Good morning, everybody, and welcome to GN Store Nord's Annual General Meeting 2025. My name is Jukka Pertola, and I'm the chair for GN's board. Welcome to all shareholders and here to our head office, and also welcome to everybody who are following the meeting online. Welcome also to the Board of Directors, my colleagues, and to GN's executive board, Executive Management and leadership, and welcome to our auditors from PwC, Mads Melgaard, Søren Jensen, and Philip Kjær. A few practicalities: I will speak English, as you noticed, and so will our CEO, Peter Karlströmer. Our chair of the meeting, Klaus Søgaard, will speak Danish, and the slides behind me will be also in Danish. If shareholders have questions or comments, it's perfectly fine to speak Danish. If you need translation to either Danish or English, you can borrow a headset where you can hear instant translation.
The headsets are there. The meeting will be streamed online in English and Danish, and as stipulated in our Articles of Association, the board appoints a chair to conduct the meeting, and we have asked partner with Gorrissen Federspiel, Klaus Søgaard, to preside over the meeting. With this, I would like to give the floor to Klaus Søgaard, who will guide us through the meeting. The floor is yours, Klaus.
[Foreign language]
Thank you. I intend to continue in Danish, and I will repeat that if you need translation, there are headsets available in the room. My first job is to make sure that the meeting has been duly and lawfully convened and is quorate, and I checked this in advance, so I reached that conclusion a while ago. First, I need to say that there are certain requirements that have to be complied with in Danish legislation and the articles according to Article 11 and Danish legislation. You have to convene the meeting at a notice of three weeks. It was done on the 17th of February. This is done by email, but there's a special provision concerning the issuance of written convening notices, and all has been complied with. The meeting must be held before early April, and that has been complied with in the Capital Region of Denmark.
That name will be changed in a couple of years from now. It will be the Region Eastern Denmark, but we will change the articles of association when we come to that point. 94 access cards have been handed out. Five minutes before we began, about half had turned up of those who had announced their participation. 592 have given power of attorney. 15 have sent postal votes. The far majority of shareholders that have ticked boxes yes and no in relation to the items on the agenda. 57 voted in advance, and that is 57% voted in advance, and that's a fine percentage. We need a simple majority for all votes. There is a special rule in Danish legislation that enables us to do it this way.
So many have voted in advance that I can tell you in advance that all proposals will be passed with a very large majority. So it doesn't really make sense to have actual ballots unless a shareholder requires this to be done. And you will get the protocol from the meeting not later than two weeks after the meeting when all the main data will appear. We usually take the first items in one go, and we will now hear the Chairman of the Board, followed by the CEO, and then I will come back and deal with the debate. You have the floor, sir.
Thank you. 2024 was a year when GN came a long way in creating a strong foundation for driving profitable growth in years ahead based on customer-centric innovation. I will take you through the highlights of the year, and our CEO, Peter Karlströmer, will give you more insight into the business operations and how we view our opportunities going forward. But let us first take a look at the financial results. We feel good about the progress GN has made in 2024, and financially the company has delivered on its commitments. Unfortunately, our share price does not reflect the positive development, and that's a frustration we share with our shareholders. Our three divisions performed well in somewhat different market conditions. Hearing continued to gain market share in a market that performed in line with historical low single-digit growth rates, resulting in 10% organic growth in the Hearing division.
In enterprise, we maintained our market-leading position. However, in 2024, we saw a negative 3% growth, but we remain optimistic about the further improvements in the market following the post-COVID adjustment. In gaming, we continued to gain market share in a slightly growing market thanks to gamers' strong appreciation of our hardware and software offerings. This resulted in 7% organic growth in the gaming division. And lastly, we saw a negative 31% organic growth from the two consumer-oriented product lines that we have now closed down. In summary, GN delivered 1% organic growth, and if we exclude the wind-down effect of the consumer-oriented business, the group organic revenue growth was 4%. We saw a 79% increase in reported EBITDA, which translates into an EBITDA margin of 12%, which was 5.4 percentage points higher than last year.
