Dear shareholders. As Chairman of the Board of Directors, I'd like to welcome you to the annual general meeting of A.P. Møller - Maersk A/S. This year, it's a special pleasure to welcome you to a physical general meeting here at Esplanaden. After two years of assembly bans due to COVID-19 and far too many virtual meetings, we thought it was important to be able to meet in person. Originally, we had planned to hold the general meeting at the Copenhagen Opera House, but with the great transformation we've been through in recent years, we felt it was more relevant to invite our shareholders to the annual general meeting here at Esplanaden to give you a sense of the reinvented A.P. Møller - Maersk A/S, while having the marquee from Svendborg represent something of our history.
At the same time, of course, we are also offering a virtual experience of the general meeting for all shareholders preferring to participate online. In other words, for the first time in our 118-year history, I bid you a warm welcome to a truly hybrid general meeting in A.P. Møller - Maersk, combining the physical and the digital, just as we're doing on a daily basis in our transport and logistics business. Welcome, and thank you for attending today's general meeting. To chair today's general meeting, the Board of Directors has appointed the lawyer Niels Kornerup. I give the floor to the Chair of the meeting.
Thank you for.
Thank you for appointing me Chairman of the annual general meeting in A.P. Møller - Maersk. I hope to navigate safely through this first partially electronic annual general meeting in A.P. Møller - Maersk, not least in this special new setting here at Esplanaden that has been set up for the general meeting today. A partially electronic general meeting means that shareholders can choose whether they want to participate physically or electronically. Therefore, today, we have shareholders participating in the general meeting here in the room, and we have shareholders participating electronically via the virtual general meeting portal. This has been described in detail in the convening notice. That means we have two audiences today, one here in the room and one behind the screens.
We want to make sure that everyone has a good experience today, and I hope for your understanding that today's program has to work for both audiences. For you following behind the screens, I need to mention that the transmission to you, who follow the proceedings via the AGM portal and the webcast, that here, the AGM takes place with a delay of 3-8 seconds, depending on your internet connection. That is an improvement compared to last year when we had a delay of up to 30 seconds. Still, I'm going to slow down every once in a while in order for us to synchronize what's going on here at A.P. Møller - Maersk and what you are watching on your screens. Before we get into the substance, there's a couple of formalities that we need to see to.
First of all, we need to see to it that the AGM has been lawfully convened and is competent to transact the business on the agenda. Before the AGM, I have noted that the notice was sent out with the necessary three weeks' notice and complies with the legal requirements in the articles of association and in the Danish Companies Act. I can therefore note that the AGM has been lawfully convened and is quorate and competent to transact the business on the agenda, and I hope the shareholders can support me in that assumption. I will take that to the minutes, and I can inform you that before the AGM started, 355 people were registered and present in the room, of which 261 were shareholders and 94 were guests, journalists, advisors, and so on.
115 shareholders are following the AGM electronically via the AGM portal. There's also a number of shareholders following directly on the webcast. Just before the AGM started, we could also note that 86% of votes and of the A share capital is represented at the AGM. This is excluding own shares. B shares carry no votes, as you know. Article 11 in our articles of association requires that two-thirds of the A share capital are represented by persons entitled to vote at the general meeting in order for proposals for changes of the articles of association and capital changes can be reviewed. T his year, only the case for item H2 about a capital decrease, and I have made sure that this requirement is fulfilled.
The board has received a number of postal votes and proxies, and the parent company is represented at the AGM and supports the proposals with more than 80% of the votes, and that means we already have good support for all of the proposals from the Board of Directors and their recommendations. The final numbers will, of course, appear from the minutes. As mentioned in previous years' AGMs, we need to mention Provision 101 in the Danish Companies Act, which requires a complete account of the voting results for each item on the annual general meeting, even if the result is quite clear as it is the case to date. I propose that we follow the usual procedure at general meetings in this company and deviate from this complete account.
I assume that the shareholders can support me in this procedure, just as it has been the case in previous years. Thank you. It is possible to follow the AGM on the company website and through the AGM portal. Shareholders who are registered to participate in the AGM and who want to participate in the debate must log in and follow the proceedings via the AGM portal. That means that it's not possible to participate in the debate and ask questions if you are only following the AGM via the webcast on the company website. Let's now go through how the debate and the electronic communication with shareholders will take place. Everything will take place through the AGM portal, and all shareholders who have registered for participating electronically have received a login for this portal.
If you want to ask a question, you have to click on Q&A, then you will be able to write your question in the box on the right-hand side, and you send your question by clicking Send. As the debate will take place in writing for the shareholders who participate electronically, I would like to urge you to make your questions or remarks as brief and precise as possible. That way, we will get a good flow through the AGM to the benefit of all. That said, we of course understand that it takes time to write a question or a comment. If you have a question, we therefore urge you to send us a warning so that we know that a comment is coming in. You can do that in the same way as you would send the question itself. You could simply write question coming or something similar.
That way we know that we need to wait for your question before we move on to the next item on the agenda. If you already have a question or a comment, you can send it to us straight away. That way, you don't have to wait for us to reach that item on the agenda. We will make sure that we take the questions in the right order. If you are experiencing technical challenges, please contact Computershare by telephone. You can reach them via the telephone number 45 46 09 97. I repeat 45 46 09 97. If you're calling from abroad, you must, of course, use the prefix 00 45 or +45 for Denmark. All technical challenges must be solved via this telephone number.
Technical questions cannot be sent via the Q&A functions in the AGM portal. For those shareholders in the room today who participate physically in the AGM, there will be a rostrum in the room just like previous years. If you want to take the floor, you need to approach the registration desk next to the rostrum and register as a speaker. You must speak from the rostrum, and I would like to ask speakers to take their seats on the chairs reserved for speakers so that you can be ready ahead of time. Shareholders who are unable to speak from the rostrum are asked to contact an employee in the room and inform them that you wish to speak from your seat. When you are given the floor, a microphone will be brought to your seat.
Finally, I must mention that video recordings are not allowed and that sound recordings can only be used for press purposes. That brings us to today's agenda. It has been sent out and it is as follows. A, report on the activities of the company during the past financial year. B, submission of the audited annual report for adoption. C, resolution to grant discharge to directors. D, resolution on appropriation of profit, including the amount of dividends or covering of loss in accordance with the adopted annual report. E, the remuneration report is presented for approval. F, any requisite election of members for the board of directors. G, election of auditors and H, deliberation of any proposals. This year we have four proposals. First of all, H one, an authorization to declare extraordinary dividend. H two, a decrease of the company's share capital.
H 3, indemnification of board and management members. Also including an authorization of indemnification of management members as well as board members. Finally, the last proposal is H 4, a proposal of an updated remuneration policy. That leads us to the substance of our agenda. As usual in A.P. Møller - Maersk, we will take the first items on the agenda as one, and therefore we will now start with items A to E. Which are A, report on the activities of the company during the past financial year. B, submission of the audited annual report for adoption. C, resolution to grant discharge to directors. D, resolution on appropriation of profit. Finally, E, the remuneration report is presented for approval.
With those words, I will give the floor to the Chairman of the Board, Jim Hagemann Snabe, who for the last time will report on the company's activities, submit the annual report for adoption, and motivate the proposal for appropriation of profits.
Finally, we'll present the remuneration report for approval. After that, we will hear from CEO Søren Skou, who will talk to us about the future perspectives and about the situation in Ukraine. With those words, I give the floor to the chairman of the board.
Thank you very much. Since last year's general meeting, the world has once again turned violently upside down. World trade has been further challenged by geopolitical conflicts, most recently the war in Ukraine, which means that we now have war in Europe. That's probably the most critical situation in Europe since the Cold War. That is very worrying. Søren Skou will later give you a status and describe the impact on our business. Let me briefly make clear that we have decided to send a clear signal with our decision to pull out of Russia.
We have suspended bookings in and out of Russia. We have stopped buying Russian oil, and we have decided to divest all Russian assets and activities. It is important that we consider our Ukrainian employees, who have good reason to fear for their lives. We cooperate with aid organizations throughout Ukraine, and we do all we can to help them and their families. At the same time, we feel responsible for our Russian employees, who we do not hold responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. They have been an integral part of A.P. Møller - Maersk for decades and are in a very vulnerable situation. It is a difficult but very important balancing act, but more about that later. It is not only the geopolitical situation that has worsened.
The climate crisis has become even more pronounced, with more frequent and more extreme weather situations around the world and more intense dialogue about possible solutions. Finally, the COVID pandemic is still causing uncertainty and imposing restrictions, especially in countries with low immunity rates. In spite of all the crises and changes, the consumption of goods and consumer items, and thus global trade, remains at an extraordinarily high level. This, combined with restrictions in certain strategic ports and for land transport, has led to significant challenges for our logistics systems, with bottlenecks in the U.S., China, and the U.K., among others.
Under such challenging and dynamic market conditions, in stormy waters, I'm tempted to say, I'm immensely pleased that A.P. Møller - Maersk is able to stay the course and continue its transformation while helping our customers stabilize their supply chains and deliveries, while at the same time posting the best results in the company's history. This was not anticipated when the pandemic struck worldwide in 2020. For A.P. Møller - Maersk, 2021 was an unusual year with a historically high result, yet also a year in which we continued our strategic transformation of the company, among other things, through organic growth and the acquisition of logistics businesses. This has created the foundation for a focused and integrated transport and logistics company that focuses on our customers' needs by offering integrated and digitalized products and services. Our strategy is right, and it's working.
It is based on synergies and collaboration between the individual business areas, ocean, logistics, and terminals, which are each now stronger and more profitable than before. The synergies between the individual business areas are helping to create higher earnings and higher levels of customer satisfaction despite difficult operating conditions. Looking back at the developments since 2016, A.P. Møller - Maersk is now a fundamentally different and much stronger company. In many ways, the transformation of A.P. Møller - Maersk is not just a business transformation. It has also been about rediscovering our historical identity. We are basically returning to the virtues that Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller personified, not least constant care, where customer orientation, digitalization, and sustainability will create the foundation for our competitiveness and our ability to recruit and retain the best employees.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the management and the company's more than 95,000 employees for all their hard work in 2021 and throughout the period in which I have been the chairman of the board. Transforming A.P. Møller - Maersk from a conglomerate of 8 independent business areas in 2016 into an integrated transport and logistics company with higher and more stable earnings is a demanding but also very inspiring journey. Even though much has happened in parallel, the transformation has involved different focus areas along the way. At the beginning of our transformation, we were very focused on finding more suitable owners for our energy companies.
This phase was completed in 2019 when we had found a relevant and valuable future for Maersk Tankers, Maersk Oil, and Maersk Drilling. We are pleased that we were able to complete this phase before the onset of the pandemic. The transformation of our core business, ocean and shipping, was important to ensure that we could make money, and thus be in a position to invest in the future. We completed the acquisition of our integration of Hamburg Süd, and we significantly improved the profitability of our shipping and our terminals business, among other things, through digitalization of the interaction with customers and increased efficiency in our network of ships and our ports. While all this was taking place, we focused on building up the strategic business areas that will be the foundation for tomorrow's integrated transport and logistics company.
This has happened through a combination of acquisitions and organic growth within logistics and land transport. Thus, since 2018, we have acquired or announced the acquisition of 6 companies in Europe, the U.S., and Asia, with a total annual revenue of more than $2.5 billion and approximately 15,000 employees. In August last year, we acquired the North American company Visible Supply Chain Management, and in Europe we acquired two companies, B2C Europe and HUUB. In the autumn, we announced the acquisition of the German company Senator International, a leading air freight logistics company with a global network. In December, we announced the acquisition of LF Logistics, our largest acquisition to date, with a value in excess of $4.7 billion. LF Logistics is a market leading player in Asia and the Pacific region, supplying contract logistics and e-commerce solutions.
Finally, it was announced in February this year that we will acquire the North American company Pilot Freight Services, which adds to our land transport competencies with both B2B and B2C segments. In acquiring Pilot Freight Services, we have created a network of more than 150 warehouse and distribution centers and transport solutions in the U.S., which will enable us to deliver door-to-door solutions for our customers from the factory in Asia to the individual consumer in the U.S. In parallel with all these investments, since 2017, we have built up a significant level of digital competencies so that today we have market-leading digital capabilities with more than 5,000 employees. This is twice as many IT staff as the original Maersk Data had when we sold it to IBM in 2004.
Finally, we have started work on making goods transport sustainable. As long ago as 2018, we boldly decided that we would make our shipping activities carbon neutral by 2050. At the time, we knew it was necessary, but we had no idea how we were going to deliver on the promise. In the meantime, together with the Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping, we have identified solutions that enable us to sail using carbon neutral fuel via Power-to-X, it's e-methanol, and we have therefore already ordered the first 13 ships that can sail on e-methanol.
Although the task seemed infinitely difficult in 2018, we are now significantly ahead of the original schedule, and a few months ago we brought our net zero climate goal forward by 10 years so that we now have a target of achieving net zero as early as 2040, not just for our shipping activities, but for all our activities in A.P. Møller - Maersk. In other words, the transformation is well underway. We know that the strategy is working, and we can now afford to continue the journey and set even more ambitious sustainability goals. At the same time, we are aware that there is still a great deal to be done and that the transformation will never be completely finished. We expect the market situation in ocean to normalize in the beginning of the second half of 2022.
This will of course mean lower or rather more normal freight rates and thus lower and more normal revenue in Ocean. An important part of the strategy is therefore to create a better balance in the business, where Logistics and Services as well as Terminals stabilize revenue at a higher level. Through closer and longer-term customer relations based on integrated products and digital solutions, we need to deliver more stable and higher revenue on invested capital than the conglomerate we left behind in 2016. To support this, we have set a minimum return on invested capital target of more than 12% in the period from 2021 to 2025, that is on average, and a goal of 7.5% in the long run.
