments in Ireland, which of course, in retrospect, were a mistake. But I ask you to understand that we cannot do very much about the past. We are where we are, and we try to make the very best of the situation in which we find ourselves and of the possibilities which we see for the future. Now, concerning staff, we agree completely that of course, we must treat our staff correctly. It happens, and it has happened to a large extent after the financial crisis, that we have been forced to reduce our staff. But of course, even the people with whom we part company, we need to treat properly. We measure staff satisfaction on an ongoing basis, and we do that because it is very important for us to have a motivated and dedicated staff. As I said earlier, in order to have satisfied customers, we need to have staff which is ready to go the extra mile and help and service our customers. To Peter Esbensen, I am very sad to hear you describe our result for 2014 as worse than the 2013 result. I am sorry to have to say it, but I am not quite certain that 50 more notes in Danish would have avoided that misunderstanding. 2014 was clearly a much better result than 2013, and I think that I have explained why the figures look the way they look. I am sorry that you have experienced a poor service and that our telephone operators have let you wait. But we have a customer relations stand in the lobby, and they can help you with any specific questions you may have outstanding. I consider the debate concerning the board of directors report as closed, and I am now in a position where nobody else is asking the floor, which means that the report has been adopted. We move on to item B, the annual report. I assume there are no more comments. In principle, we can vote on item B. Would anybody care to vote about the annual report for 2014? If not, I just conclude that it is adopted per item C, proposal for the allocation of profits with the positive piece of news that the dividend will be DKK 5.5 per share. The AGM can reduce the dividend if you so like. Would anybody like to do that? No. Then without a vote, I take the liberty of considering this as adopted. This leads us to item D, election of members to the board of directors. It has been touched upon already, but according to Article 15 of this article of association, we need to elect a board of six to 10 members. Right now, we have eight members elected by the AGM, and we have members elected by the employees. That is half the number of the AGM elected, four. The board has proposed several times to reelect Ole Andersen, Urban Bäckström, Lars Förberg, Jørn P. Jensen, Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Carol Sargent, Jim Hagemann Snabe, and Trond Westlie, who are all sitting over there. I would like to give the floor to the chairman of the board explaining this proposal. As I mentioned in my report, we carried out in the period 2010-2013, a complete replacement of the board of directors. So it is still a relatively new board of directors with an average seniority of just over 2 and a half years disregarding the employee-elected board members. Today, the board is broadly composed when you look at competencies, international experience, and nationality. If we compare the board of directors with the competence profile we have established for the board as a whole, we have a very good match at the moment. The primary objective for 2015 has thus been to maintain continuity and to increase the average seniority. As I mentioned in my report, however, we are aware of the need to gradually renew the composition of the board of directors so as not to end up in a situation where we have to replace a big number of board members at the same time. We don't want that to happen. There were a number of interventions who were critical about the possibilities for women in the bank. Let me just add a bit more of a comment to the question of diversity on the board of directors. We have a specific objective to increase the number of women on the board to 25% by 2017 at the latest. We've adopted an action plan for that. We also have a list, as I mentioned, that we've prepared of Danish and foreign potential board members, and there are a number of women on that list. But we do interpret diversity broadly and gender is only one of many considerations. Our basic approach is that gender can never take priority over competencies and relevant experience. It's our ambition to recruit skillful women and to thus be in compliance with the need for competencies and the goal to increase the ratio of women on the board. Thank you. That is not going to keep others from running, but if there are no other candidates, I would like to congratulate you, the eight, who are then duly re-elected for the coming year. Yeah, all duly re-elected. Next item on the agenda is item E. That's the appointment of external auditors. Deloitte is being proposed here as the auditor of the bank, and I'll give the floor to the chair of the board so he can give us the reasons for that proposal. Yes, there was a question, actually, in one of the interventions, a question about the election of auditor. We have tested the market and we have offered to the market the assignments in Danske Bank to different auditing companies. In that connection, we have looked at the distribution of work between our internal auditors and the AGM elected or appointed auditors. The internal auditors used to carry out most of the assignments related to operational and financial audit. In the tender material that we gave to a number of audit companies, we asked them to submit a tender in two different scenarios. One, where we continued an unchanged division of the work between the internal auditors and the AGM-appointed auditors, and an alternative scenario where all of the financial audit would be carried out by the auditor appointed by the AGM following a thorough process. On the basis of an overall assessment, we