This increased profitability influenced Free Cash Flow positively, and we ended the year with DKK 1.1 billion in Free Cash Flow, excluding M&A. As noted, our three divisions generated 4% Organic Revenue Growth, excluding the wind-down of the consumer-related business. Despite the mixed development on top line across our divisions, the gross margin increased to 53.2% compared to 49.4% in 2023. This was due to a strong pricing discipline, realization of synergies from our One Company transformation, and a positive business mix. As for the transformation initiatives, GN realized total synergies of around DKK 430 million, which was slightly ahead of the plan for the year. Reported EBITDA grew by 79%, equal to an EBITDA margin of 12% compared to 6.6% in 2023. The strong improvement in profitability reflects the gross margin improvement across our divisions, but also company-wide OpEx benefits from the One Company transformation and less extraordinary costs.
The solid earnings led to a positive cash flow of DKK 1.1 billion. With a solid cash flow, we have been able to reduce our net interest-bearing debt. Our adjusted leverage ended at 3.5x to EBITDA compared to 4.5x the year before, another important step in our deleveraging program. It has been a key focus in 2024 to increase earnings margins, generate healthy cash flows, focus on cost, and realize synergies such that we could noticeably reduce the interest-bearing debt. Overall, the board is pleased with the company's execution and progress during the year, where GN can now operate and compete from a much stronger platform and is well prepared for capturing future growth opportunities. So these were the financial key points in 2024, and Peter Karlströmer will come back later with some more flavor of the development of the business.
But now let me turn to our performance in some of the non-financial areas: environmental, social, and governance topics. Like many other European companies, we have been obliged to report on our status and progress on environmental, social, and governance topics in accordance with the European Union's new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, CSRD. This has been a significant undertaking. The board and management are fully committed to work with sustainability as a strategic lever to maximize the positive impact of our products and minimize any negative impact on the environment or human rights across our value chain, and to report transparently on our progress. We have reported on this as lean and as clear as possible.
That said, we find that the rather bureaucratic and comprehensive CSRD reporting could be modified in a way that could be less burdensome and allow us to report in a simpler and more effective way to our stakeholders. We are happy to see that the European Union seems to be moving in that direction now. So I will not attempt to summarize the more than 60 pages that this CSRD sustainability statement takes up in our annual report, but focus on a few material key points. We have reduced carbon emissions in scopes one and two by 58% compared to 2021, which is the baseline year for our climate targets. Scopes one and two encompass the part of our supply chain that is fully in our own control, and we are on track to reach our 2030 targets.
For Scope three, which is partner emissions that we only indirectly control, we have already reached our 2030 targets. As I mentioned, we see sustainability as a strategic lever to maximize the positive impact of our products. One key target has been by 2025 to help minimum 10 million people with hearing loss leading to better lives. It's great to see that more than 11.2 million people now benefit directly from our hearing solutions, and let me finally call our gender diversity in leadership, which is also a key area for us to improve. The number of women in senior leadership positions has increased from 17%-26%, and we have now set a new goal to reach 33% by mid-2026, and I can add that at the board level, the general meeting has elected four men and two women for the current board, constituting 33% for the underrepresented gender.
We have a target of 40%, which we can surpass later today when electing the board for the next year. For completeness, let me also mention that GN's employees have elected three members to the board, of which two are men and one is a woman. As mentioned earlier, GN's performance in 2024 has taken us a long way in reducing debt. However, we still have more debt than we would like to, and we will prioritize to reduce the leverage until it's closer to our long-term target of 2x to EBITDA. In accordance with our dividend and share buyback policy, we will therefore not pay out dividend in respect of the financial year 2024, and share buyback programs have been paused for the time being.
The various components of remuneration offered at GN are set to balance the sustainable management of GN strategy and long-term ambitions with the achievement of short-term results. The remuneration structure ensures that the company's executive management is rewarded according to market practice and with a clear link between performance, the value generated for shareholders, and pay. GN's remuneration policy is governed by the board's remuneration committee and approved by the board and at the annual general meeting. In line with the principles in the remuneration policy and based on the company's performance, executive management received the remuneration what you can see on the slide. For a full and detailed account, I will refer to our remuneration report, which is available at the company's website. Board remuneration in 2024 totaled DKK 9.5 million.