This requires continued strong growth in our logistics business and a high level of capital discipline in our investments and capital allocation. At the beginning of 2022, we can see that the transformation is working. In addition to the extraordinarily strong financial results, we have seen continual performance improvements within our strategic areas for 14 consecutive quarters.
The best proof that the strategy is working is probably the record high levels of customer satisfaction among our customers buying the integrated product. In fact, in 2021, we measured the highest customer satisfaction level in spite of the difficult supply chain conditions. Tomorrow's A.P. Møller - Maersk must be an integrated, digital, and sustainable company that provides the best logistics service in the industry and has the most efficient and sustainable transport network, all the way from the factory or farm to the end consumer. All the way, as we call it. Financial developments in 2021 were greatly influenced by the exceptional market conditions caused by COVID-19, and that has overshadowed the company's underlying positive development. We saw strong growth in all three business areas.
Logistics & Services, as mentioned earlier, is playing a key role in our strategy and will form the basis for our future growth of the company. We are therefore extremely satisfied with developments in 2021, comprising a more than 40% increase in revenue and a more than doubling of earnings, which means that we now have one of the fastest growing and most profitable logistics companies in the world. In addition, we have ensured strong synergies between all three business areas, which contributed further to the positive development and confirms the strategy. Due to the difficult situation in the global supply chains, we increased our capacity across the company and thus also saw increasing costs during the year. This was necessary to help our customers stabilize their supply chains.
As a consequence of the high earnings and our continued capital discipline, in 2021, we significantly improved our free cash flow so that A.P. Møller - Maersk now has liquid assets that exceed our debt. In other words, we are in effect debt-free. Thus, we are in a remarkable situation where we will be able to accelerate investment in the transformation, while at the same time being able to return significant amounts to our shareholders.
That may be-
In my report, let me take a closer look at the 2021 financial statements. As mentioned, 2021 was an extraordinary year, which made it difficult to predict the development in the demand for goods, and not least the challenges affecting the global supply chains. As a result, we actually revised our earnings guidance upwards three times during the year, and a fourth time in early 2022. From an earnings forecast of between $8.5 billion-$10.5 billion in February 2021, we ended the year with a profit of $24 billion, approximately $1 billion higher than our most recent guidance from November 2021. The high rate throughout the year were a significant reason for the higher profit. At the same time, however, we have, as planned, significantly grown earnings from both our logistics and terminals activities.
Revenue was up 56% at $61.8 billion, while earnings and cash flow also increased significantly. Total profit before depreciation, amortization, interest, and tax, EBITDA, increased in 2021 by 192% or $15.8 billion to $24 billion. The significant increase in earnings stems primarily from the Ocean segment, which, due to the exceptional market conditions, has grown in importance as our largest business area and which improved its profits by 227% or $14.9 billion to $21.4 billion. In Ocean, revenue was up 65% on the previous year, in spite of the fact that lower volumes were transported.
While total costs were 17% higher than in 2020, not least driven by factors such as rising bunker prices, higher terminal and charter costs, as well as higher costs for increased capacity in our efforts to help our customers. Throughout the year, the positive development and demand from consumers continued, not least in the U.S., which pushed freight rates to historically high levels on all routes, driven by reduced ship and container capacity, as major delays at the ports due to a lack of capacity in land transport reduced the effective global capacity. Logistics & Services posted an increase in earnings from $454 million in 2020 to $907 million in 2021, corresponding to a growth in revenue of 100% or $453 million.
Thus, our Logistics and Services business has grown in significance and thus provides a solid foundation for the future. Finally, Terminals and Towage improved its profit by almost 39% to $1.7 billion. In the terminals business, revenue increased by 27% due to the successful increase in operational efficiency every single quarter in recent years, as well as increasing volumes in the market. In 2021, depreciation, amortization, and impairment losses totaled $4.9 billion against $4.5 billion in 2020. This is due, in addition to the effect of higher charter obligations, to the impairment of the value of Maersk Supply Service by $298 million. Gains on the sale of fixed assets totaled $96 million against $202 million the year before. The total profit before tax for A.P.
A.P. Møller - Maersk was $18.7 billion compared to $3.3 billion in 2020. Total tax amounted to $697 million compared to $407 million in 2020. Cash flows from operating activities amounted to $22 billion against $7.8 billion the year before. The increase in cash flows reflects the increase in earnings before depreciation, amortization, and impairment losses, as well as a continued high conversion from earnings to cash flows. In 2021, we continued to focus on capital discipline. We invested $3 billion compared to $1.3 billion in 2020, among other things, in containers and warehousing and prepayments on the 13 new container ships ordered in the year, which can sail on green fuel. The total equity ratio in A.P.
Møller-Maersk at the end of 2021 was 63% against 55% at the end of 2020. At the end of 2021, our liquidity reserve amounted to $21.5 billion, up from $11 billion the previous year. In 2021, our return on invested capital increased to 45.3% compared to 9.4% in 2020, driven by the significant earnings growth across the company. At the same time, we have completed share buyback programs totaling $2 billion, corresponding to DKK 12.3 billion. We've dispersed dividends totaling $1.1 billion, DKK 6.9 billion, and reduced our interest-bearing debt from $9.2 billion to a positive net cash position of $1.5 billion, including leasing obligations of $10.6 billion.
In 2021, we thus again significantly strengthened our balance sheet and our financial resources so that we are now in a unique position to make value-adding investments in the future in terms of growth, acquisitions, sustainability, and new competencies, while at the same time being able to send money back to our shareholders. The total profit for the year was $18 billion compared to $2.9 billion in 2020. Based on these financial results, the board of directors has proposed a dividend for 2021 of 2,500 DKK per share, which is more than seven times higher than the dividend disbursed in 2020, and which is in line with our dividend policy of distributing dividends in the region of 30%-50% of the underlying result. The total ordinary dividend payout thus amounts to 46.8 billion DKK.
This is a historically high distribution of dividend. In fact, the proposed dividend exceeds the highest profit posted to date. For 2022, we have also initiated a share buyback program of $2.5 billion or DKK 16.5 billion, bringing the total payment to shareholders to more than DKK 60 billion in 2022. With the proposal, the board of directors wishes to reflect the significant growth in earnings and the improvement in our financial position, while at the same time wanting to maintain a high level of financial preparedness in order to continue our transformation. The extraordinary result for our ocean business has been highlighted in the media, which has focused on the company's overall tax rate, which ended at 4%. The tax we pay is influenced by the fact that our shipping activities are taxed primarily in Denmark under the tonnage tax scheme.
The tonnage tax was introduced in Denmark in 2002, and means that shipping companies pay tax on the tonnage they have. The scheme results in a stable and more predictable tax payment and puts shipping companies in Denmark on an equal footing with competitors in an international, highly competitive market. The scheme is recommended by the EU, and similar schemes are found in almost all seafaring nations in Europe, as well as in all maritime centers overseas. Thus, tax is always paid on the shipping activities, even in years when losses are posted, such as in 2016. The Danish A.P. Møller - Maersk companies pay approximately $13 million in tonnage tax a year. In the nine years prior to 2021, our shipping activities generated a combined loss of $404 million, yet we nevertheless paid $104 million in tax.
In other words, we pay tonnage tax even despite posting a loss. The company's other activities, such as port terminals and the logistics business, pay ordinary corporation tax in the countries in which the company's subsidiaries operate. As mentioned, it is our strategy to increase activities and earnings in logistics and services and the terminals business in the coming years, which will mean that the total tax payment will be more closely aligned to the general tax rules, except for years with large fluctuations in shipping activities. In 2021, we prepared, as mentioned, a new environmental, social, and corporate governance, ESG strategy in which we have set very ambitious goals for the decarbonization of the company with a view to being net zero by 2040, and living up to the Science Based Targets initiative 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030.
Sustainability is a key part of our strategy and business, as it is for many of our customers. We are leading within our industry. We see this as an opportunity that carries certain responsibilities. An opportunity to lead the way by having a net zero fleet as soon as possible while taking responsibility for the entire supply chain from A to B, something which our customers are already calling for. We see sustainability and decarbonization as an important part of our strategy and a way of differentiating ourselves in the industry. As part of our ambitious plan, we have ordered 1 small as well as 12 large new container ships for delivery from 2023. They will be able to sail on green e-methanol fuel. In the coming years, we will make further green investments in ships, trucks, warehouses, and equipment for our terminals.
A top priority in 2022 will be to secure the necessary volumes of green fuel from different producers so that we're ready to operate and use the new ships from 2024 to reduce our carbon emissions. As part of our ESG strategy and our social responsibility, the safety of our employees is still a significant focus area. We are not satisfied until we have achieved our ambition of completely eliminating fatal and serious accidents. Despite significant initiatives, we tragically lost four colleagues in 2021. Even though this is an improvement compared to previous years, it is still four lives too many. It is crucial that our employees can go to work safely and return home safely at the end of the working day. Our work on sustainability and ESG is addressed in detail in our sustainability report.
In recent years, we have, as part of transforming the company, changed and developed both our organization and management. With effect from April 1, 2021, our Chief Technology and Information Officer, Navneet Kapoor, became a member of the Executive Board. The appointment underscores the role that technology plays in the transformation of A.P. Møller - Maersk. Today, we have a very strong management team with the right skills and experience to grow logistics organically and through acquisitions to create a more stable ocean business and improve efficiency in the terminals business while focusing at the same time on digitalization and sustainability. Here, I would like to thank Søren Skou and all members of the Executive Board for their significant contribution in transforming the company since 2016, while creating a business which is now in many areas significantly stronger, also financially.
Their hard work is obviously also rewarded through our remuneration policy. The adoption of the Remuneration Report for 2021 is again on the agenda this year. It has been sent out together with the annual report and has been published on our website, but let me summarize. In 2021, we have made a few minor adjustments. The level of the fixed base salary has been reduced for some members of the Executive Board in combination with an increase in the long-term incentive program. This has been done to increase the variable element in the remuneration system and thereby strengthen the connection between the company's earnings and the overall remuneration. At the same time, in our Remuneration Policy, we propose that from 2023, the current long-term incentive program, comprising a combination of shares and options, is replaced with a performance share program.
We have now come so far in the transformation that with this program, we can better motivate and reward the achievement of long-term business goals, as well as value creation for shareholders and other stakeholders. At the same time, ESG or sustainability will be an important element of the KPIs in the program from 2023. It's important that the strategic priorities in this area, such as decarbonization, are reflected to a reasonable extent in the long-term incentive remuneration of the Executive Board members. I would like to thank the shareholders for supporting this initiative. As I have mentioned in several instances, the remuneration of the Executive Board may seem very high in a Danish perspective. We regularly do benchmarking to ensure an adequate remuneration without being the highest paying company. We take into account the size and complexity of A.P. Møller - Maersk, while also making international comparisons.
The increase in the remuneration paid to the management in 2021 compared to 2020 is primarily due to the effect of an increased bonus payment based on the very strong financial results for 2021, and the progress made in the transformation of the company. This is a good sign. It shows that the new remuneration system works. There is a clear correlation between value creation for the shareholders and the remuneration paid to the Executive Board. During a period when big changes are being rolled out, the Board of Directors plays a particularly important and very active role. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Board for all of their hard work, for their loyalty to the company, and for their commitment to the transformation.
Since the decision in 2016 to transform the company and change its status from a conglomerate to a focused transport and logistics company, we have changed the composition of the board of directors to match the tasks that lie ahead. Today, another change in the composition of the board of directors is taking place. In addition to Blythe Masters and Jacob Andersen Sterling stepping down, Vice Chairman Ane Maersk Mc-Kinney Uggla and myself have decided not to stand for re-election, thus paving the way for a generational succession on the board. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Blythe Masters and Jacob Andersen Sterling for their huge contributions to the board of directors. In addition, special thanks are due to Ane Maersk Mc-Kinney Uggla for her commitment and dedication in the past three decades, and for her significant contribution to the transformation and development of A.P.
Møller - Maersk. However, I will return to this later in my report. Today, Robert Maersk Uggla and Thomas Lindegaard Madsen are up for election. In addition, after the general meeting, I hope that we can welcome Marika Fredriksson and Julija Voitiekutė to the board of directors. Marika Fredriksson comes with a strong experience as CFO in a number of large companies, most recently from Vestas Wind Systems , as well as board experience in Sandvik AB and AB Industrivärden. Julija Voitiekutė is elected by the employees and works in our decarbonization team. Finally, it is with great pleasure that the board of directors intends to elect Robert Maersk Uggla as new Chairman of the Board of Directors of A.P. Møller - Maersk after the general meeting.
Robert joined the Board in 2014, and since then he has played a very active role in the Board, not least in connection with the strategic shift in 2016. This marks a generational change for A.P. Møller - Maersk and ensures continuity as regards the strategy of creating a globally leading logistics and transport company based on digitalization and sustainability. The remuneration paid to the Board of Directors remains unchanged in 2021. Following the changes to the Board of Directors, it has been decided to propose a revised remuneration structure. The proposal will apply for 2022. Each Board member will still receive a basic fee. The Chairman and Vice Chairman will receive four times and two times the basic fee, respectively. All members of the Board will also be paid for committee work.
This is not the case today, where the Chairman receives an all-in-one fee. On the agenda today is a proposal from the Board of Directors concerning the possibility of indemnifying members of the Board of Directors and the Executive Board. We ask the General Meeting to approve this today to avoid a situation where the Board's competence to act may be called into doubt in connection with the possible future need for indemnification. Indemnification from the company may be necessary if our normal liability insurance for members of the Board of Directors and the Executive Board becomes too expensive, or if sufficient cover can no longer be arranged. This has happened for a number of other companies. So far, we've been able to arrange the necessary cover for acceptable premiums, and we hope that this can continue.