have found that Deloitte's tender or bid in scenario 2 was the most attractive offer, so that they will take over all of the financial audits. In February, just after we presented our annual report, Jens Peter Thomassen, our internal Chief Auditor, retired. Dorit Holborg came to Danske Bank from Trygg-Hansa in August 2014. I would like to thank Ernst & Young and Jens Peter Thomassen for their sterling efforts over the years. Thank you. Are there any other questions or candidates? If not, I consider that to be accepted. You are not putting forward a question, or what is that? Please come up here then. Yes, you will talk about the auditor? Yes, I was not very specific when I had the floor on the question of auditor. You said to me that I was not specific when I mentioned that I had a question concerning the auditor or the change of auditors. My question was it strictly a matter of price of auditing, or was it also a matter of whether you felt that you got more service for money? Any further questions? No? That was all. I am sure the Chairman will come up here. Any other questions concerning the auditor, the election or the appointment of an auditor? Ole Andersen, would you like to respond? When we make an assessment of different offers and bids that we receive, there are a number of criteria we focus on. Price is one of these criteria, obviously, but there are also a number of other criteria. It is a question of level of competence, staffing level for the task, and here we are not just talking Denmark, there are also other countries where Danske Bank has activities. The brief reply is that it was an overall assessment of all the criteria that we focus on in the tender material. The way it gets done internally in Danske Bank is that the task, the assignment, is carried out by our financial department, cooperating closely with our audit committee. When the incoming bids, tenders, have been received, a recommendation is made, submitted to the Board of Directors, and the Board then decides to recommend, in this case, the appointment of Deloitte. Any further questions concerning the appointment of auditor? If not, we consider that as acceptance of the proposal from the Board of Directors. Good luck to Deloitte. Next item on the agenda is actually mainly technical. I think that will probably go quite quickly. Proposals from the board of directors concerning amendment of the articles F1, F2, F3. F1, that is the board of directors. They have already been given authority by the AGM to increase the share capital by 2.5 billion DKK. The bank doesn't feel that they need that much of an authority, so they are just proposing to reduce that to 2 billion DKK instead of 2.5 billion DKK. Any comments or queries? It is not the case. Duly approved. Next one is F2. We are sort of clearing out here because the hybrid core capital loan has been paid in full. This loan is mentioned in the articles, and obviously, these articles need to be deleted because they are not relevant anymore. Any questions? I hope you won't ask me to read out everything that has to be deleted. Okay, good. Duly approved. F3, a deletion of four secondary names in article 23. There are quite many secondary names. Any questions concerning this? If not, I consider that to constitute acceptance. Those were the things that require two-thirds majority. Then we are over to item G. That is also a standard item at the AGM of listed companies. Renewal of the existing authority to acquire treasury shares, own shares. Most listed companies annually ask for this authority to buy back own shares. They ask for 10% typically at the official price, the stock exchange price, plus or minus 10%, but you can never get up to more than 10% in total, and you ask for it for a period of five years. So it is already something that exists. Any questions or queries concerning that? So duly granted. Brings us to item H, which has been partially mentioned. That is the remuneration of the board of directors in 2015. As described, the proposal involves an increase of the basic fee to DKK 500,000 from the credit and risk committee and audit committee up from DKK 150,000 to DKK 180,000. Then remuneration committee, nomination committee be reduced by DKK 30,000 and the extra fee to the chairman of these committees is proposed to increase that from DKK 40,000 to DKK 50,000. Over to the Chair of the Board for supplementary comments. Thank you. Basically, the board finds that the board's fees should reflect the burden of work and the responsibility connected with leading a financial institution of the size and complexity of Danske Bank. The total remuneration has been kept at the level of DKK 9 million for the past four years. Last year, the AGM approved a slightly modified structure, but the sum remained the same. For 2015, we propose a redistribution and also an adjustment leading to an increase in the board of directors' total compensation of 3% compared to 2014. With this increase, we still will be placed in the middle of the field of the peer group of large Nordic banks. So I don't find it quite fair when somebody says that we are just trying to get as much money as we can. Thank you. I made a note of the comments made previously, so we don't need to hear them repeated, but are there any other comments? Yes, and please briefly, if possible. Jeg synes, vi skal, os her i salen- I think that we in the room should vote against this. Ole Andersen has a lot of pals who will vote for this proposal, but we in this room should vote against this, because as I just said, everybody else is being asked to hold back, and the salary is reduced, and this will be the case here. Now in case of voting, we can do it electronically, and we are going to show a short video explaining which buttons to push. But now get your e-voters. While we all get our e-voter, would anybody else care to speak? But now a short video on how to use the e-voter. An e-voter is your personal