Based on the principles in the remuneration policy and fee amounts approved by the annual general meeting, which are shown on the slide and also detailed in the remuneration report. This fee structure was updated and approved by last year's annual general meeting as a consequence of the simplified One Company setup. This meant that board members elected by general meeting only serve as board members of GN Store Nord and not as previously also of two operating subsidiaries, which have now, in the meantime, been merged into one. I should add that the board has identified another opportunity to further improve the governance structure by combining the functions of the Remuneration committee and the Nomination Committee. This will strengthen our work with talent and succession planning and how remuneration is utilized to support that.
The board intends to formally establish the combined Remuneration and Nomination Committee immediately after the annual general meeting. The base fee for serving the combined committee will be DKK 185,000. And so, as an additional benefit, this combination of the two committees will result in a reduction of committee base fee compared to 2x DKK 137,500 for the currently separate Remuneration and Nomination Committees. For all other components, the board proposes that the remuneration for the financial year 2025 is maintained at the same level than in the financial year 2024. The board yearly conducts an evaluation of its work to track performance, strengths, and development areas. In 2024, the board performed this evaluation with the assistance of an external advisor. All board members and five executives provided feedback on the range of key topics in accordance with the recommendation on corporate governance.
The general conclusions were that the board has a good working relationship and a constructive dialogue with the CEO and the management. The board members feel empowered to express their thoughts and opinions, and meetings are conducted in a manner that ensures open and relevant discussions and meaningful participation, and with enough time to discuss the issues. The board members get the support they need and are well prepared ahead of meetings. The evaluation also showed that the board would benefit from additional competencies with expert knowledge within the markets relevant to enterprise and gaming business, but that it otherwise has the right composition in terms of diversity and backgrounds. We will come back to this in a moment when presenting the board's proposal for new members. More details on the process and conclusions of the board evaluation can be found on the company's website.
Our current board consists of six members elected by the annual general meeting and three members elected by the employees in accordance with the Danish Companies Act. According to the company's articles of association, GN is managed by a Board of Directors of five to nine board members elected by general meeting. The board proposes that seven members of the Board of Directors are elected by this annual general meeting with an aim to further strengthen the board in some of the areas that the board evaluation report uncovered and could be beneficial, and also to substitute Anette Weber, who has decided not to stand for the re-election. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Anette for her services for GN in the past five years. Anette, could I ask you to stand up so that shareholders can see you?
You have been a valued member of the board and contributed with much insight and engagement, also as chair of the Audit Committee and member of the N omination and Remuneration Committees. The importance of the Audit Committee and its chair has increased during the years. The requirements for reporting, compliance, regulation, corporate governance, cybersecurity, and ESG have grown quite remarkably, and besides that, GN had some stormy weathers to navigate: pandemic, nasty geopolitical surprises, rising inflation and interest rates, supply chain challenges, to mention some. With your steady hand, we managed to get through, and you can look back and be satisfied with the results you have achieved. On behalf of the company, I thank you for your valuable contribution. The board proposes re-election of Klaus Holse, Hélène Barnekow, Kim Vejlby Hansen, Jørn Kildegaard Hansen, and myself for a term until the company's next annual general meeting.
As two new members, the board proposes the election of Charlotte Johs and Lise Skaarup Mortensen. We have, with external assistance, searched for candidates globally with experience in the areas that were deemed relevant based on the board evaluation that I mentioned before. We believe that we have found two very strong candidates who will add important competencies and significant experience to the board. Both candidates have long international executive tenure and today operate as professional board members, so they are able to dedicate the required time and engagement to GN. Charlotte Johs, could I ask you to stand up? Thank you. Charlotte brings extensive senior executive experience from large global companies in the consumer goods and electronics industries, such as Logitech, Cadbury, Danone, Chevrolet, and L'Oréal.
Charlotte has over a decade of experience on the executive team at Logitech, which, as you may know, operates in some of the same areas as GN does. Charlotte will add to the board expertise within general management, consumer-centric innovation, and brand and marketing strategies, and especially the expert knowledge we were looking to add within markets relevant to our enterprise and gaming businesses. Thank you, Charlotte. Now, Lise Mortensen, could you also stand up? Lise Mortensen is the former CFO of Chr. Hansen Holding and has brought international leadership experience with finance, strategy, M&A, ESG, and IT and digital governance and cybersecurity. Lise brings experience from executive and non-executive board positions in public, private, private equity, and venture capital-owned companies, and today is a member of the boards of directors, among other, Tivoli, Wrist Group, and Royal Unibrew. Thank you, Lise.