However, with the possibility of an indemnification from the company, we can give current and future members of the board of directors and executive board sufficient peace of mind that any legal cases will also be covered in the future. As I said, the past five years of working on the transformation have been demanding, but also very inspiring. I would like to take this opportunity to thank management for their extraordinary efforts during this crucial stage of the company's history. To implement such a large and radical transformation in such a short period of time requires faith in the strategy, but also an extraordinary amount of effort. Søren, thank you for your leadership and your loyalty. It has been a great pleasure working with you so closely. We have had many constructive discussions about the bold dreams and the crucial details.
We stuck to the strategy, even when challenged by voices from outside, and even when the financial results did not reflect the progress we both knew was being made in terms of our internal performance. Special thanks also to Vincent, Patrick, Henriette, Morten, and Navneet for your huge commitment and dedication, and not least your close collaboration, which is and has been crucial in finding our way in such an ambitious transformation and through uncharted waters. Of course, a massive thank you to all of our more than 95,000 employees, who have not only realized the strategy with historic results, but have also made sure that the goods have been delivered in spite of all the bottlenecks, thereby ensuring the highest ever level of customer satisfaction under near impossible conditions. Thank you. Let me take this opportunity to express my special thanks to Ane Uggla.
Ane., for three decades, you have not only been close to the business in the boardroom, but you have also served as a guarantor and bearer of the company's identity and values. On behalf of the entire board of directors, and also personally, I would like to thank you, because together with Robert, you made it possible to reinvent A.P. Møller - Maersk in 2016. It takes courage to embark on such a radical new course, and it takes confidence to put together a new team and elect a new chairman. Thank you for your courage and your trust, and thank you for your strong leadership, without which we would not have been able to complete the transformation, and now also the generational change. Robert, I would also like to thank you personally. Your heart has always been in A.P.
Møller - Maersk, and you have been on board the whole way, not least working with the strategy since 2016. All the way, I'm tempted to say, and it would be true. It is a great honor for me to hand over the helm of this special company to you. You represent the strategy we have chosen and the next generation on the board. I'm sure the company is in good hands with you at the helm. You helped initiate the transformation, and you can now, together with the management, continue the transformation with renewed vigor. We have only just started. As this is my last general meeting as chairman of A.P. Møller - Maersk, I would like to conclude with a few personal thoughts. First, I would like to thank you for the confidence you have shown in me. The task of reinventing A.P. Møller - Maersk.
Møller - Maersk has been incredibly exciting and a great honor to have been involved. I am pleased that the transformation has come far enough for us to implement the generational succession. We started with a conglomerate with significant debt in 2016, and a loss of $1.8 billion. Today, we're a fully integrated transport and logistics company with high earnings and a strong balance sheet. When I was appointed chairman, I promised that the company would become as large as it was before we divested our oil-related activities. We have already achieved that, only five years after the launch of the new strategy. In the past five years, we have separated the company from the energy businesses, we have grown and digitized the core business, and we have invested in logistics and land transport.
In other words, we have created the foundation for higher and more stable earnings with higher customer satisfaction. However, the transformation is not only about the business. It is also very much about the identity of the company. We are, simply put, returning to the virtues personified by Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller, the entrepreneurial, the customer-oriented, and the ability to focus. With the tailwind we are experiencing in the market now, and the identity we have rediscovered, the timing for a generational change is perfect. Although I'm stepping down as chairman today, the work with the transformation will not end here. On the contrary, we must continue the transformation, but now from a position of strength. The next chapter will very much be about social responsibility, which for us means sustainable transport.
It will take us even closer to the core task, which is also described in the foundation's charter, to operate a business which has a positive impact on society. I appreciate the trust which the board of directors and the majority shareholder have shown in me as chairman, and I look forward to following the journey in a different role in the future. I would like to conclude my report by also expressing special thanks this year to our colleagues at sea, as well as our colleagues at our distribution centers and ports all over the world. In 2021, you again played a special role in keeping the wheels of global trade turning and ensuring supplies for our customers in a world where it has been anything but easy. We are immensely proud of you. Not least because in this way, A.P.
Møller - Maersk is able to help create stability and ensure collaboration in a world where it is very much in short supply. We hope that the war in Ukraine will soon be peacefully resolved and result in a strengthening of democracy. We hope that in 2022, we and the rest of the world can return to a more normal way of life once we have learned to live with COVID-19. We also hope that the world will reopen, and that global trade will normalize for everyone's sake. Now, I would like to bring my last report as Chairman of the Board of Directors of A.P. Møller - Maersk to a close. Before handing back to the chair, Søren Skou will talk about our future plans. Although first, he will brief you on the situation in Ukraine. Thank you.
Thank you for giving me the floor, and thank you for your kind words, Jim. I'll continue where the chairman left off by saying that we have come far, very far with the transformation of A.P. Møller - Maersk, but we are not completely there yet. In the years to come, we must complete our journey from a diverse conglomerate to becoming the focused global and integrated logistics company that we are heading towards. That is our vision, and it is a vision which has very much been confirmed by our customers over the past three years. At the tail end of the pandemic, the customers see a clear need to rethink their global supply chains. Each link needs to be revisited so that the chain will not break when pandemics, natural disasters, shortages of raw materials or geopolitical events occur.
Our customers consider how many suppliers they need and where the suppliers have to be placed geographically. They increase their stocks to avoid loss of sale. They need so-called omnichannel solutions, so that they can both deliver to physical shops but also directly to consumers who buy online. At the same time, the customers need greater transparency and control, and they need to be digitally connected with their logistics partner. The customers experience that it makes a difference to have a logistics partner that controls capacity on land, at sea and in the air. Our vision to supply door-to-door solutions instead of just sea freight from port to port makes extreme sense today. The dialogue increasingly covers finding holistic solutions together, and there's less talk of cost. We want to take full responsibility for our customers' supply chains. We can support them from A to Z.
If, or rather, now when there are disruptions, we can change tack and still make things happen. You can only do that when you're present with your own people and your own assets globally. Ships, containers, ports, warehouses, planes, just like Maersk is. Our large investments in digital assets now begin to really pay off. Our digital solutions make it easier to do business with us, and our customers thank us, as the chairman also mentioned, with the highest satisfaction level ever. Over the past 3 years, we have turbocharged growth very much driven by our customers who really buy into our strategy. Last year, we grew 34% organically in logistics by selling logistics products to our sea freight customers. Our growth was thus about 4-5 times above the general market growth.
In the fourth quarter, we hit $3 billion revenue in just logistics in just one quarter. That means that we had a revenue of $900 per 40-foot container when shipping at sea, and that's just the beginning. Today, we have a huge growth potential in A.P. Møller - Maersk's. Our customers spend much more money on land-based logistics solutions than they do on sea freight. Our future growth will come from logistics, as our chairman also said. On the Capital Markets Day last year, we promised that the logistics business would grow organically by more than 10% a year towards 2025, and that's in a market that we expect to grow 3%-4% per year. High organic and profitable growth is a clear key target for us. Many things will need to happen towards 2025 for us to unfold A.P.
Møller-Maersk's full potential. We will of course continue to expand our logistics solutions so that we get competitive products in all relevant markets. We have three large acquisitions that need to be integrated this year. The acquired companies will give us new attractive products to sell and thus contribute to the high growth in logistics. We also need to expand our digital solutions, and once again, we have come very far. I am proud that we had revenue of $38 billion on the maersk.com platform last year. That means maersk.com is one of the largest websites for business-to-business solutions. We can still improve user experience on the website, and we need to build the digital platforms that are needed for us to profitably scale growth in all our logistics products. Also in terminals, we have growth plans that need to be realized.
Terminals deliver stable, high, and growing returns, and the growth continues in close cooperation with our Ocean business so that we ensure maximum synergies. As the chairman said, we are in the middle of a very ambitious journey towards becoming net zero by 2040 and halving CO₂ emissions per container by 2030 already. That means that all investment decisions we make from now on need to be assessed when it relates to climate neutrality, and they need to be a step in the right direction. Finally, it's vital that we continue to deliver strong results in ocean. Over the past 5 years, we have taken major measures to build a more attractive, stable, and profitable Ocean business, what we used to call Maersk Line. The acquisition of Hamburg Süd in 2017 gave us economies of scale.
The establishment of the 2M network reduced our costs significantly and gave us flexibility in the network. Digitalization of customer transactions on maersk.com gave us the opportunity to offer unique products to different customer segments and also dynamic pricing. All these elements in total mean that Ocean today is a much better business. That's why last year in the Capital Markets Day, we could forecast that Ocean in future would give a significantly better return than it has done previously. To ensure that our shareholders can measure and follow the progress of our transformation, we continue to publish a number of leading indicators, the so-called transformation metrics, along with the financial results each quarter. Here we focus primarily on growth and the profit margin in Logistics and on how much of the growth that comes from our largest Ocean customers.
High organic growth with existing customers is a strong indicator of future success. We also follow the overall margins and returns on invested capital in ocean and terminals, 'cause they say a lot about how well we succeed in creating a better business in those two areas. Unfortunately, there's one agenda that eclipses all others right now, and that has been the case since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24th February. The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said it very clearly on the day, "Peace has been broken on our continent. We now have war in Europe on a scale and of a type that we thought belonged to the history books." End of quote. As people and as a business, we are of course, deeply affected by all this.
First and foremost, we have 600 Ukrainian colleagues in Maersk, and they experience that their country is being bombed, and they quite rightly fear for their lives and the lives of their families. Our colleagues in Ukraine are our first priority right now, and we have initiated several aid initiatives. We support financially with evacuation for those who want to be evacuated, and we support the people who have already left the Ukraine and are now refugees to help them get jobs and earn a living. We're also a member of the UN Logistics Emergency Team, also called LET. LET has been activated to help with the logistics of all the humanitarian aid that is now going towards Ukraine.
The operation is becoming the largest action ever for LET, and we support those actions with warehouses, trucking, railways, and customs clearing solutions to ensure that the aid from the entire world actually reaches Ukraine. We also have customers and a business which has been severely affected, especially in Russia, which for many years has been a large and important market for A.P. Møller - Maersk. Of course, we cannot continue as if nothing has happened. Russia has attacked a neighboring country and is now waging war just 1,500 kilometers from where we are today in Copenhagen. A war that has already cost the lives of thousands and has set millions on the run. On Monday, 28th February, we decided to stop all new bookings except food and medications to and from Russia, and at the same time, we also globally stopped buying Russian oil for our ships.
On Thursday, third of March, we tightened things further and stopped all bookings to Saint Petersburg and Kaliningrad, also for food and medicines. Last week, we decided to terminate our ownership of Global Ports and sell all other assets we had in Russia. Of course, as a business, we cannot be involved in running critical port infrastructure in Russia under these circumstances. It is possible that we will not go back to doing business in Russia for many years to come, but it is a price we both can and are willing to pay. Practically speaking, though, it's not that easy to stop doing business in a country like Russia. Firstly, before the war broke out, we had more than 50,000 import bookings in our network en route to Russia. We tried to deliver these containers as quickly as possible.
The cargo in the containers does not belong to us, but to our customers, and many of those are not Russian. Many of the containers also contain perishable foodstuffs. There are also practical issues in storing containers in already crowded ports on the continent. We expect that it will take us until the end of April to get all the containers out of the system, one way or the other. Secondly, we have about 50,000 of our containers in Russia today, and many of them are empty. They're our property, and we need them, and we would not be happy to leave them in Russia. Therefore, we still have some ships going to Russian ports. Let me finish by saying that we, of course, do not hold our Russian employees responsible for President Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
They have been a loyal and integrated part of Maersk for decades, and we feel responsible for their security when we make these decisions. Our Russian employees are under massive pressure from the Russian authorities and from new legislation which dictates long prison sentences for so-called activities harmful to the country. Therefore, of course, they fear for their job as we pull out of Russia, just like many other international companies do. The situation in Ukraine poses many dilemmas which we have to handle. That sometimes occurs in a very public space where there are many emotions and many opinions, and the debate very quickly becomes harsh and very black and white. In Maersk, we have some strong values that guide our decisions, and they also apply in this very difficult situation. With that, I will give the floor to the chairman of the AGM.
Thank you for the report for 2021 and presentation of the annual report for 2021, the proposal of how to use the profits, and also the remuneration report. Thank you both, the Chairman of the Board and the CEO. Before I open the debate, I can tell you that the annual report has been signed by both the Board of Directors and the management. There have been no comments from the auditors. You can read all about that on page 143 to 147 in the annual report for 2021. As the Chairman mentioned, the Board proposes that there's a payout of dividends of DKK 2,500 per share, nominally DKK 1,000, which is DKK 46.8 billion or $7.1 billion.
The rest of the result of $10.9 billion is put forward to next year. That means that the equity capital of the conglomerate is now $38.5 billion. Now it's time for debate. I will remind you of the brief delay in our virtual AGM, and we will take that into account. Again, I'll mention that it's a good idea to give us a warning about questions or comments if you are participating virtually. You can, for instance, just write that there's a question coming or something like that, and you do that the same way as you write the actual question. You can also already make your comments about other parts of the agenda.
It's now time to introduce what we call the shareholder's voice. Some of you may remember the shareholder's voice from last year's AGM. The shareholder's voice will read out the interventions and questions which shareholders send in electronically. The shareholder's voice will be the speaker for the shareholder. That way, the shareholders that participate electronically can also have their questions read out. It's Kristoffer Meinert who, once again, will read out and be the voice of the shareholders. I hope you will welcome him, Kristoffer Meinert, the shareholder's voice. I now open the debate, and we already have some speakers who have signed up. The first speaker I give the floor to is Claus Wiinblad from the pension fund ATP.
Thank you for the floor. My name is Claus Wiinblad, and I represent ATP. Let me start by thanking the chairman and CEO for their report and the submission of the annual report from 2021. These are very special times. We were just about on our way out of global pandemic, even though it still has an impact in many countries. Just as things were starting to look up, the terrible war in Ukraine started. First of all, I'm glad to hear that Maersk, first and foremost, is focusing on their many employees in Ukraine and their health and safety. For all companies with activities in Ukraine and Russia, I would like to say that I very much respect the fact that it's a very difficult situation which causes a number of dilemmas and tough decisions far beyond financial and operational questions.