ballot that you can use during the vote. On your arrival, your e-voter was registered. You can vote only when the vote is open, and you can see on the screen when it's open. Outside of the voting time, pressing the button will not be recorded. So wait until the vote opened. When you are going to vote for or against, use only the buttons under the screen. To vote for, press the button under "for". To vote against, press the button below "imod". In order to vote blank, press the button below "blk". Your e-voter sends your vote to the receiver. Once your vote is received, you receive a receipt on the screen showing what you have voted. It's important to make sure that you have received the receipt. This is your confirmation that your vote has been received. It may take up to 20 seconds before you receive your receipt. As long as the voting is open, you can change your vote by pressing the button once again. [Foreign language] When voting is finished, the result will be presented. If you need help, please contact a representative of the company. Remain seated and raise your hand. Det er jo enkelt. Det er kun de tre- That is very simple. Just three buttons below the screen. We open the vote now. Those who support the board's proposal, which I just read, please press "for". If you do not support the board's proposal, please press the center button marked "imod". If you want to vote blank, then please press the "blk" button. Please vote now. Look at the screen to make sure that you get a receipt. If there are any problems, please raise your hand. Der er en markering hernede. Den i midten her. Hvis vi lige- Right. Somebody needs help in the center of the room. If it is unsurmountable, we will use ballot paper number 1, not the rest of us, but just in that particular case, the battery may have run out. Has the problem been solved? Yes, it is solved. Right. Has anybody not voted? No, everybody has voted. We have somebody showing a hand over here. Okay, we can practice, because I believe that we will need 5 to 6 votes later on. The first one is always the most difficult. Is anybody still having problems? All problems seem to be solved now. Right. Okay. We can end the vote. When the signals have been received in the computer, the e-voters should turn off. My one has turned off, so the VP are now counting our votes. They may have a computer to help them. In that context, of course, the results of the previous votes will also be counted. That is all the votes cast before the AGM, vote by letter or electronic vote. We have the result here. Let us see it on the screen. This looks like it has been adopted. So I move on to the next agenda item. The next item is a proposal from shareholder Leon Mathiasen, and it is very much to do with the question of the annual report in Danish or English and with an alternative proposal of the flying the Danish flag at half-mast. Is Leon Mathiasen here? He is not. Would the chairman care to make a comment? No. Then let us move to the vote. This vote is on a proposal by the board to vote against this proposal made by the shareholder. So we need to think. Those who support Mr. Leon Mathiasen's proposal, please press the "for" button. Those who support the board, please press "imod". Those who do not care can use the third button, the "blk" button. Please do it now. Og så er jeg spændt på, om der er nogen- And I am very interested in seeing whether there are any difficulties. It seems that our success rate has increased dramatically. I see no hands. Has anybody not voted so far? Anybody needs technical assistance? No, that is not the case. We will close the vote. Det er jo dejligt, det går- It is wonderful. We are moving ahead briskly. My e-voter has now turned off, so the computer has received the votes and is counting. Og vi har fået resultatet. We have now received the result. We can see it here. This proposal has been rejected. The next proposal has been put forward by shareholder Jens M. Jepsen about the annual summary sent out by Danske Bank should have the same layout and contents as it did in 2012 and earlier. As you can see from the agenda, the board does not support that proposal because it finds that the required information is available by other means. Any other comments? It is my impression that Mr. Jepsen is not here, but Mr. Beyer, please go ahead. [Foreign language] You did not ask. When you talked about the other question, you did not ask if there are others who had comments. You went straight to the vote. I was waiting for you to invite comments because I do have a comment. There is an old saying in Danish, "Don't get the fox to mind your sheep." You are not OW Bunker. That is not the case at all, that company. But you said that you had selected the notes that you thought shareholders needed in Danish. That meant that the board of directors, our executive board are saying, "Okay, we can give these notes to the Danes in Danish." They do not know which notes can suddenly become relevant. I think you should give us all the notes in Danish, at least digitally, so that you can go in and see what this and that is all about. I think when you have these share options for the executive board in particular, then shareholders, we get less service and executive board can get more bonus. I think here and in other companies, it is strange why it has to be that way. I am very much against that. I am very much against these share options, because then they try and put restrictions on what shareholders are going to get because they are going to get it themselves. That was it from me. Right. That was a comment concerning the financial statements. The Chairman has said he has nothing to add in relation to the comments that have been given before. We have noted your viewpoint. Brings me back to the item that we had reached, the proposal from Jens M. Jepsen. I do not think he is present in the room. The proposal is that the annual summary for tax purposes