With this, I conclude my report, and I would ask our CEO, Peter Karlströmer, to provide the shareholders with some more insight into our business. So the floor is yours, Peter.
Thank you, Jukka, and a warm welcome from myself also to all our shareholders, everyone in the room, and also those of you that are connecting with us remotely. I will share a little bit more about our business performance. I will cover our purpose, our 2028 targets, and also talk about the progress we make into our sales targets and generally the initiatives we are taking to make GN a stronger company for the benefits of all our shareholders and a broader set of stakeholders. Let me first cover our purpose. Our purpose at GN is to bring people closer.
We do this with meaningful innovation that helps people engage with their loved ones or help people at work to collaborate more efficiently or gamers around the world to interact and socialize on gaming platforms. We combine innovative software and hardware solutions to help people seamlessly interact and experience the world around them, enhancing hearing, speech, and sight. This purpose is what drives and motivates our organization and employees around the world, and also what we believe creates value for our customers as well as our investors. Let me now move over to talk a bit more about our financials. At the capital markets day, which we had in May 2024, we presented our financial target for 2028, which you can see here on the screen. We committed to organically grow our business 5%-8% per year over the coming years.
We committed to improve our margins to reach 16-70% by 2028. As for debt, we committed to get a leverage ratio of debt over EBITDA reaching 2x, no later than 2028. In 2024, we actually took a significant step forward to reach these targets. Jukka went through this in quite some detail. I guess more broadly would like to make the comment that we actually grew quite well in the year if we've taken an adjustment for the businesses we closed down. We also significantly improved our margins during 2024, and we delivered a cash flow exceeding DKK 1.1 billion. This actually puts us very much in line the first year in terms of the steps we need to take to reach the targets we set out for 2028.
We'd just like to all you shareholders to reassure you we're on track to reach the 2028 targets. And if I share a little bit more highlights on 2024, I can say that our hearing business continued to do very well. It grew with around 10% in the year. And that's very much thanks to the appreciated hearing aids we have. We continue to gain market share in a stable market. We also expanded our margins in the hearing division quite a lot during the year, thanks to great products, but also execution out in the regions around the world. And in parallel with this, we also were very busy to prepare for the future, and in particular, the next type of innovations we'd like to bring.
We're very proud that we were able to announce the next hearing aid, Vivia, which we announced here early this year in February. In enterprise, we also executed and performed well. We maintained our market-leading position in headsets and gained market share in video while also thereby improving our margins. The market continued to stabilize throughout the year and finished stronger than it started. We need to recognize that the market didn't fully return to growth. This is something we expect to happen in 2025 now. In gaming, we continue to gain market share also thanks to the great products and software we have that help gamers to win and socialize well in the communities. We also took on quite some change to integrate SteelSeries, our gaming operations, into the wider GN setup, including upgrading the ERP systems and also integrating them in the same logistical flows.
This will help us to improve the margins over time in our gaming division. As we announced in May, we took the difficult decision for us to close down our consumer-facing Elite and Talk product lines. We did this as we assessed that we will not be able to generate a fair return on investments if we were looking into the future. We will instead focus our leadership and investment towards areas that we believe can create better return for our shareholders. If we look more broadly in GN, 2024 was also a year where we started to operate more as a group. We strengthened the way we really work across the company, in particular in R&D and operations.
We today have a setup where divisions focus on serving our customers and winning in each of the markets while getting significant support for functions at scale that work across all the GN businesses. In conclusion, we believe we had a good 2024 that really helped us deliver an improvement in our performance and also preparing us for an even stronger future. So let me move over to talk a bit more about this year and the future. 2025, and what you can see here on the screen, is the guidance we gave when we set out this year. And as you can see, we continue to believe that we can grow faster than the markets where we operate.