In ATP, we understand that this is difficult to handle. That said, companies obviously need to comply with the sanctions that are introduced. Furthermore, it is our clear expectation that the individual company is aware of its responsibility and that it is potentially also willing to make even hard decisions. I have no doubts that A.P. Møller - Maersk will comply with this. That is what we hear from the report as well. The global pandemic has created an extraordinarily high demand for physical goods, and it has created some very challenging supply chains. This has benefited the container industry, in particular, through rapidly increasing freight rates, and that has created an impressive earnings in Maersk with an EBITDA of $24 billion. Ironically, it sounds even more impressive in Danish krone with an EBITDA of about DKK 150 billion.
Congratulations, that is quite an impressive result. The high earnings have also contributed to a strong cash flow, which has, again, made it possible to pay out a high dividend and an extensive share buyback program. Also, I thank you for that. Let me now dwell on the strategic transformation of Maersk. In fact, I believe that many analysts and investors are skeptical towards your ambition of creating a global integrated logistics business. I am not. I actually believe that in this ambition, there is an opportunity to create a business that, in the long term, will be able to create growth and also create a more stable and higher return than the old business. The financial statements of 2021 showed some promising signs in the right direction with a good growth in revenue and volume in the logistics business.
There is no doubt that acquisitions are necessary in order to accelerate the transformation, and that has really been the case. Since the acquisition of Performance Team in 2020, in under two years, you have carried out logistics acquisitions of more than DKK 50 billion. That is quite a high figure which also requires some explanation. In fact, it's difficult for me to assess these acquisitions. Have they been too expensive, or will they create value? That is because we haven't been given much information about these acquisitions. We have not really received any information about how these companies will be integrated and what kind of revenue growth they can generate and what added value they will create.
I know that some of the recent acquisitions are not final yet, but there's a lack of information in explaining the value of these acquisitions once they are completed. I would also like to address two ESG-related issues. One is the CO2 reduction, and the other is biodiversity. Looking at the CO2 emissions in ATP's total Danish share portfolio, Maersk constitute almost half of these emissions. The efforts of Maersk to reduce CO2 emission is therefore crucial. We could easily reduce the CO2 emissions in our Danish share portfolio by selling some of our Maersk shares, but we don't want to.
We would much rather support the intentions and ambitions of Maersk for the green transition, even if it requires a higher level of investment for a while. A company like Maersk also has the potential in the long term to become a good financial investment. Biodiversity is an issue that we have an increasing focus on in ATP. If you listen to the experts, the extinction of species and the biodiversity crisis could potentially be an even greater threat to mankind. WEF have defined biodiversity as one of the greatest risks to the economy for the next 10 years. Therefore, it's positive to say that Maersk has taken the first steps in the sustainability report for 2020, in order to identify the concrete issues relevant to Maersk.
I realize that it's difficult to define clear goals in this area, but I look forward to Maersk formulating more clear and concrete targets. At this AGM, a new chairman will be elected, and I would like to welcome Robert Uggla as the coming chairman. Knowing the background and history of A.P. Møller - Maersk, it is no surprise that, once again, a family member will be chairman of the company. You might say that this is a condition of being a shareholder in this company, so we support the election of Robert Uggla as the new chairman of the board. That said, we have some clear expectations for the new chairman when it comes to the governance structure in the company. First of all, it must be quite clear that the chairman, of course, will work in the interest of all shareholders.
Secondly, the current high degree of independence in the composition of the board should be maintained. As a comment for the final point, it's positive that you will now elect an independent member of the board as vice chairman. With the succession, Jim Hagemann Snabe will step down as chairman, and I would like to extend a warm thank you for your efforts in connection with the transformation of A.P. Møller - Maersk. You have been an important driver and representative for this process, and I would also like to thank you for a good, open, and inspiring dialogue along the way. Finally, I would also like to thank Ane Maersk Mc-Kinney Uggla for her many years of contribution to the company. With those words, I would just like to wish the management and the employees the best of luck in the coming years. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much to ATP. There were some comments and some questions, and I will give the floor to the Chairman of the Board.
Thank you, Claus. Thank you for your dedication throughout the years and for those kind words. Thank you for your support for our transformation and this generational succession. There was one question or comment that I would like to come back to, and that's the acquisitions and the call for transparency. We understand that. We are very much aware that with the size of transactions that we have announced recently, there's an increased need for showing concrete examples of the synergies created, not least commercially. A central part of our M&A strategy is to acquire competencies that we do not possess ourselves today, in order to be able to increase our cooperation with our customers and increase the organic revenue growth. In 2021, we had an organic revenue growth of 34%. Here, acquired companies from previous years, such as Performance Team, significantly contributed.
In other words, the synergy is often a top-line synergy. Internally, of course, we always have a business case for the planned synergies we want to achieve, and we follow up on the extent to which we achieve the business case in question. So far, we have over-delivered on our synergies for the acquisitions that are now integrated. You also mentioned the $50 billion, and here, of course, these are high figures for acquisitions, and this figure includes three transactions, Senator International, LF Logistics, and Pilot Freight Services. These are all announced, but they have not been approved yet, but we do expect approval during the course of 2022.
I am convinced that Robert and the new board of directors, but also the executive management, will focus on creating a successful integration of the already acquired companies, and in that way, achieve the transparency as to the value created by these acquisitions. I would also like to thank you for supporting our CO2 ambitions. Of course, it costs some money to invest in these initiatives, but it's important to us that our investors also believe that this is the right way to go. Finally, thank you for your support for the generational succession. I can assure you, we have good governance in the boardroom. Just to make sure that we do not misunderstand each other, Robert will not be elected as chairman of the board at the general meeting.
He will be elected as a member of the Board, and then the Board of Directors will, in its first meeting, elect Robert as the new Chairman.
Thank you very much for the response, Mr. Chairman. The next speaker is Thomas Kirkelund Østergaard representing the pension fund PFA.
Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak here today. First, on behalf of PFA, I would like to thank the chairman and the CEO for their review of the developments in 2021, which has been a very impressive historic result. I don't think anyone expected a net result of $18 billion. That is very impressive. Of course, it has been affected by high freight rates, but also when you look further into the numbers and the transformation agenda, there have been improvements across the line. Very well done.
In the greater perspective, PFA would also like to thank Jim Hagemann Snabe for together with the rest of the board and the executive to be very good on the way in the transformation from conglomerate to integrated logistics business. That's also very impressive. When we talk about transformation, it's of course obvious to say that, yes, you're still going through the transformation towards integrated logistics, but another task is also the climate development. We have noted your accelerated ambitions for net zero, reducing it from 2050 to 2040 as a goal. It sounds like it's a long way off, but if we look at the lifetime of a ship, it's not that far into the future.
It's great to hear that you already ordered the first ship that can sail on e-methanol. I have one question, a bit in line with what the previous speaker asked about acquisitions, because you have succeeded in making quite a few acquisitions in 2021 and the beginning of 2022. I would like to ask you briefly how you balance the benefits of using some of the extra cash flow of the high freight rates to accelerate the strategic transformation, but balancing the downside of many logistic companies being quite expensive to acquire at the moment in the current market. Thank you.
Thank you, PFA, represented by Thomas Kirkelund Østergaard. There was one question which the chairman will answer.
Also, thank you to you, Thomas Kirkelund Østergaard, for your kind words.
We have come far in our journey, and thank you for your support along the way also. The question was about the timing of acquisitions and whether it's high prices we have in the market now, and it's a very relevant question. As we mentioned, there are quite unusual market conditions, but also a strong performance. On the one hand, we can accelerate our acquisitions, but on the other hand, the market conditions create better results for the businesses we want to acquire. You might think they are at a high price, and of course, they are at a higher price when the market conditions are favorable. We are very clear in our strategic focus in filtering businesses, and we only acquire businesses where we feel that the price can be validated because of the synergies we achieve.
That means that there are many acquisition possibilities that we choose to disregard. We only acquire businesses that contribute by giving us new capabilities in our value chain from factory to end user. So far, we have focused on businesses that are working very well, that have good IT platforms, and where we can see clear synergies so that we can scale their business by offering their services to our customers. As I also said in reply to ATP, we do follow up to see whether we actually achieve the synergies. The good news is that we have delivered on the synergies so far. We acquire more, but we make clever acquisitions. Thank you.
Thank you to the chairman for responding to PFA. The next speaker is from International Transport Workers' Federation, and that's Mr. Kulsoom Jafri. I assume that Mr.
Mrs. Kulsoom Jafri will be speaking in English.
From the chance to make a brief statement to the Maersk Annual General Meeting. First off, we applaud Maersk's investments in green vessels and fuel infrastructure, as well as their funding of the Global Maritime Forum, which formed a memorandum of understanding with the ITF last year, supporting a just transition. Our planet requires real leadership on climate change and sustainability in the maritime industry, and we are encouraged by the steps taken by Maersk so far. Together, there is still more we can achieve. We invite Maersk to work with the ITF to ensure proper training and skills and occupational health and safety are in place across the board before the vessels launch.
As stated in Maersk's sustainability report 2021, your company has committed to, quote, "Incorporate a human-centered approach, adhere to international human rights standards, and continue to engage with stakeholders, including workers and unions." We trust Maersk will join us in executing this commitment and avoid adversely impacting any person while pursuing positive change for the planet. Additionally, we would like to point again to your company's sustainability report, in which there has been a solid commitment made to respect fundamental labor rights and constructive employee relations. Maersk's commitment is based on core international conventions. Maersk's sustainability report states that constructive employee relations can only exist by respecting the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining, which means actively engaging with trade unions.
It is therefore regrettable that despite this commitment, Svitzer management in Australia went against Maersk's professed global commitments to uphold collective bargaining and has applied to Australia's Fair Work Commission to terminate its long-standing collective bargaining agreement with three Australian maritime unions covering hundreds of workers. In the Netherlands, Svitzer has established a second corporate entity that has led to undermining workers' rights to collective bargaining. In addition, Svitzer management in the U.K. have imposed a pay freeze on the workforce in Teesport. 1,700 people have already signed a petition urging Svitzer and A.P. Møller - Maersk executives to take action. Maersk's sustainability report also emphasizes safety and security, keeping all workers safe and free from harm while they perform their work duties at sea, in the air, in terminals, warehouses, and offices.
To maintain a safe workplace and disruption-free operations, the ITF underscores the need for proper crewing levels on Maersk Line ships, and indeed all Maersk vessels to avoid fatigue and overwork. Our affiliates have raised concerns regarding hours of work and rest. Chief mates on U.S.-flagged vessels are regularly working 90-hour weeks, and negotiations to employ an extra officer on board have not been successful. While Maersk spends its historic profits on new acquisitions and expansions, we would also call for Maersk to invest in improved safety management throughout all existing Maersk subsidiaries and contracts. Finally, we would like to address Maersk's efforts to integrate human rights into the company's existing due diligence processes, including efforts to capture human rights relevant risks in third-party due diligence.
We encourage Maersk to adopt the Seafarers' Human Rights Due Diligence approach that the ITF has been spearheading, and for Maersk to demonstrate concern and action about workers' terms and conditions, whether they are directly employed by Maersk or its subsidiaries, or if the workers are contractors or subcontractors. This includes tug and towage operators, truck drivers, terminal and warehouse workers, and more. We expect outsourced workers to receive the full bonus paid to direct employees given their tremendous efforts and sacrifices throughout and before the pandemic. In addition, trucking operations contracted by Maersk require proper due diligence, including investigations into pay and conditions. Our affiliates have reported inhumane conditions and severe infringements on the rights of truck drivers. In conclusion, we support the values Maersk expresses and applaud the priorities and commitments the company has made.
To best execute and deliver on those promises, the ITF encourages Maersk to not neglect their relationships with trade unions globally. The ITF has successfully worked with your company to address inconsistencies in the application of your global values in the past, for example, in Latin America, and we hope to continue to do so. It's a testament to our strong and maturing relationship that we are now able to navigate through extremely difficult situations like in Liberia, where we have different perspectives and have still found workable solutions. In light of the key role that the company plays within the global supply chains and the significant profits reported, the ITF and our affiliates will be stepping up our public communications of our experiences with Maersk's implementation of values across all regions and operations.
We hope that the company continues to prosper in the year ahead and the workers responsible for that prosperity are recognized and heard. Thank you.
Thanks to ITF. Thank you very much, ITF. It's Søren Skou, the CEO, who will respond.
I would like to begin by thanking you for the good cooperation we have with ITF across the globe and in many different connections, not least when it comes to the truck drivers, where we work closely in ensuring good working conditions for all. I also want to make it quite clear
That in Maersk, we are very grateful for the contributions from all our employees towards the success of the business and in helping us service our customers, because they're performing very, very well. We show our gratitude by paying wages that are competitive, and in most cases are above the market average. Of course, we believe that our employees are free to let themselves be represented by any trade union, and we work with ITF about this in many areas. As things are, there is collective bargaining, and we don't always agree, but that's a natural part of the process that you go through the collective bargaining process. We would certainly encourage ITF Australia in entering into a constructive dialogue to solve the issues that are specific to that market.
We're also committed to always train our employees and help them train even further and help them with all associated with health and safety. I think I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you, Søren Skou, CEO, for the response to ITF. The next speaker is the Danish Shareholders' Association, represented by Mr. Mikael Bak.
Thank you for the floor. First of all, and on behalf of all of the private investors, I believe, thank you for letting us meet here in person, again, in inspiring settings here at the home turf of the company. I would also like to take this occasion to thank all of these private investors for being here today, because that actually confirms our assumption that it's important to meet in person while having the AGM also electronically. Luckily, we have seen more private investors in recent years, and we need to remember that not just sustainability, but also the coherence from the company and towards the society that they're part of is important. We've heard a very impressive report from the board and the management, and we're glad to see the positive results and these handsome dividend payouts.