should be changed to the old version. Are there any other comments concerning this particular item? Yes. Please again, be brief, because there will be a vote coming up in any event. Yeah. I support the guy who wrote this. I think it's bad service last year and this year, the annual summary. The way we got it before, that was a lot better. Now you're saying you can go in there and this terrible computer dictator in our society. You can't access it and the other. It's easier for me to have a sheet of paper and to read it there rather than to have to read it on a computer. I think we should vote in favor of the proposal from that gentleman. Do you want to talk about the same point? Yes. I'm Poul Bernt Jensen. I've been a shareholder for many years. I've been involved in the public sector and in banking. I've been involved in computer work. Now, it's only now that we get this, the agenda. I'm sure I could have found it on the internet. I didn't do that. My comment is that I looked at my annual summary the other day and thought, now I want to see what it says about the assets that you manage for me. Now, and if you take a look, it's not a simple matter. It was like 17 pages. I don't have that many securities. Maybe only 8 or 10. It was like, I thought I was going to call the tax people, but then I didn't dare to try that because I wouldn't have gotten through yet. I would still have been waiting online, on the phone. No, but I think the annual summary that you send out in January, why can't you summarize what information have you submitted to the tax authorities? The 400 shares I have in Danske Bank, yes, I know that they've been reported to the tax authorities, this and that. But for me to have the broad overview, has everything been included? I support what was said. The bank should go back and use the old system. Give a couple of extra pages for each customer where you specify what information you have passed on to the tax authorities. Thank you. Keld Beyer, a last and final comment, anyone? We will have a vote in any event, so you do not necessarily have to take the floor. Just to say that I don't want digital email. I don't want digital information from the public sector. I don't want to bother with that. We spend so much time administering things, all of us, and lots of people don't feel well about it. Elderly people who don't have a computer. There's never been a vote about this, among the general public, whether it's acceptable just to deliver everything digitally. I think Danske Bank, you should give people the option. Do you want it digitally or by regular letter? I think, with the public authorities, you should go and see if you can avoid being registered for digital. I say the same to Danske Bank. I don't want to waste my life on computer systems that don't work. Over to the chairman of the board for a comment. Just want to make sure that there's no one else who wants to speak under this item. It's not the case. Over to Ole Andersen. Thank you. Peter Esbensen, Poul Jensen, and Keld Beyer. To the three of you, I'd like to say that Danske Bank, like other big banks, have chosen no longer to send out this annual summary to Danish customers. It's a big cost to Danske Bank, and in recent years it's become easier and clearer to find the information on the tax authority's website. Now, if you cannot access. I know with the tax, there was a waiting time on the phone. You can actually call them and get a printout and get them to send it to you in the mail. By regular letter. If there are a few customers, we do know whether this is a big problem for our customers, because there are very, very few who have a problem with it. If there are a few customers who, for one reason or the other, cannot find the information, cannot access the information, we will obviously help with finding the information. Again, there are staff members out here in the front lobby. If you cannot find the information, they can certainly help you. But to reintroduce the paper-based annual summaries for all customers with the cost involved, in our view, is not appropriate. Obviously, we are listening, we are hearing what you say, and perhaps we can find ways to accommodate the wishes that have been made here. But we cannot support this proposal to go back to the old paper-based annual summaries to be sent out to all customers. Thank you. Right then. Let us have the vote. There's one more person who went to the floor. I'm Irene Niebling, and I'd like to say no. It's not quite true that you can get information elsewhere. In theory, yes, but you can contact the tax authorities only after March 6. If I want to calculate my tax in January to pay whatever I have to pay before I have to pay interest, I can't get information before March. You can choose whether you want information digitally or on paper from Danske Bank. My husband gets it digitally. I get it on paper. But with the yearly statement, you have reduced the possibilities. Earlier on, you could take the yearly summary and get all the figures and see what did the tax authority take out. It's not good enough just to see the net figures. I want to see the gross figures as well. But to do that, I need to go on the internet and find the figures there in different sources. It is much easier if you can have all the figures in one piece of paper. I used to have it all in one piece of paper, get it in my binder, but now I have to go to I don't know how many sources, and the tax authorities have split the information up into I don't know how many lines because they have their way of presenting it. So you need to read half a screen to find information about one share. It is very difficult, very complicated. It used to be much easier. And because tax is included in that line, it shouldn't be that difficult. It shouldn't be that expensive. The same piece of paper, whether you take every series by itself or one piece of share by itself. You can do it easily