We're guiding with a growth to 3-7% organic revenue growth and also with a margin expansion in an interval between 12 and 14% and a free cash flow exceeding DKK 800 million for 2025. And just as I reiterated on 2024 performance, this is also a very healthy step forward to reach the 2028 targets. So also we believe with this guidance, we are continuing to track the more midterm ambition we're having. Let me make a few more comments on 2025. And first, I'd like to comment on the innovation. We are a product and software-centric company, and the innovations we bring to the market is really what underpins our performance, and I would say for us, the pride of our company. And we're always taking pride to innovate around our customer needs.
We launched actually several groundbreaking products, and we, of course, have a lot more in pipeline to launch into the future. Let me just comment on a few innovations we recently launched. If I start with hearing, we launched the recent Vivia here recently, and this brings new AI capabilities to our users. We have a dedicated AI chip in this very small hearing aid that helps the wearer to hear even better in noisy environments. We have managed to add this innovation while still maintaining our enhanced connectivity, our very small form factor, and an all-day battery life. We believe that with Vivia, you can essentially have it all. It's very early days on this launch, but we have received very positive feedback from our customers, and initial take-up is very healthy.
So we do believe that Vivia will support our hearing growth in a very good way for 2025. We also launched enterprise products, and here on the screen, you can see our PanaCast 40 video bar system. This is a first 180-degree Android-powered video bar for smaller meeting spaces. As more organizations transition back to the office and hybrid work environments become the norm, the demand for efficient small meeting room solutions continues to grow. But they're also quite challenging to deploy, both from a technical point of view, but also from an affordability point of view. And we believe that the PanaCast 40 VBS is addressing this. So we believe it will be a very helpful complement to the video products we already have and continue our growth in video. In gaming, we have launched several new products and software innovations.
One that's very exciting, and that's here on the picture, is Arctis GameBuds. In this very small form factor, you can get an earbud tailored for that great gaming experience. You will experience no latency in the sound, and you can, through a unique app, select hundreds of different sound profiles to allow the best gaming experience for the game you play. In essence, we're very proud of the innovation we're making as a group, and we believe that this will continue to support the strengthening of our financials also over time. Let me move to make a few comments on the operations. This is another big area where we're working across GN. We have merged two operations organizations into one combined, and the combined team have made a lot of progress.
During 2024, we have continued this movement into a global setup for manufacturing, sourcing, and supply chain with the aim to really harvest synergies across the group, but also to increase our resilience in terms of how we manufacture and supply products around the world. Our current organizations allow us to better work with our suppliers and logistic partners, helping us to capture quite some significant benefits and improvements that do also support the margin expansion as we move forward. So we are well underway also in diversifying our manufacturing footprint. This is something we started a while ago, but we've been accelerating in terms of focus. And we today have a much more resilient supply chain that puts us in a good position to navigate the geopolitical world with more uncertainty. So we are more resilient to external change and uncertainty than we were a few years ago.
Let me now make a few comments also on each of the three divisions and how we're thinking about the targets for 2025. Starting with hearing aids. For the 2025, we expect the market to grow in line with historical growth rates supported by ongoing favorable demographic trends. We project the market itself to grow 3%-5%. But in this market that we believe has attractive fundamentals, we actually believe we can grow faster with that thanks to our sales momentum as well as the recent launch of our new hearing aid portfolio. So we believe we can continue to gain market share essentially. So what we have planned for the year for the hearing division is a growth between 5%-9%. And then for enterprise, following a longer period of market stabilization, we expect the enterprise market to grow modestly in 2025.
We base this on expected increases in IT budgets as well as improving sentiment across our distributors, resellers, and end customers. We expect to maintain our market-leading position in professional headset and intend to continue to grow market shares in the video systems. And as such, we are planning the year for a growth of our enterprise division in the interval between 0%-4%. And let me finally comment on gaming as well. We expect the gaming equipment market to grow 3%-5% in the year. And also here, we do believe we can continue to gain market share thanks to the strong products and software we have. So the way we planned for the SteelSeries in gaming business is to grow in 2025 between 7%-12%. So let me just tie all this together.
I hope you have gotten a good understanding of how we're thinking about our business, how we're making progress towards our more midterm targets. And with the changes we made, we have created a stable organization and platform to really help us achieve this. Our focus will be to continue to grow our revenues through customer-centric innovation, which will enable us to gain market share in attractive markets. We also have the ambition to further improve our margins from operating well in each of these markets, but also to capture synergies across the group. And with the help of this healthy growth and margin improvements, we do expect our cash flow to continue to grow, allowing us to further reduce debt and leverage in line with our targets. In conclusion, we have set ambitious targets for 2028 that we are well underway to deliver on.