We hope that that will continue in coming years. I would also like to thank the chairman who will step down today for his strong efforts in the transformation of the company. I would like to ask a single question about the transformation. We have seen the share price increasing and dividends as well, but I would like to hear what you think, the success is caused by. Is it due to the strategic decisions you have made, or is it mainly due to the COVID situation with increasing freight rates? Here, I would also like to ask how you assess the geopolitical crisis we're in right now. Could that mean that freight rates will either stay where they are or perhaps that we will see less trade, and how would that impact the company in the next couple of years globally?
Finally, let me say that in the Danish Shareholders' Association , we also always work with good investments. To us, a good investment is based on transparency, decency, and skill. We have trust in the skill of the executive management. You have proven that time and time again during a difficult time. When it comes to transparency, we would like to ask whether you have plans to communicate more. Can we expect more frequent announcements like we saw during the COVID pandemic from many companies? Finally, I know that decency is something that you also value here at Esplanaden, and we would like to welcome Robert Maersk Uggla as the new chairman of A.P. Møller - Maersk.
I would have liked to ask more about the crisis and the war, but where I have understood that you do everything you can, in practical terms and as well as regards sanctions. It's important to say that this company has historically also made an impact in previous wars and crises, and the private investors also appreciate that. Finally, let me congratulate management and wish the board and executive management and all of your employees the best of luck in the coming time.
Thank you to the Danish Shareholders Association, represented by Mikael Bak, and I give the floor to the Chairman of the Board.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Mikael Bak, for those kind words. As I heard it, there were two categories of questions, one regarding whether we find that the current results are due to the strategy or to the market, and that's an important question that we spend quite a lot of time on. In the boardroom, we see results as separate from achievements. Results is the result of external and internal factors. Achievements is based on our skills and strategies. Therefore, we have our so-called transformation targets.
That's the best indicator on whether we are becoming better at what we do, no matter how freight rates behave. When you ride a bike, we try to take out tailwind or headwind from the equation so that we can see whether we are getting better at riding our bike, no matter which way the wind blows. There's no doubt that 2021 is very much affected by freight rates, because freight rates are historically high. When we still think that we have come a long way in our transformation, it's because when we exclude those factors, if we look at our Ocean business with ordinary freight rates, we would be able to see that our Ocean business has seen healthy development throughout many quarters.
We are delivering a result of $1.8 billion, and we now have a logistics business of the size of $1 billion. Even without the development we have seen, they would have become a significant part of our business. Then on top of that, when we are seeing this kind of tailwind in the market, that just means that we've been able to accelerate our transformation even further. Of course, we are trying to make ourselves more independent of these rates, because we cannot affect them. They are based on supply and demand. As I tried to say in my report, we have tried not to make use of this short-term spot market at very high rates.
Instead, we have tried to enter into long-term contracts with our customers so that we will get a fixed price over a longer term, which is of course a bit higher than the current spot price. And that better indicates our ability at riding the bike. And a sign is that we now have 70% of our volume on long-term contracts compared to 50% before. An additional question was that. Well, we don't have any other guidance than the guidance we have given for this year. Of course, we are worried about the situation in Ukraine, and we have taken some decisions that will cost some money, but currently, we don't know how the world will develop and therefore we are sticking to the guidance we have so far.
You also asked about transparency and whether we can give more frequent announcements and communications now that we are in these uncharted waters where predictability is low. In 2021, we've been very active, and as a Board of Directors, we don't want to change our guidance for each quarter. Luckily, we were able to adjust it upwards a few times last year, but that is the world we live in. Of course, we still adhere to the rules that apply to listed companies, and we are obliged to communicate immediately if we see something impacting our expectations and our guidance. Other than that, I would just like to thank you for your support for our initiatives. We will go further than the sanctions themselves and try to live up to our responsibility as a global company when it comes to our supply chains. Thank you very much.
Thank you to the chairman of the board for this response for the Danish Shareholders' Association. The next speaker will be the pension fund AkademikerPension, represented by Anders Schelde. Anders Schelde? Is Mr. Anders Schelde not here in the room? I think we will move on, and Anders Schelde will be able to speak later. When he's identified, I will ask you to let me know. Our next speaker will then be the Association of Critical Shareholders, represented by Lisbeth Bech-Nielsen. Please approach the rostrum.
Thank you very much. I'm here on behalf of the Association of Critical Shareholders, and Mr. Frank Aaen will speak after me. My father worked for 25 years on a Maersk Drilling rig in the North Sea. I've seen him come home with oil spots on his hands, et cetera. He was very happy to work for Maersk, but at the end of his life, he felt that his old employer could do more when it comes to constant care, when it comes to the environment and the climate. We from the critical shareholders have asked some questions about that, which Frank Aaen will get back to. I will say some things about the finances.
2021 was a record year for Maersk and for Denmark, because we have never had a Danish company that has delivered such an annual report as Maersk did in 2020, for the 2021. That's also why our association wonders why the business can't quite stand alone yet, but still receives a lot of state aid in form of net wage, the net wage scheme, tonnage tax, et cetera. But with a result of DKK 118 billion and an EBITDA of DKK 150 billion kroner, there should be space to contribute more to Danish society with more than just what's the equivalent of 4% tax. The last thing I want to mention is Ukraine and Russia. Thank you very much for your reports on that and telling us all about what Maersk does. It's a very important thing to do.
There's just one question I have here. Have you pulled out of all businesses in Russia with all Russian companies, specifically when it comes to, for instance, the subsidiary, Svitzer, which is the world's largest towage company? The reason we ask is, of course, that it is a company that assists Russian ships in their exports, and which then can give financial support to President Putin. I would ask whether the subsidiaries have the same status as what you've mentioned so far.
Thank you, Lisbeth Bech-Nielsen, and I give the floor to the Chairman of the Board to respond.
Thank you, Lisbeth Bech-Nielsen. My father also worked for Maersk. He flew the light blue helicopters to the North Sea, and he's actually right over here.
I know the feeling of a father coming home in light blue emblems on his clothes, and I also have the same positive feelings towards the company. You mentioned tax. I'll get back to the environmental policy later. About tax, we try to explain that we don't feel we receive any state subsidies. We pay taxes based on the tax system that has been established for shipowners, and we do it for the oceans business. Of course, the years where we earn a lot of money because of external factors, that of course looks strange. But if I can just look over the past four years, we had a loss of $105 million in revenue in oceans in 2017, and we paid $11 million in tax.
In 2018, we had a loss of $980 million, and we paid $13 billion in taxes. The same way, we have continued to pay taxes. It was only this year, in 2020, we had a surplus, and we paid $14 billion in taxes. Of course, if you only look at one year, it seems strange, but if you look at a longer period of time and the realities of the business, it's not as strange as it looks in 2021. You shouldn't conclude on the basis of an extreme year. Again, if you change condition, it would make us uncompetitive in Denmark.
I would like Søren to respond about the net wages in Svitzer, where I don't feel that we are aiding and abetting any Russians.
Thank you. I expect Lisbeth Bech-Nielsen is referring to the story in the media this weekend that two of our towage ships had helped a Greek ship to go to the Kalundborg port, and it turned out there was Russian cargo on that ship. We don't feel in Maersk that it's our job to stop transports of oil to the refinery in the Danish town of Kalundborg, because it would also mean that we would get petrol shortages in Denmark. That must be a political decision whether Denmark can import Russian oil or not. We have decided for our companies that we won't buy Russian oil, but what the Danish state does is not what we decide.
We are now closing down our businesses in Russia. In Denmark, we follow the line of the political system of the Danish government. When it comes to net wages and that scheme, it's not something we have looked very much into. We pay net wages in accordance with applicable law. I think when that scheme was implemented, it was something that the trade unions very much desired. It's not something we have paid much attention to. Thank you.
Thank you to both the chairman and the CEO for responding to the Critical Shareholders. We'll hear from the Critical Shareholders again in the form of Mr. Frank Aaen.
Thank you. Let me just start with two comments to the responses we just heard.
The chairman said that it's not any aid or support, but both when it comes to tonnage tax and net wages, in the state accounts, it is listed as state aid, so it is state aid. Of course, that's true. I have been reading our national accounts for decades now. It's listed as state aid. That's the way it is. Now, in the light of the terrible war in Ukraine, before the AGM, we made a proposal where we asked the company to, as quickly as possible, leave Russia and all its activities there. With the responses we've heard today and the comments we've heard today, we can just take that as read. We are, of course, very happy about that because it can help stop this war.
To stay on a positive note, many know that it's not something we have done very often, praised the company, but it has happened before. This time, I would really like to commend the company for setting these very ambitious targets on the climate agenda also. Not just doing it as a company, but also working actively to spread the green transition globally. Also in international organizations, they move much more slowly, but that means that it's the more important for businesses to push them a bit. It's not just the ships, it's also Maersk's other activities from one end to the other of the value chain, and we respect that very much.
Let me also say that Critical Shareholders in 2007, i.e., 15 years ago, that was the first time we raised the question of the company's CO2 emissions at an AGM. Back then, we were actually just dismissed. The then chairman, Mr. Pram Rasmussen, didn't want the company to be at the vanguard here. He said, "It's not our job to take global initiatives in that area." That was the response we got back then. I must say, I'm very happy that a lot of things have changed since then.
I know that the impetus in this development is not just concern for the environment, but also the desires from the customers and the desire to be market leader in the area, because it also gives you a competitive edge and enable you to take a slightly higher cost because it's a more expensive form of transport. Green shipping is, of course, the way to ensure future revenue. Revenue is important, but I would still like to commend the measures. I still have one critical question when it comes to the environment, because it takes time to transition to green fuels. There's one thing you can do straight away, and I don't understand why you don't do it. Because today, when you use oil, it's heavy bunker oil, and that emits many particles, black carbon, it's called.
That contributes to greenhouse effects, and it's very detrimental to people's health. You can't get rid of those particles overnight. You can reduce the emissions by going from heavy bunker oil to light bunker oil, which has a much lower emission rate of soot particles. One of the questions we also asked before the AGM was whether the company shouldn't just go from heavy fuels to light fuel oils. I know it's more expensive, but honestly, with the profits we see at the moment, it should be something we can afford to do for the environment by buying slightly more expensive oil. We hope to hear your response to that. I would also like to say something about remunerations. I know it's history now, but I would still like to look at Søren Skou's remuneration of DKK 46.8 million.
That's a lot of money, and it's an increase of 22% since 2019. I think that's quite an increase in remuneration. There's a number missing in the remuneration report, a number most other large companies publicize, and which you have to publicize according to the law. That is how much of the remuneration to the CEO, the rate between what the CEO gets and what the average employee gets. I once asked that, and I was told that Maersk A/S doesn't have any employees. You couldn't calculate that ratio. I must say, I think that's strange. I would like to help you and the board.
Because if you look at page 7 in the remuneration report where Søren Skou's remuneration is written, and if you look at the annual account page 73 and page 90, where you have the total wage cost and the number of employees, and you then calculate that, you get the ratio I'm looking for. The remuneration today for the CEO is 111 times what an employee gets for a year. January 4, Søren Skou has already earned a whole year's wages. Is that fair? I know that people shushing now and because this, they want the shareholders to get the money. What we see in A.P. Møller - Maersk and other large companies, these exorbitant remunerations to top management increases the rift in society, and that's not a good thing.
We heard ITF ask questions before, and I must say they were very specific questions, and I don't think the response was very specific. I would suggest that when you go through this after the general meeting, you need to get more specific in your responses to the very relevant questions from ITF about the working conditions of employees globally. That's point one. Secondly, when I hear management say that they support the possibility to make free collective agreements, then of course that's positive. Does that also include Danish ships? Does it include the Danish ships A.P. Møller has, that they have free, the free possibility to make collective agreements? No, it doesn't. I'm sure many people are surprised by this, but in the legislation, there's Section Ten that means that you can only make collective agreements for Danes on the Danish ships.
Most of the employees on the ships are foreigners. Wouldn't it be a good idea to have one collective agreement for all employees on all the ships? I think it's very unfair that you still have this difference in how you treat people, treat Danes compared to non-Danes. I know that Danish legislation cannot be changed by the company, but I'm sure if the company writes to the Danish government, and they sometimes do write letters to the Danish government with some wishes or whatever other way you communicate with the government, but I do know you have a direct line to the government. You could say to the government that after 33 years, it would be a good idea to get rid of this section in our legislation. Thank you for the floor.
Thank you, Frank. Thank you, Frank. There were some suggestions and questions, and I give the floor to the chairman.
Thank you, Frank Aaen. Thank you for praising some of the things we do. I would like to talk about the transparency and remuneration report and the remuneration to Søren, and then he'll deal with the other questions. Let me start by looking at his remuneration. You said it increased by 22%. That's not correct. His remuneration has not increased by 22%, but his payout has increased by 22% because he's received a bonus for an extraordinarily good financial result. We distinguish between the target wages, which is when you reach the targets, but if you go above the targets, you get bonuses. In 2021, his fixed wages actually went down.
When Søren gets a larger payout, it's not a wage increase, it's a bonus for a very strong performance. When we make our remuneration report, we of course look at the information included, and we ensure that what we write in the report is in compliance with the law, and we assess what it would be good for our shareholders to gain insight into. Our challenge in comparing the management wage level and the wage level of employees is that we have employees in many different countries. If we look at somebody working in a port in a very low-paying country, then the difference is very large. What we ask ourselves in the Remuneration Committee is that a relevant connection? As yet, we haven't found the relevant connection. Of course, it's an important point Mr.