and you can add tax information, but I understand the thing about post it. Yes. But that's the only reason. Any other comments concerning this item? No, there are no requests for the floor. The Chairman has listened but does not comment, so let's vote. So the proposal is to go back to the old form of information. The Board proposes to vote against the proposal. Those who support the proposal, I open the vote now. Those who vote in favor of the proposal, please vote for, and those who support the Board's proposal of the opposite vote imod, and if you're not interested, you can vote blk, blank. There seems to be no difficulties. Nobody needs help. Have you all pushed the buttons you want to push and received a receipt? And we are moving forward quickly, but I don't want to prevent anybody from voting. Okay. The vote is now closed. The light in the e-voter turns off when all information has been received. It seems to have been received. We're waiting for the result. It's just a matter of seconds, but it can feel like a long time when you stand here looking at the room. The counting is on, and here the results. The proposal was rejected, which leads us to item K, shareholder Wismann Property Consult, represented by Mr. Wismann, who has spoken earlier, has four proposals, and I'd like to ask Mr. Wismann to motivate his proposals. The first three proposals have been noted correctly in the agenda. The fourth one has been edited and abbreviated by Danske Bank. The first one is to do with the fact that the AGM is a context where Danske Bank can have a dialogue with the owners, and both sides can express their opinion. You do that best by using visual means. In this room, we have visual means because we live in the age of information, and so I wonder. You ought to use visual means because what you say, only half the people in the room hear what you say, and nobody remembers it, and you can't get your comment into the minutes. So I find it very, very strange that we have to stand here without the possibility of using AV means. On 26 February 2015, I participated in a CEO meeting with the PricewaterhouseCoopers and the person and the CEOs of Novo, Codapharma, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. All had something to say, and they all used visual means to show what they had to say because that works. Therefore, it's too bad that Mr. Søgaard, who is the only one to decide on these matters, has decided that only the board can use the AV system, whereas the owners cannot. He wants an A team, and they're beating them and us. I want us all to be on the same team, but to be on the same team, you need to have the same conditions. It doesn't work, it's inefficient, it prolongs the meeting that people who have proposals to make cannot use the AV system. I'd like to ask all those who agree with the board that only the board should have access to AV means, please raise your right hand. How many of you think that there should be a difference between the board and the shareholders when it comes to using the AV equipment in the room? Thank you. Nobody. I hope the board noted that. The shareholders who come here using a Wednesday afternoon to come here all feel that we all should have the possibility of expressing our opinion on the same condition that would render quicker and more efficient the AGM. It should not have been necessary to put forward proposal K1, but now it has been made. Should I go on to item 2? Right. K2. You've all read it. Of course, it's about the fact that when I find it so important that what we write in the addendum on CSR, equal access for men and women to the top jobs in Danske Bank. It's so important because in the business schools at the CBS, at universities, the girls are outnumbering the young men, and they have the best exams when they leave school, and they get the best exams at the universities and CBS. We lose out on competitiveness if we can't get access to the best competence in Denmark. Ole Andersen says, "Well, we have equal pay in Danske Bank. We've had that since 1975." I say, "Well, if that's the case, then please document it." It's simply a win-win situation. The thing is that you can document it by means of a matrix that's expressed at the end of the agenda, a salary matrix. How many staff members earn between 1 million and 1.5 million? How many are men? How many are women? What's the average pay for men? What's the average pay for women? So you can document it. I'd like to have shown you. This comes from a global company called L'Oréal. They have made such a gender-based pay matrix in France, which documents exactly what this article, which I would have liked to show you, documents, and that is that in Denmark, women working at the same level as men receive 12% less than men, of course, except in Danske Bank, says Ole Andersen, where they all get equal pay, says Ole Andersen. This last article, which I should have liked to show you, is from the Danish Association of Lawyers and Economists. I'm a member and so is Ole Andersen, I suppose. It says that the banking sector has the lowest proportion of women executives of all. And this reduces competitiveness because women have the feeling, and they know for a fact, that the top jobs are all predetermined to be covered by men. All the best-paid jobs are for men only. There are no top executives who are women. When women get a job in the bank, they get a secondary job at a tertiary pay. It is not good because if you want to borrow money in the bank, you can't just go in and say, "Hi, I'm Lars Wismann. I'd like to borrow a lot of money. I'm very credit worthy." The bank will say, "Well, please show us the figures behind your statements." I say now to Ole Andersen, it's easy to document that men and women have access to the same jobs and to the same equal pay in Danske Bank. If it's true, it's a win-win situation. We need to get ahead of our competitors. We cannot get ahead by simply staying