This will create a stronger GN and also generate healthy returns for our shareholders. With this, I'd like to hand it back to you, Klaus, for the rest of today's agenda. Mange takk.
Thank you very much. That was the report from Board and Management. You can now ask questions or comment. Please come up here to the rostrum if you want to speak, and please state your name before you come up here. First, Claus Berner Møller from ATP, the Labor Market Supplementary Pension Fund. You have the floor.
Thank you. So I'm Claus Berner Møller. I represent ATP. I'd like to start by thanking you for the report and the review of the financial statements. 2024 was a very good year for earnings measured on EBITDA, grew by 79% to DKK 2.15 billion.
This improvement was caused by higher gross earnings synergies in connection with the new company structure and fewer extraordinary costs. But the reported revenue fell by 1% because of divestments and closing down of consumer businesses, but also because the growth in enterprise disappointed. There was a decline of 3%. The decline in revenue in enterprise was because of difficult market conditions, particularly in the speakerphone category, whereas the video business group are more than 10%, but coming from a low base. But actually, there were parts of GN where they had a high rate of. The GN division came out with a top-line growth of 10% and actually grew 13% in 2023. Though again, also in gaming, there was a good growth, 7% in 2024. However, the share market had a tough conclusion to 2024.
The combination of disappointing top-line growth and the closing down of the consumer business, that was a sudden change of strategy that caused a strong reaction to the price. The price fell from over 200 in June down to 140 in October. That was the price of the share. So a lot of uncertainty concerning the strategy and turnaround was created, and this uncertainty is still there. So my question is, what are the biggest uncertainties and risks in the coming years that could ruin GN's ambition to reach an average organic growth in revenue of 5-8% and EBITDA margin of 16-17% in 2028? If the long-term goals are achieved, there's a great potential in this share, and the good things concerning the top line in 2024, compared with the reduction of leverage, give rise for a certain level of optimism.
Like many other companies, GN has had its first CSRD report. A lot of work was put into that. I'm sure that was a big tall order for your organization. Hopefully, it also created value, so it wasn't just a compliance exercise. We can see now that the European Union has thrown the reporting system into the air, so there's now uncertainty concerning the reporting required in the future. From ATP, we think that ESG reporting, well, that's general what we say, no matter whether it's a CSRD or a new revised form. Take a look at your core business is what we say. Focus on what's important to your company. Finally, thank you to everyone at GN for the results achieved in 2024, and I wish the company, management, and employees all the best with the challenges in the coming year. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Claus Berner Møller. There were specific questions here concerning significant risks and uncertainties, the questions. As I laid out here in my introduction, I believe we're on a fairly good track since May to actually make progress towards the 28 targets, and it's very much the combination of finding healthy growth with continued margin improvements and also do that in a way that generates healthy cash flows for our shareholders. I will say that we feel fairly confident about a lot of things in this regard, and in essence, it's a lot about the innovation we can bring to the market to make this possible, and as I also laid out, we feel good about the pipeline here across our three businesses, so a lot of this we feel is in our control, and we have a fairly good confidence about this.
I think what we need to recognize is that we are operating today in an environment with, I think, a bit more uncertainty than we had a year or two ago, and that's probably what I would highlight as the biggest risks we see. But I'd also like to reassure you, we are not just observing, we're taking actions also to navigate this risk. I talked about the supply chain where we actually are taking some investments, and we have actually increased some of the investments in 2025 to create a more diversified manufacturing footprint and a supply chain with more resilience. Essentially, it will allow us to navigate more around uncertainties because it's not only to react to what we know today. It's also to have a setup that allows us to be a bit more flexible to navigate over time.
So I do believe we're taking the right initiatives, and with what we know today, we remain confident on our progress towards the targets, but that's probably what I would highlight. But thanks again for your support.
Are there any other contributions, questions, comments? That doesn't seem to be the case. I find that we have closed the item of debate about the report from the Board. First, we have an item called the Board's report about the company's activities. Then we have item two, presentation of the audited annual report for approval. I think that there are no comments for that item, so I find that it has been approved. Then we have the discharge of liabilities for Board of Directors and Executive Management.