Olsen mentions. We do want to continuously look at how we can make everything more transparent. It's not that simple because it has to do with which type of employees we have and where they work. Therefore, that ratio can go up and down a great deal without it reflecting any change in the management remuneration levels. In our remuneration report for 2022, we will look into what we can do in this area. We understand that there is a need, and we will try to find a way to add an average wage for employees, which would give a relevant ratio. With that, Søren, I'll hand over to you to respond to the other questions.
Thank you. To the question of fuel.
We have, of course, thought very strongly about this, but we feel that we need to spend the money on getting rid of CO₂ first and foremost. The more money we spend on buying another form of fossil fuel today or tomorrow, the less money we have available to finance the green transition to green fuels. We have gone all in on green fuels. Last week, we announced six partnerships to help us get enough fuel for the ships. That's fuel that will cost double what we are paying today, certainly double what we paid last year for ship fuel. We're talking about large amounts to ensure this green transition.
If we start supporting other fossil fuels than what we use today, we would just create a new market for fossil fuels and make it even more difficult to get through the green transition, and that's why we have decided to act the way we do. When it comes to the Section Ten in the Danish legislation you mentioned, it's a section which enables us to differentiate wages between who work, the people working on Danish ships based on where they have their registered home, and that's in accordance with both the ILO and the EU acquis. The agreement which employers association and the unions is based on the legislation. We don't feel that this is an issue at all. Thank you.
Thank you very much for that response from the CEO as well as the Chairman of the Board.
Our next speaker will be Rasmus Paludan. Go ahead.
Thank you very much. My name is Rasmus Paludan. As the chairman of the meeting said, I'm a lawyer and a shareholder, and I would like to start by thanking the chairman for his report and the CEO for his presentation. I would also like to extend a special thank you to Lars Erik Brenøe and the other employees in Maersk for, in my view, a very well-planned AGM. Of course, you cannot control how your guests behave, but only how you and your employees behave. You have all been very professional. Apart from being a lawyer, I'm also a shareholder, as I said, and of course I can't know that, but I assume I'm a shareholder for the same reason as most other investors here, that I would like the largest possible return on my investment.
Therefore, I have three questions in that regard. Because I have been wondering whether you are doing things that do not lead to the maximum return. Firstly, when it comes to the war in Ukraine, and here I call it the war and not what Russia calls it, but it is an actual war which is contrary to the UN pact and international law when one country attacks another country. We've already seen from governments and politicians all over the world a number of sanctions against Russia that are more extensive than the sanctions against North Korea. Therefore, I'm surprised that in A.P. Møller - Maersk you would choose to go beyond that only with the explanation that it's good for the business. We have heard the executive management and the board here say that you will lose money on this.
If that's the case, then what's the reason? You are not a political party. I suppose it's still the idea that you want to make money. If you start becoming a political party and start to say that you want to go beyond what the world society is doing vis-à-vis sanctions against Russia, then you open up to people questioning your policy in other areas. Here, I assume most people in this room would know that NATO also violated the UN pact, Section Seven. They have done so many times, among others, when they bombed the then Yugoslavia in 1999.
Back then, Yugoslavia had some criminal people who tried to murder ethnic Serbs in the region of Kosovo, and therefore NATO chose, in violation of international law, chose to attack Yugoslavia, what is now Serbia, and kill innocent Serbian children. That back then, Maersk did not introduce sanctions against NATO countries, and I'm sure people out here in the streets would call you hypocrites and talk about double standards. I would just say that I'm surprised, and I would like to know why do you believe that Serbian children's lives are worth less than Ukrainian children's lives? I think that's remarkable, and frankly, it makes me sad because I don't believe that. One way of avoiding that a shareholder should have to decide whether they believe some children are worth more than other children.
There would be that Maersk did not go into politics and focus on making money instead. That mean you could let merchants be merchants and let politicians be politicians. I must say that would be the best solution. I would even dare to ask, are Russian lives worth less? Because now, a lot of employees in Maersk in Russia are facing a very uncertain future, and they risk losing their jobs. That's my question. Wouldn't it be better to let politicians, not that I respect them to a great extent, but that would be their job to decide what sanctions need to be introduced, and then companies can focus on creating value for shareholders when it comes to the situation in Ukraine, because then you would avoid this whole question about dead Serbian children and so on.
My second question is about the sustainability report and about the gender distribution. I realize that you are bound by politics. It has been adopted that you have to, as a company of a certain size, you simply have to account for your plans for how to up the part of the under-representative gender in executive management. The underrepresented gender, at least in Denmark, is women. Apart from complying with legal requirements and accounting for how you're going to do this, you're not really bound by any obligations as such. Therefore, I would like to know what you really think, because my understanding is that if you want to increase the portion of women, that would be at the expense of the amount of men.
You can't help thinking that perhaps the women who join management would be less competent than the men who did not get into executive management. That's a pity. It's a shame to the women who are given these positions because of course there are competent women who are capable of filling out these positions. Wouldn't it be better if the shareholders could be certain that the people in executive management and in boardrooms are the most competent persons, no matter their gender? I think this is a violation against women as well as men if you try to give women the benefit over men, even if they are not the most competent, or most qualified. I would like to hear an answer to this because I can't see any firm obligations in legislation.
You have to set some targets, and you can think about that what you want, but that's not the issue here. The issue here today is how Maersk is going to implement this. As I see it, you comply with these rules simply by mentioning that you have some plans in this regard. As a shareholder, I of course believe that you need the most competent persons to run your business, and you could get the a priori impression that it is the most competent people when you look at the results, the financial results from last year. Of course, it also has symbolic value if you announce plans that you want to assign management positions to people based solely on their gender and not their qualifications. That was about the sustainability report. My third question is about the green transition.
Here I also understand that you are playing at politics here without it being substantiated in any business reason. You make changes to the way you do business here and again, I would like some further explanation because you can transition your business in many ways based on politics. There are just as many attitudes towards how to run a business as there are people in this room. So why do you specifically believe that you need to pursue CO2 emissions and that it should be the basis for changing your business? You could change your business to make sure that we create a vaccine for malaria, thus saving millions of children in Africa. There are plenty of options. Why do you pursue that particular target?
Finally, I would like to point out that I'm not sure that it's a positive thing that you receive such praise from an infamous communist. Let that be. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Rasmus Paludan . There were three concrete questions here, and Søren Skou, the CEO, will respond to these questions.
Thank you very much for these three questions. Let me start by saying that A.P. Møller - Maersk is a value-based and purpose-driven company, and we believe that we need to create value not just for our shareholders, we have to, of course, but we also need to create value for our employees, for our customers, and for the societies that we are part of. To us, it is not just about making the maximum amount of money. Of course, that might disappoint some shareholders, but those who have a long-term perspective will appreciate that. When it comes to gender distribution and the sustainability report, I also must say that we believe in diversity. We believe that we get the best teams making the best decisions in the briefest possible time by having people of different genders, races, nationalities and so on.
We want to be a company that looks like our customers, and we are a global company operating in more than 130 countries, and they are not all white men. I have to say it straight up like that. We need to mirror the societies we work in, and I'm sure that is our choice. I'm interested in the green transition. In A.P. Møller - Maersk, we are absolutely convinced that we have a climate crisis in this world. We also realize that we are part of the problem because we emit more CO2 as a company than the country of Denmark, actually more because we operate 700 ships around the world. We are also a part of the solution because no one is better positioned than us to find solutions.
We've been on that journey since 2018. Back then, we set a target that we didn't know how to reach. Now we have the pathway. Now we start investing. It is also a business decision for us because many of our customers would like to have the opportunity to purchase carbon neutral logistics solutions. More than half of our customers have already set their own goals of how to bring down their emissions and reach net zero, and they can only do that if what we deliver and provide them with is carbon neutral. We're already selling a carbon neutral product based on biofuel, and we sell a lot of this product. We are actually only limited by how much biofuel we can get.
There is also a very good business reason for why we need to pursue these goals, and that means that I'm back where we started, the value-based and purpose-driven company that wants to create value also for the societies we are part of and the world that we live in. Chart.
Thank you to the CEO, Søren Skou, for responding to these three questions from Rasmus Paludan. Our next speaker is Björn Hansen. Go ahead.
The name of Björn Hansen. Thank you. My name is Björn Hansen, and I'm one of the satisfied shareholders. I'm a very satisfied shareholder after this year's or last year's results. I want to thank both the board of directors and the CEO, top management, and all the very capable employees, because you cannot re-create results like this if you're just four people on a board or 10 people in another corner. This is all teamwork, and you're Danish champions in teamwork, maybe even European champions. It's an impressive result. The chairman has already mentioned it. I think the chairman made a very good report, and also the CEO, Søren Skou, did a good report. You're both really good guys. I have some questions. A.P. Møller - Maersk and the other parts of the group have delivered a record result. The result, in US dollars, is just under $18 billion.
According to the Swedish bank Nordnet, that's more than DKK 110 billion. I don't know which conversion rate they use. Even though there's a very unfair tax case running in the Danish High Court at the moment, that is a case that will affect all Danish companies, not just Maersk. I don't know how that case will end, but something tells me that also international companies, for instance, oil companies, haven't been taken to court by the Danish tax authorities. I don't understand why the Danish tax authorities don't also go after American oil companies, but they go after Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller, or rather A.P. Møller - Maersk. Total in France has taken over Maersk Drilling, and we all thought that this was a good deal, that it was a good deal for the shareholders.
The tax authorities suddenly pull skeletons out of the closet, whether it's before or after World War II, they don't care. I'm trying to ask, I mean, some legal person must be able to explain to me how the seafarers' rights rules and the convention for the maritime convention is that even followed when we consider that it's an area which is in the ocean by the Arabian Peninsula and off the coast of Africa. I don't know whether it'll be the Mississippi Delta next time or what. There's something there I don't understand. I hope we'll get some newsletters about this, and that it's taken further to the maritime convention. I guess there's not much EU law in this, but there must be something. My second question, investors can expect dividends of DKK 2,500 per share when approved by the AGM today.
That shows what the family Maersk Møller believes when they talk about paying out dividends year after year, no matter what the result, whether there's a profit or loss. There are not many companies that pay out dividends no matter what. I wish Robert Maersk Uggla, who will probably be the new chairman of the board, with him and the management, congratulations with this, and good that it will continue like this, and that the Danish tax authorities and the old communists won't come after you. Thirdly, A.P. Møller - Maersk has done very well in transitioning from old to new IT systems. I think we can thank the chair very much for that because he has shown courage and has had support also from the Maersk family. I think it's excellent.
That digital transition is happening, so what you might have been lagging behind, you have now made up. In except in a few areas. I think both in the implementation and in Søren Skou's efforts to get it spread into every corner is impressive. Question three A. I have also noted that Robert Maersk Uggla says to the media that it's better to change course late instead of doing nothing. Which targets does Maersk have for the next years or decades when you look more than two years into the future? Robert Maersk Uggla is a Swedish citizen, and that's good. Also because there are some different tax rules in Sweden, where you don't get ripped off by the Danish tax authorities. According to the press, the...
We're talking about huge amounts of money where things go in different directions when it comes to oil taxes. What does management have to say? I mean, Arnold Peter Møller got the concession rights for North Sea oil, so is that how the Danish state thanks the company now, decades later? The speaker's referring to things that occurred in 1922 and 1964, and the interpreter apologizes, but it's completely unclear what he is alluding to. There's a Danish article about Søren Skou's challenges currently. The chairman is interrupting and asking Mr. Björn Hansen to see if he's getting closer to the end. He's now referring to the freight rates for container freights. There I want to praise Mr. Søren Skou for raising the share price to a level which we haven't dreamed of.
The B share price was DKK 9,606 in November 2019, and we have seen a stable share development since then. I must say, you have achieved performance that very few Danish companies have been able to achieve. Maersk has also invested in deep-sea drilling or deep drillings for warm water in Aarhus and Aalborg here in Denmark. I want to ask, when can you deliver warm water from the ground to Danish households? We hear very little about thermals, and I think it's a very interesting project. I would love to hear if there's any news about that. Was that the last comment? Mr. Björn Hansen asks the chairman of the AGM. Mr. Björn Hansen says he has 10 questions in total.
Well, we would like to hear all the questions, says the chairman, but could you maybe be brief? Oh, are we going to have lunch? says Mr. Hansen.
I would like to talk a bit about P&O Nedlloyd, the ship owners. They were German, then British, then French, Portuguese. What will Maersk do when it comes to publishing annual reports? Will it be in Danish or which language? I also remember Maersk Post. I think I became quite brief there, but I would like to get more information. That was your last part? Asks the chairman. No, but you can read the rest after school, says Mr. Björn Hansen.
Thank you very much to Mr. Björn Hansen, and I give the floor to the chairman to comment.
Thank you. There were a number of comments and also some kind words. Thank you for those. There were also various considerations about taxes and maritime law.
I've already mentioned we pay tonnage tax, and there's a tax court case about Maersk Oil where we don't know the outcome yet. Thank you for your support for Robert and for our payout of dividends. You commended me for the work in the digital transformation. I cannot take credit for that. It's management and the 5,000 IT workers who have really moved us forward there. There was even more praise for Søren, also in the development of the share price. Then we got to drilling for hot water. I want to emphasize that it's not A.P. Møller - Maersk that does that, but A.P. Møller Holding. So a different company than the AGM company today. So you won't hear about that here today. Finally, there was a question about languages, and I can say that our company language is English.
Our annual reports and annual accounts are in English, but of course, we ensure that our AGM is in Danish. Thank you.
Thank you to the Chairman of the Board for his response to Björn Hansen. We cannot forget that we have an audience behind the screens as well, and I have already introduced the voice of the shareholders, and we will take some of those questions now. The first question we have received is from Erik Petersen, and Erik Petersen will now speak through the voice of the shareholder.
The question is, can the beneficial taxation for sea transport also be valid for land transport? I give the floor to the Chairman of the Board for a response.
Thank you for that question. I can answer that very easily because the taxation at sea only takes place at sea, and we cannot have that apply to land transport.