behind Nordea. Right. That was K2. K3. I was told in February that the annual report was now available, so I looked for it on the Internet. I said, okay, it's been reduced to 84 pages, and I read and read until I arrived at the notes, and I was quite surprised that there were no notes because what I was reading was only an excerpt of 84 pages, even though it had been decided that the yearly report was to be published only in English. Then I tried to find the English version. You can't find it on the Internet on their homepage if you're a bit smart. So I asked my son to look for it, and he's smart. I found an item called staff costs. Staff costs, which amounts to about DKK 741,000 on average per staff members. We have one called administrative expenses of DKK 8.9 billion, and that's where company cars are. I've been told by the board secretary that is the case. I tried to ask, how many cars are there? What do they cost? So that's an insignificant figure. But we also have a green reporting by EU standards, and it turned out that 11 million kilometers are driven in company cars. One of my neighbors work for Danske Bank, and he has an Audi car, which is okay, but it's not okay to have a taxable staff benefit recorded as an administrative expense because it's the same thing whether you get DKK 300,000 in salary or a DKK 1 million car. It's the same thing. It's very good that the bank uses cars to attract staff, but I don't think it's okay that you hide staff benefits which are taxable as annual administrative expenses. That's not correct. So I appeal to all of you. I appeal that you vote yes to K3. K4 is about note nine in the annual report about administrative expenses. Now, here behind me, I have liked to show you what administrative expenses cover. Now I have to read it to you, which prolongs the proceedings, and nobody can remember what I read, but I have to do it nevertheless. It takes the time it will take. I warned you. You made the choice for me. Right. So it's operation of company cars, DKK 250 million. It's about a quarter of a billion. An insignificant amount, it was said. It costs rent. It guarantees consultant, IT consultant, outsourced services, contract for IT support, market data, Bloomberg, Reuters, IT mainframe software, and postage. I would have liked us to be able to see in our annual report item by item what administrative expenses cover, because this item has grown from 2013 to 2014 from DKK 2 million to DKK 8.9 million. On average, it is DKK 461,000 per employee. I said to myself, Lars Wismann, you have your own small consultancy company. What is your expense? I have expense of DKK 500,000 in expenses to run my office, my insurance, and so forth. It is strange that a company with 18,500 staff members do not have any benefits from economy of scale, but they do not. I appeal to all of you to vote yes to item K4 because we need to be able to see how DKK 8.9 billion are spent, and please, all of us, do not tell us that it is a business secret because it is not. Thank you. Thank you. We got the four proposals covered under one, and the Chairman of the Board will then be able to comment and say what the Board of Directors says. Initially, there was proposal one where I was also addressed, and I and the Board of Directors do believe that there is certainly shareholder democracy in Denmark, even if you only have one share. You can actually, if you report six weeks before, you can actually have an item on the agenda as it has been done. The way it is done here, we have not really tried to restrict people. When people came up here to talk, people have been given the opportunity to motivate their proposals. We do believe there is the matter of time also that makes this inappropriate. If in the articles or otherwise, there would be a provision saying that a large number of shareholders could insist on a specific presentation of a specific issue at the AGM. Actually, the other proposals from the Board of Directors concerning amendments to the articles have been processed in the same way. The proposal has been up on the screen behind me, and that has been all, and then we have been able to do a vote. Basically, it has been done in the same way. You can agree or disagree, but that was the reason for it, and over to the Chairman of the Board, who will then comment on the three other proposals. As you can see from the convening notice, the Board of Directors unfortunately cannot support the proposals made. K2, let me start by saying that we share the ambition. We would like to attract well-educated, strong women. We would like to see them at Danske Bank, but we do not believe there is necessarily a link between this proposal and the contents. We do not believe an extended note in the annual report will make strong women see the bank as very attractive as a workplace or from a customer perspective. An expanded note for the reasons stated in the convening notice will not give a clear picture of whether the bank pays equal pay for equal work. The board of directors wishes to promote the possibilities of women to have a career in the bank. That is point number one. That is why we have the specific objectives for the number of women in managerial positions at different levels. We think that we are showing the objectives and the progress we make. We do that on the website. There is a section on responsibility, and we have our annual CSR report which is accompanied by a fact book. We want to be the preferred bank and attractive workplace also for strong women, strong in resources. But we believe that what we can do is to have strategic initiatives, as I explained in my report. Obviously, we will take the proposal, for instance, made by Nicole Andersen today on board to see if there is something that we can do better. Unfortunately, we cannot either support K3 and K4 concerning company cars and administrative costs. The annual report has been presented in accordance with