This means that you cannot take the members of management to court for the financial accounts and that if anything has been swept under the carpet, you can also always come back to it. So I take it that we have decided to give that discharge of responsibilities. Then four, decision on appropriation of profit or cover of loss as stated in the approved annual report. And the AGM can always reduce but not increase the proposal from the board. I take it we have no controversies there. Next, we have introduction of an advisory vote concerning approval of the remuneration report. We have heard from the chairman. This is a comprehensive report which you will find on the company's website on the AGM if you have any questions. That doesn't seem to be the case, so I find that this has also been approved.
Then we had item six, which is approval of remuneration to the Board of Directors for the current financial year. As the chairman said, there will be no change according to the proposal in remuneration levels from last year to this year. The base fee is DKK 545,000, two times that of the base fee to the deputy chair and three times to the chair. The base fee for serving on the Audit committee will remain at DKK 185,000, with two times the base fee to the chair of committee. And then the base fee for serving on the Technology and Innovation Committee will remain at DKK 137,500, with two times the base fee to the chair of the committee. And then there are some provisions concerning what you get by means of travel expenses coverage and so forth when you travel while serving as a board member.
Then we have seven, which is election of members to the board. As the chairman said, it appears from the Articles of Association that between five and nine members must be elected to the board by the AGM, and to this you should add the employee-elected board members. We currently have six members on the board appointed by the AGM, and we suggest that this be raised to seven. Are there any comments? I take it that this has now been approved. The seven seats have to be given a name, so to speak. We have Anette Weber, who has decided not to stand for re-election. So we have a board which consists of Jukka Pertola, Klaus Holse, Hélène Barnekow, Kim Vejlby Hansen, and Jørn Kildegaard Hansen. The last two were elected at last year's AGM.
There is a proposal for the election of Charlotte Johs and Lise Skaarup Mortensen as new members of the board. Any other candidates? I think it will not be easy to be elected, but otherwise, warm congratulations to those that have now been elected. Then eight, election of State Authorised Public Accountant that has to have two functions. You both have to work with the annual report and also the environmental report. Sustainability report, sorry. Right. We will move on to agenda item nine, first, 9A. The standard. This is the authorization to require treasury shares. It is a standard proposal. You see that at all the AGMs. You ask for flexibility to require own shares, treasury shares. You can buy up to 10% of the shares, but you can never hold more than 10% in all.
The company already holds 3.5%, so they only have 6.5% that they could buy at the price of the stock exchange with an interval of 10%. Business as usual. I think that we can duly approve that. The next proposal, B, is the proposal from the Board of Directors to authorize the Board of Directors to conduct the plenary meetings in Danish and/or English. This will require a change to the Articles of Association, but it certainly requires simple majority. The board is just asking for flexibility to say it can be held in Danish and/or English. This is important also to the documents that are being prepared. We all know that some presentations are in Danish, some in English, and you can have things interpreted. Any questions or comments? Duly approved. Authorization of the chair of the meeting.
I thought this was to be a bit for me too. Things need to be registered with the Danish Business Authority. It is nice to be authorized to be able to do that and to carry out the minor adjustments that may be required by the Danish Business Authority. No position there, so thank you for that authorization to yours, truly. Proposals from shareholders, there are none. And proposals would have to be reaching the company six weeks prior to the AGM in order to be discussed. So none have been received before or after the expiry of that deadline. Item 12 is any other business. Here, you can say anything, obviously within a certain framework, but you can adopt nothing. So does anybody wish to speak before I give the floor to the chairman of the board? No. So back to the chairman of the board, Jukka.
Thank you, Klaus. Thank you for guiding us through the meeting efficiently, as always. Thank you also, Peter, for sharing the insights into the business, and I would also like to congratulate our new board members and also the old ones. Welcome to the board, and I look forward to the collaboration with you in the coming years, and thank you for all of our shareholders for support. Thank you, Claus Berner Møller, for the support you have contributed many years to us. I hope to see you all again next year when we can share, hopefully, even more progress and value creation for GN and good results, so with that, thank you, everybody, and I wish you a good day. Thank you.