It will be taxed after ordinary and current taxation rules in the countries where we operate.
Thank you for that. That was the reply for Mr. Erik Petersen. Our next speaker online is Klaus O. Ringbøl. Once again, I give the floor to the shareholder's voice.
His question is, how often do you test your emergency preparedness plans when it comes to cyber attacks? That is a question for Søren Skou to answer.
Thank you for that question. We have, ever since we were hit by a very extensive cyber attack back in 2017, we have done a lot. Most important of all, we have put together a world-class cyber team with more than 200 colleagues. We have built the highest fence we could possibly build.
What's more important, we have increased our ability of detecting and stopping and isolating attacks to the individual computer that has been attacked. Finally, we have increased our capacity to rebuild our when computers or networks have been hit by cyber attacks. Therefore, today, we are in a very strong position in, when it comes to this agenda. Of course, there is a rapid development in this field and we need to constantly improve, and therefore we do what many other companies do. We test, and we have third parties test our defenses when it comes to our cyber attack. I cannot give you any more details due to obvious security reasons.
Thank you very much to the CEO, Søren Skou, for that reply.
There is one more shareholder joining us online, Jens Søndergaard, who has asked a question, and I will give the floor to the shareholder's voice.
Will A.P. Møller - Maersk continue to invest in robotics, and will you also invest in companies who produce CO₂ neutral fuels? That is also a question for CEO Søren Skou to answer.
As regards robotics, I think that it's a misunderstanding because in A.P. Møller - Maersk we do not engage in or invest in any robotics companies. We look at how we can source green fuel for our container ships, and of course, we need to build a new energy system. Today, we have an energy system based on fossil fuels, and tomorrow we need a system based on renewable energy, and that requires many new investments.
We don't have any current plans of becoming a company with a business selling green fuels, but perhaps we need to take initiatives to promote that kind of development. So far, we entered into 6 agreements last week with suppliers of green fuels that hopefully can give us what we need once our ships are being delivered in 2024 and 2025.
Thank you very much for Jens Senderovitz
She asks simply that she would like to hear more about drilling and water from underground, and that's a question for our chairman.
I'm not sure what you mean with drilling, because Maersk Drilling is no longer part of the A.P. Møller - Maersk Group.
It has become an independent company, and therefore, we don't have any information about that. Just like I said before, the drilling for water is not an activity under A.P. Møller–Maersk. It's an activity under A.P. Møller Holding, which is one of the owners of A.P. Møller–Maersk. Thank you.
Thank you very much to our chairman, and that brings me back to our speakers in the room. Our next speaker in the room is Jens Frederik Demant.
Jens Frederik Demant.
Jens Frederik Demant.
Thank you. My name is Jens Frederik Demant, and I take the floor because of the proposal to give indemnification to the board, and I don't think that's correct. One of the reasons given is that insurance is so expensive. If you behave properly, there's nothing to fear. If you feel that you are entering a gray area, as a member of the board, you need to stay away from that gray area. I don't approve of all this indemnification of board and management members. I cannot vote for that proposal.
Thank you very much, Mr. Demant. The chairman has a comment.
Thank you for that. It's not that anyone is shunning a responsibility, because we have a great responsibility in the board and in the management. It's about dealing with possible lawsuits.
We have the possibility of having insurance here, but those insurances have gone up price-wise. This is about being able to defend the company in a given situation. Of course, we are always staying on the right side of the law. That is our responsibility in the board. We are not trying to shun any responsibility. We are just keeping our options open for handling any possible lawsuits.
Thank you to the chairman for that response. The next speaker is Mr. Lars Wismann.
I'll be brief, briefer than ATP, at least. I met Søren Skou two years ago in Børsen Executive Club, and I went home with a very good feeling. We hear we had leadership of the kind we want to see. About a year ago, I bought 25 shares in A.P. Møller - Maersk, and I've been very pleased with that investment.
Before I came here today, I read the annual accounts, and I saw the video conference, which is available online. I thought about Michael Banks and the wonderful scene in Mary Poppins where he's in the bank, and they ask, "Do you want to invest your tuppence? Because for a tuppence, you'll get the ship, you'll get new technology, you'll get green energy, port terminals, warehouses, supply chains from customer to customer." That's exactly what we get as shareholders when we put our money in A.P. Møller shares. We buy into a better life for a lot of people, because where I studied at Copenhagen Business School, we learned about competitive edges, about producing where it's best and cheapest, and then you transport to where you can sell at the best price. You may ask, what about the future?
Well, the future is like love and marriage, that the joy of expecting something is the greatest joy. If you have trust in the future, and I have trust in Søren Skou, and I may very well go home this afternoon and again look how much money I got in pocket money this month and buy some more shares, b ecause the gigantic results in container freight at the moment. I mean, when the freight rates go down, what will happen I think is that we have gone further in the transformation. Our price earnings will increase. Our internal cost, price value will go down, and we may reach a price much more like DSV. If you want to know about that, go home and do calculations on DSV. Now, about taxes.
I also thought, "How can we earn $118 billion and only pay $4 billion in taxes?" My dividends go into my holding company. When I then pay out from the holding company, I need to pay taxes on that. I pay 22% in company tax, and then I pay money in investment taxes, and then we go to Tivoli and spend our money. I do have one question to the board, and that's the selection of the chairman of the AGM. Mr. Niels Kornerup is a partner in the law company, Bech-Bruun, and they are involved in a lawsuit at the moment where the Danish state has been swindled for DKK 22 billion. Couldn't we select a different attorney at law as the chairman of the AGM next year? Because there are plenty of lawyers in town.
It should be possible to find somebody who's not a partner in a firm with such a tainted reputation. They actually do not deny that they did offer the counsel which they are accused of. One last thing. While we've been having the general meeting, some of you may only be thinking about money, but our share price has increased by 12 percentage points this morning. I have about DKK 30,000 of shares, and it feels very good to have seen this increase throughout the morning. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mr. Lars Wismann, and I give the floor to the chair.
Thank you. I just want to comment about what you said about our chairman of the AGM. Mr.
Niels Kornerup has been our Chairman for many years, and I take issue with the description you just gave of him. He has our trust. If the share price goes up when we have a general meeting, maybe we should stay a bit longer now. Just a few hours.
Thank you to the Chairman. The next speaker is Steffen Rolland.
My name is Steffen Rolland. I've had the pleasure of following this company from afar for 25 years, since the end of the 1990s. For many years, I would come to Svendborg, and we would visit Maersk there and had a good, great time. The first couple of years, we were only 30 or 40 shareholders. Every year, you would say hi to Söderberg, the CEO for many years, and also Mr. Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller. He would go around saying hello to the retired employees who would live there, and it was all a lot of fun and very, very special. In recent years, Søren Skou and Jim Snabe have run our company with great skill, and I would like to thank you for a very impressive annual report, a good report by the chairman.
It was particularly interesting to hear your account of the last six years when you've been chairman on the board and what you have achieved with your very competent board and management. Maersk has always been a company in Denmark with stature. There's always been a special atmosphere surrounding Maersk. It has pervaded Maersk, this very special spirit, for all of the years that I've been following the company, and it has been evident in everything you do. Just this, take the star itself, the logo. Maersk has always been a star company here in Denmark. It's been evident in everything you've been doing and in your value, in your values, in your annual accounts. The design of the ships was something that Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller was very interested in. The shipyard in Lindø was very dear to Mr.
Maersk, and it was with great sadness that he had to close it down. As you said, it was with great sadness that they had to lay off 600 employees at the Lindø shipyard, and now a company from Fredericia has taken over. Your values have always been evident in your responsibility and your training of your employees. It's always been important to Maersk to give their employees the best possible training, the best training in the shipping industry. Maersk staff is very attractive to all other shipping companies. We can see how our COO has just landed a job in Mediterranean Shipping Company, which is thankfully our partner. We've also seen a display of your values when it comes to accidents. As the chairman said, four deaths is four deaths too many in our company.
In 2021, we have seen that our 95,000 employees have been working unusually hard. They've had a very busy year with many problems and the huge ports in China that weren't able to process ships fast enough because there were so many goods that needed to be loaded onto container ships. Just loading the goods on container ships in China and getting it transported to the U.S. and Europe, it has been very challenging, and it's been very challenging also to our employees at sea. Our seafarers is something we don't focus on enough. We focus a lot on the transformation of the company, the digitization that has taken place the past six years. I think we should be extremely proud of our 8,000-10,000 seafarers.
Those are the ones who have done the hardest work during 2021. Previously, you would be working three months at a row in, on a ship, and then you would have three months off. You would be able to take a plane home, and you would have three months off back in Svendborg or whatever town in Denmark you would be from. No matter where you're from, you would be transported to your hometown after three months of hard work on the large ships. Due to the COVID situation, it's been very, very difficult for Maersk to transport people to their home cities during the regular roster.
I don't know whether you have shifted to a two months on and two months off schedule, but I know that our seafarers have been on board up to five or six months at a time without seeing their families. It's been difficult for Maersk as well, but I think this is extraordinarily burdensome for our seafarers. I would like to ask you how you have rewarded these people. If your schedule is two months, will you get overtime payment after those first two months? Or how are they rewarded for this overtime that they have been working? They have been working so much, unreasonably much in 2021 due to COVID restrictions in countries all over the world, and how have you rewarded them, that extraordinary effort and that very loyal effort from our seafarers in accordance with applying rules?
I hope they have received double pay for from day one of their overtime. That was one question. Another thing that we have talked about today is our investment. For many years, we've had Mr. Stig Frederiksen to be Head of Investor Relations in Maersk because management cannot deal with foreign foundations and pension funds and so on, who constantly want dialogue with management and board about what they expect and how to read the financial statements and so on. What is your strategy? That is what Stig Frederiksen has been doing. He is a previous top analyst for the Danish bank, Danske Bank, and he's a very nice and competent guy, and he has now chosen to leave the company. If you would go on the website, he would be the only investor contact.
When I look at the websites of German companies of your size, there will be at least three contacts, perhaps four people, in the investor relations department. The fact that you only have Stig Frederiksen displayed on the investor relations side of your website is. Does that mean that Stig Frederiksen has been doing this job alone for the past two years? Because in that case, I can understand why he would be stepping down if he had to do all of that himself. That was my second question. I would like to say that for all of the years I've been following Maersk, I've also been following the German car industry.
Therefore, I'm glad that we have a chairman who understands the greatest economy in Europe because he has been working with SAP and other large German companies, and he's also on the board of many German companies. They are far more professional than Danish companies. However, with the exception of Maersk, perhaps. They have a different kind of generosity towards their owners. When you're at an AGM in Germany, you almost feel like you're received as royalty. That might be exaggerating a bit, but you are really pampered. Here, there's a Danish cheapness about these AGMs in Denmark. You might serve some refreshments, some water or coffee or tea, but that's really not sufficient. Are we almost there? The chairman of the AGM asks. I think we should want to see some more generosity when you only meet once a year.
Just serving refreshments and, well, not beer, but just some water and coffee and tea, that's not enough. That's too cheap. The same goes for our annual report. Jim Hagemann Snabe has been Chairman for the past few years, and during that time, you have stopped publishing your annual report in Danish. If there was anything that Mr. Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller would stand guard for, it was our Danish language. We had to mind our Danish roots being a small country. He and his father, and his many employees had achieved the creation of one of the world's biggest shipping companies, but he really always stood firm on his Danish roots. He would never dream of not publishing his annual report in Danish, and I propose that you do the same.
Thank you very much, and I give the floor to the Chairman.
Thank you to Steffen Rolland . I'm glad to hear that you've been following our company for so many years. I'm going to focus on two simple issues here. One of them was Germany and the AGMs there. As the chairman of Siemens, an AGM there will take at least 8 hours, perhaps 10 hours. That could perhaps be a tradition. I can't recommend it, though, but it's a long day. I would also like to point out that once we are done here today, there are, in fact, some refreshments served out front that you can take with you. We actually also opened up our museum, if you want to look back further than the 25 years you mentioned here and look at 118 years of history in this company. We do try to take care of our shareholders here today.
When it comes to the languages, we are today a very international company. Even in our executive management, we have an international team, and therefore we want to make sure that everyone understand what's going on. Our corporate language is English. Perhaps we could translate our annual report into Danish. The future board of directors will have to decide on that. Oh, and Søren as well. Søren has something to add.
Thank you for the question about the schedule for our seafarers. You are quite right. It was a huge problem in 2020, but also well into 2021 due to travel restrictions and closed borders, the lack of flights. It was very difficult for us to ensure that our seafaring colleagues be transported to and from the ships.
Of course, we did everything we could to compensate them for this extra work they had to the extent that they had to stay on for longer. First of all, by giving them a longer time off once they got home, because that's basically what they need. We've done a lot to try to reach out to politicians because seafarers are critical employees for global trade, and we have to make sure that our seafarers can get to and from the ships. When it comes to investor relations, yes, Stig Frederiksen is leaving the company by the end of this month after five or six years, having done a great job. We have found his replacement, and we are upgrading our team on the investor relations side, and I have proposed that we have more telephone...
I take note of the proposal you give here for several telephone numbers on our website. Thank you very much to the Chairman and CEO for answering these questions. Now, I have a few more speakers, and I propose, due to the time, restrictions, that we will close the speakers list here. Our next speaker is then Bent Højgaard Pedersen. Bent Højgaard Pedersen.
Højgaard, yeah. Højgaard.
Bent Højgaard Pedersen.
Thank you. My name is Bent Højgaard Pedersen. We talked about connections to the company. I started at the so-called Pure Lysewerk in 1960, and I worked in Maersk Oil and Maersk Drilling, which has all been divested now. About this company, they had, there were earlier companies, Svendborg in 1912. No employees. The daily decisions were made by A.P. Møller. They also didn't own the buildings here on Esplanaden. It was all handled by the company A.P. Møller. My question is, are the employees now in this company, and do you own the building here on Esplanaden? Depending on the answer to the question, I have a follow-up question. How do you account between the companies? I'm noting that Robert Uggla will be on both sides of the table when negotiating that.