all applicable accounting rules. We have an unqualified report from the auditors. The total staff expenses can be seen in note 9 in the annual report. Remuneration for the individual members of the executive board are specified in note 33. Generally speaking, we do believe that the level of information provided is suitable. The annual report is already 185 pages. Further detailing, depending on what individual shareholders have an interest in, the board does not believe that that gives a broader overview, and it does not improve the general information value. Obviously, we will have the vote on the four items individually. Before we do, are there any supplementary comments? Mr. Wismann has asked for the floor again. Jeg har den supplerende kommentar. With a supplementary comment, if you want to make things visible, then make it visible by means of figures which can be documented. It's no use adding a lot of nice words to our yearly report and a lot of nice words about how much we really want women to work for Danske Bank. I'm looking for figures because after one, two, three, four years, it should be possible to see to what extent Danske Bank is moving towards the CSR, which we say we want. That is that we want more women at the top levels and that women get more equal pay. I think that when Danske Bank and Ole Andersen is unwilling to present these figures, it's because the actual conditions are so embarrassing that it's almost unbearable. I believe that even though we have 10,400 women, 54% of the employees, they get less than 25% of the salary paid out in the bank. That is not good enough for the women. Women like my daughter, they say, "Danske Bank, a man's world where I'll get a certain, but no, I want to get to the front." My last comment about note 9, administrative expenses, DKK 8.9 billion as one single figure. That's so embarrassing. It cries to the heavens. I can't understand that nobody else has noted it. There's no doubt in my mind that all my proposals will be voted down, but we may have sown a seed, a small seed that will grow so that five, 10 years from now, Danske Bank will follow the example of L'Oréal and present a gender-specific salary statistic because shareholders are interested in what employees get paid. Right. Does anybody else want to take the floor concerning K 1, 2, 3, and 4? No. Any supplementary comments from the board? Yes. [Foreign language] In general, we want to have an open dialogue with all shareholders. We listen to all shareholders, no matter whether they have one share or 10% of our shares. In the context of this AGM, we have received more than 40 communications from Lars Wismann. During this correspondence, we have been accused of inefficiency, arrogance, and manipulation. The staff members have heard themselves described as pathetic, pompous, and pitiable, and one has even been accused of fraud. In spite of all this, we have tried to give polite and serious answers to Mr. Wismann. I'd like to give an example, and then as an addendum to the answers given, I'd like to say that the expenses for operations and lease of company cars amounted to DKK 63 million, corresponding to less than 0.5% of our staff expenses, or one quarter of the figure calculated by Lars Wismann. Based on our history so far before the AGM, it's the board's opinion that we shall probably not be able to satisfy Mr. Wismann. So I ask the AGM to understand why I end my conversation with Mr. Wismann here. Right, and I'd like to go to the vote entered Lars Wismann, but very briefly, please, and we are going to vote in any case. It's the world's oldest and the world's lowest trick to try to commit character assassination if you can't answer properly. If you'd written to me, "Dear Mr. Wismann, we have 100 cars. They cost DKK 300 million or DKK 200 million a year," whatever, then I'd been fooled. But now I am being subjected to character assassination. That is not all right. A lot of letters have been exchanged, but very few answers have been received. Thank you. Right. Now you can all express your opinion on the four proposals. K1 first. The proposal concerning the formal matters, the presentation, AV equipment. The vote is open. Those who support Mr. Wismann's proposal vote for. Those who support the board vote imod. Again, you can also choose not to care by voting blk. Any problems? We learned quickly after the first time. No problem since then. Has anybody not received a receipt yet? Yes, we have a hand here. I thought we were doing so well. Is it okay now? Right. Okay. So you have all received your receipts. The vote is closed. The light is off, and the votes are being counted, and I cannot resume the vote. That's why I'm looking around to make sure that everybody has voted. We are waiting for the result concerning K1. F1 to F4 are types of loans, and K1 to K4 are types of reports on the conditions of Billings. Now, we have a vote for K1, and we move on to K2, is the gender-specific statistics on salaries. We open the vote again. I have a blue light, so I know we can vote. Those who support Mr. Wismann proposal, please vote for. Those who agree with Ole Andersen, please vote imod. Those who don't want one thing or the other, vote blk. You can change your mind if you press the button again. The last vote counts. Any problems? Any problems with the voting, of course? No. Anybody who hasn't received a receipt yet? No. We'll close the vote now. We're waiting for result, it says on my screen. It has come. Let us put it up. The proposal has fallen. We go on. Right. The proposal was rejected. We move on to K3, the question about taxable staff benefits, including around 1,000 company cars, as explained by Mr. Wismann, and the vote is open. Those who support Mr. Wismann's proposal, please vote for. The vote is open, so those who support Mr. Wismann's proposal, please vote for, and those who support the board, please vote imod. Once again, you can choose not to care by voting blk. Any problems? Has anybody not received a receipt? No, that's not the case. No problems. The vote is closed. We're moving ahead. The e-voter has now turned off. I'm waiting for the result. In a short while, when we've received it, we'll move on to K4, the one about note 9 to the annual report concerning administrative expenses, the DKK 8.9 billion mentioned by Mr. Wismann. Let's get the result for K3 first. Here it is. The proposal was rejected, and we move on to K4, the one I just mentioned. We begin the vote now. Those who support Mr. Wismann's proposal, K4, please press for. Those who agree with Ole Andersen, please press imod. There's no need perhaps to say that those who don't care should press blk. You know already. Any problems? No. Anybody who hasn't received? No. Right, we're moving it quickly. We've closed the vote. We are waiting for the last result. I can tell you that the only thing left on the agenda is point L, any other business. What characterizes that item is that you can say almost whatever you like, but no decisions can be made. Mr. Wismann will be allowed to comment on the result. Here's the last one. The proposal was rejected. Please go ahead, Mr. Wismann. It has been a great pleasure to be here again this year, see all the happy people, and hear the discussion. I think we have heard many good interventions. I would like to say to the board of directors, particularly to Ole Andersen, that we can all save time if people give straight responses. I quoted here Ms. Maeggo Andersen from Maersk. My question concerning contribution fees, you could have just told me, "Dear shareholder in Danske Bank, we do not state what is the highest and lowest contribution charge for mortgage loans. We do not tell people how you can get to the highest and lowest level. If you cannot live with that, you can just leave." The next thing I wanted to say was company cars. They run 15 million kilometers a year. Sounds not like a lot. They only cost DKK 63 million. It would have spared me 38 letters to Danske Bank and all the people that have sent me replies with no content if you had just asked your employees to tell me we have so and so many company cars. They run so and so many kilometers. They cost so and so much per year. Everybody would have saved time. Again, this was a quote from Nils Smedegaard Andersen from Maersk. Last thing I would like to say, what is it? I have it right here. It is really rotten of you to say that I have talked badly about employees of Danske Bank, but Lars Sandvik says he was educated at Copenhagen University. Thor Möger Pedersen, also the former Minister of the Treasury, but Lars Sandvik, and I asked him, "Cannot you tell me what is that program you attended at Copenhagen University, and when was that?" Ole Andersen is a [Foreign language]. He is a state-authorized public accountant. That is very respectable. I do not think it is too bad to ask people, "What program did you attend at Copenhagen University?" He said to me, "I do not see any need to tell you about that." I thought that was arrogant. He talked down to me. It is the same person who gives the board information. I sent my book to 13 board members last year, and then one month later, I asked the secretariat of the board, did they like my book? No. They said, "You can come and pick them all up." This afternoon, I have just found that the board directors never received my book. So the board secretariat just pretended that they received it and could not bother to read it. That is dangerous if a secretariat with some people who said that they took an exam at university but did not, if they stored information to be sent to the board. That is dangerous because the board of directors should have contact with the customers, with the shareholders. Any other interventions? Any other business? You have to be very brief, please. Thank you for a good general meeting. Ole Andersen, I think it is a shame that you cannot give a reply to the questions that I asked. I do not know why you will not do that. You just replied to a few of the points. Why won't you give me replies to all the points I asked about? Now we've had the different votes. I knew that they were not going to succeed. So it seems it's like a majority dictatorship. You could listen anyway to the things about the annual report and those transcripts, the annual summaries, because there are other people in the room. We are a minority. I understand that. The big institutions have most of the shares. They don't care, so they can vote it down. But you could listen to minority shareholders who would like something like that, whether it's one or two sheets more in an envelope, it really doesn't make all that much difference to your budget. So I think you should consider, think again. There are people who'd like to see that. We don't have enough votes to get it through here, to get it adopted here at the AGM. I thought it was a strange thing that the chair of the meeting is standing so close to me, and he told me to hurry up. Others were not told that, so I think that's a shame. I see that as the last intervention, but of course, I'll give the floor to the chairman of the board to finalize the AGM formally. First of all, I'd like to thank the chair of the meeting for taking us expertly through the AGM. I'd like to the shareholders, thank you for coming. Thank you for the many interventions and proposals. I can guarantee you that we do take them with us. We will consider all the things that have been said here. To Peter Esbensen, the last speaker, I will say that I made an effort to reply to all of your questions. Perhaps there was one or two I missed. I'm sorry about that. I'll try and get back to you when my colleagues hopefully can tell me what it was that I didn't reply to. I wish you all a great evening. Thank you for coming.

Data Source: Quartr Last updated: Mar 18, 2015

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