How do you handle that, wearing two hats?
Thank you, Mr. Højgaard Pedersen, and Søren Skou will respond to that.
Well, I can do it quickly because the company A.P. Møller
Was closed down relatively shortly after Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller died in 2012. I was a partner and co-owner of the company at the time, but today we have a normal business construction with a management employed by the company and a board of directors monitoring everything. There was also a question about being independent and trading between the companies. Of course, a quoted company adheres to the related party transaction rules. If you trade between companies, which you relatively rarely do, there are rules governing this, of course, on market terms. We are very focused on complying with all the rules, and we have an audit committee on the board of directors to always keep an eye on this.
Thank you to the Chairman and the CEO for their replies. The next speaker, who is the second to last, is Mr. Rasmus Paludan for a brief comment.
Thank you to Søren Skou for answering three of my questions. It's nice to know that you are not just interested in earning money, but also in values. Then you must also be able to defend the values and answer questions about them as they're part of the package. I have two brief supplementary questions. One is, when you're against the attack on Ukraine, what sort of wars are you then supporters of? Because apparently it's okay to kill Serbian children.
The chairman interrupts and says, "That's not relevant." We will not go into a debate about this on the general meeting. Would you ask your next question?
Well, my next question is, Søren Skou mentioned that one of the values in Maersk is diversity, that that is a value. You believe that people of different races working together is a positive thing. My question is, I mean, I'm not that interested in race. I mean, that's not something anyone can control. When Maersk sees it as a value that people work together across races or different eye colors or whatever, why? Why is that a value? I mean, it's not something, it's not where somebody has actually made an effort about anything. Comment?
I would like to make it very clear that the reason why we have a diversity strategy is because we think it's a business benefit for us. That's the brief response.
With that, we get to this item, and that's somebody at home at the screen, Michael Frederik Hundfjord. I give the floor to the shareholder's voice.
The question is: Why does Maersk use sustainable fuel instead of electric ships? Wouldn't it be possible to have ships driven by batteries? Søren Skou will answer.
The great challenge we have with batteries on ships is weight. A large container ship today has an engine that has almost 100,000 horsepower. If we had to get to that with batteries, half the ship would have to be taken up by batteries. We'd lose the benefits of large ships. We need to have fuels we can use in the combustion engines we already have on the ships.
That's a good thing because it means we can continue using our technology with a different kind of fuel. It means that over the next 10 years, we cannot just buy, build new ships with, to use green fuel, but also change existing ships to use green fuel, and that is very beneficial. Thank you very much, Søren Skou. That brings us to the end of the debate on the first items on the agenda. Based on that, and based on the proxies and postal votes we have received and the represented shareholders, the report has been adopted. Also adopted the annual report for 2021, granted discharge to the directors, adopted appropriation of profits, and adopted a remuneration report for 2021. That will appear from the minutes.
Thus, we have finished items A, B, C, D, and E. That brings us on. We have finished that item on the agenda, so there's nothing more to comment on that. Next item on the agenda is election of members for the board of directors. As you can see from the company notice of 15th February of this year, Chairman Jim Hagemann Snabe has decided not to run for re-election, so he leaves the board at this general meeting. In this context, I give the floor to Mrs. Ane Maersk Mc-Kinney Uggla.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to briefly thank our chairman. Jim, I think I can rightfully say that the past six years have been very special, very busy, exciting, and challenging for all of us in the business and in, on the board, and quite a few sleepless nights.
Since the strategy of a new structure in integrated container logistics company was decided in 2016, a lot has happened. You became Chairman of the Board in 2017, and that's something we have very much appreciated, not least I myself have appreciated that greatly. You have given your total commitment to the board. You have worked systematically, and you have great technological know-how. You have inspired us, and you have strengthened the company's governance structure. That's the more boring part of things in my book. You have been impatient for, and patient, and you have executed cleverly in all the dilemmas which are involved in such a process. You have just, in your report, described the development of the business, a business on a journey, a business in constant transformation.
A more than 100-year history is repeating itself, always in correlation with global conditions which we can't always predict. In the middle of all that work, you have had deep respect for our values, and I'm talking about the values we have received and inherited through the family and which were written down in 2003. With constant care, humbleness, uprightness, our people, our name, our employees. You have always put A.P. Møller - Maersk at the center. The company is number one. Thank you for your hard work as chairman. Thank you for our close and trusting cooperation.
Thank you very much to Ane Maersk Mc-Kinney Uggla. Pursuant to the articles of association, article three, there is a two-year election period for members of the board. Besides Jim Hagemann Snabe, also Ane Maersk Mc-Kinney Uggla, Robert Maersk Uggla, Blythe Masters, Thomas Lindegaard Madsen, and Jacob Andersen Sterling will also step down. We propose re-election of Robert Maersk Uggla and Thomas Lindegaard Madsen, and we propose the board proposes election of Julija Voitiekute and Marika Fredriksson. The candidature of Marika Fredriksson is based on the competencies of the board, and the nomination committee has nominated, and a unanimous board has proposed Marika Fredriksson as new member of the board. As it appears from the notice, Marika has management and board experience from international listed companies within industry and technology. With her financial and economic background, she will be able to contribute with strong competencies to the board.
Marika Fredriksson is seen as an independent member of the board if she is elected by the general meeting. Julija Voitiekute is an employee in A.P. Møller - Maersk. She works as a Senior Decarbonization Integration Manager here at the head office. Julija Voitiekute is elected as an employee representative in the shipping company A.P. Møller - Maersk A/S. Here it's the tradition that the employee elected members in the shipping company also sit on the board of A.P. Møller - Maersk. Julija Voitiekute will not be seen as an independent member of the board if she is elected. As the chairman mentioned in his report, the board of directors expect to appoint Robert Maersk Uggla as chairman and Marc Engel as vice chairman on the first board meeting, of course, if the general meeting elects them as candidates for the board.
Let me ask if there are any other candidates for the board? That means that Rasmus Paludan is putting himself forward as a candidate for the board. I can inform you that
The executive positions of the candidates can be seen from the candidate list. There is now one more candidate, which is Rasmus Paludan. With the votes that I have already received, including from the parent company, I can say that you will not be successful. Therefore, there's no reason to have a vote. I can then simply note that Robert Maersk Uggla and Thomas Lindegaard Madsen have been re-elected as members of the Board, while Julija Voitiekute and Marika Fredriksson have been elected to the Board. Congratulations to all of you, and good luck. The Board will now consist of Robert Maersk Uggla, Marc Engel, Amparo Moraleda, Arne Karlsson, Bernard L. Bot, Julija Voitiekute, and Marika Fredriksson, and Thomas Lindegaard Madsen. That concludes this item on the agenda and leads me to item G, which is the election of auditor.
Pursuant to Article seven in the Articles of Association, the company's auditor is elected for one year until the next AGM. As it appears from the notice, the company has had a tender process when it comes to the auditor of the company this year. This tender process was carried out by the audit committee that assessed two audit companies based on selected criteria. On the background of this process, the audit committee nominated PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit Company to be re-elected as the company's auditor. The board therefore proposes re-election of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and I need to ask whether there are any other candidates for the company auditors. That is not the case, and that means that PricewaterhouseCoopers have been re-elected as the company auditor. That brings us to item H, which is deliberation of any proposals submitted by the board of directors or shareholders. There are four proposals.
Item one, about extraordinary dividend to the shareholders. The company share capital to be decreased. Three, about indemnification of board and management members, and four, about remuneration policy. Item one first. The Board of Directors proposes that the company's Board be authorized until the end of next annual general meeting to declare extraordinary dividend to the company's shareholders. This authorization is a useful tool to ensure that the Board has the greatest flexibility when it comes to planning the company's payout of dividends to shareholders and dealing with the company's capital conditions. We need a simple majority for this proposal. Does anybody want the floor under this proposal? That's not the case. Also nobody at home with their screens? No. On the basis of that, and based on what we have already heard, that proposal has been adopted, and now you can applaud.
Some were a bit quick off the block there. That brings us to the next item, H 2. The board proposes that the company's share capital be decreased in accordance with the company's share buyback program as published. Again, it is proposed that the share capital is decreased by annulling some of the A and B shares in accordance with the buyback programs. I refer to the convening notice and just want to mention that a nominal of 668,855 shares in total are canceled. The capital reduction happens at a cost of DKK 1,705 and DKK 1,797 for A and B shares, respectively. The cost is calculated on the basis of an...
the average price the company has paid for the shares under the share buyback program. The share capital will then make up DKK 18,707,161,000. This proposal requires a two-thirds majority, and I want to ask whether anybody wants the floor. That does not seem to be the case, and based on what I've already received in proxies and postal votes, I can conclude that this proposal has also been approved. We will send out a statutory notice with a term of 4 weeks, and after that, the board will decide to execute the capital reduction, and that will be published in a company notice. That finishes H2 and brings us to item H3, which is the proposal about indemnification of the board management members.
I refer to the chairman's report and the convening notice, and I can mention that the Board specifically proposes that the company offers both the members of the Board and the members of the Management to be indemnified in case of cases from third parties in the cases where the company cannot get sufficient insurance. The Board proposes to indemnify the members of the Board and an authorization to decide indemnification for members of the Management on the same terms as what we call H3-1, but it's the same terms as indemnification of the Board members. As you can see in the convening notice, it has been more difficult in past years to get sufficient liability insurance because of limited capacity in the insurance market.
Since it is necessary to have sufficient coverage to attract and retain talented and experienced members of the board and management, it is in the interest of the shareholders and of the company to have an indemnity scheme. The detailed terms of the indemnification is described in the convening notice, and it includes that there's no indemnification if there's any sort of criminal activity, and the proposal also means that the board can make decisions about the detailed conditions here, also specific coverage. We just need simple majority for this proposal, so I want to ask whether there are any comments. Anybody wants the floor? There are two speakers who have asked for the floor. Jens Frederik Demant, go ahead. We already heard your comment earlier on.
Yes, I want to add. When I asked to come on to get the floor, I asked to get the floor under H3, so I got the floor too early. I just want to repeat my comment, and the chairman just said that it's just that we cover any legal costs if they are sued. I maintain my criticism, and I want to emphasize what I said before. I cannot vote for this proposal.
That is duly noted, Mr. Demant, and the reason why you were placed under this item or under the report was that the chairman mentioned this item specifically in his report, and therefore, we assumed that you wanted to take the floor immediately afterwards. Mr. Rasmus Paludan also wants to take the floor here. Go ahead.
I don't think it's decent when I protest the approval of the report that the chairman of the AGM just says that that item is concluded. Yes, we have concluded that debate and that it has nothing to do with the item. I'm speaking against. I would like to say something. Am I not allowed to say something about the proposal?
About indemnification, yes.
Thank you very much. I do not think that it is appropriate that people with a great responsibility for many other people's money are indemnified if they dispose over other people's money in an inadequate way. This is, of course, not a matter of any misconduct or criminal behavior, but I just don't think that a large company should say that if you act in an incompetent manner and that you are liable for that behavior, then we will just indemnify you for that behavior. I don't think that's right.
Thank you very much for that comment. There are no other speakers on the list, and I can therefore note that Mr. Demant will vote against the proposal. Does Mr. Demant want to take the floor again? I have noted that you will be voting against.
Yes, that one I'm opposed to. I said I couldn't vote in favor of it. I do not demand a vote.
Right. I note that you do not vote in favor of this proposal. Thank you for that clarification, Mr. Demant, and that leads me to conclude this item on the agenda. Does anyone else want to take the floor? That is not the case. On the basis of the remarks given, on the basis of the proxies and postal votes
I can note that the proposal has been adopted by the general meeting. That leads me to item H4, which is the Board's proposal for an updated remuneration policy based on the draft remuneration policy published on the company website and which was also enclosed in the convening notice. As it appears from the convening notice, the Board of Directors proposes to update the remuneration policy so that the Executive Management's long-term incentive program is changed from restricted shares and share options to performance shares from the calendar year 2023. At the same time, ESG targets are included. Until then, the existing remuneration policy that was adopted on the Annual General Meeting on the 23rd of March, 2020 will continue to apply for management's long-term incentive.
This update of the remuneration policy also includes indemnification of members of the board and executive management, which was adopted under the previous item, and that will be inserted into the remuneration policy. Otherwise, a number of language-wise and other minor substantive changes are proposed. I also refer to the Chairman's report, in which the Chairman mentioned that in the future, the Chairman's fee will be determined on the background of a multiple of the base fee for ordinary members of the board. The reason for this is for this not to be decided on separately on this AGM is that the fee of the Chairman is approved as part of the approval of the company's annual report.
Therefore, as the new Chairman's fee for the current year is only to be approved as part of the approval of the annual report for 2022, and it will thus be approved on next year's AGM. Does anybody else want to take the floor under this item? I can also tell you that this proposal requires a simple majority. Nobody wants to take the floor. On the basis of the incoming postal votes and proxies, I can simply note that the proposal has been adopted. We have now exhausted our agenda for today, and therefore, I would like to ask if anybody wants to take the floor for a final remark. That does not seem to be the case.
That means that we have reached the end of our agenda, and what is left for me to do is to step down as Chairman of the annual general meeting. I would like to thank you at this first partially electronic AGM for helping me navigate safely through the meeting and the proceedings today. I'll pass the floor back to the Chairman of the board.
Thank you very much to our Chairman, Niels Kornerup , for a job well done. There are not many chairman who have directed both a physical and a digital AGM at the same time. I think you succeeded very well in servicing both audiences. It's a long agenda, and it took a bit longer than we expected. To you, dear shareholders, thank you for coming to our AGM. It's lovely to meet physically again, but it's also great to see the interest people are showing in participating electronically. I will finish by thanking you for the support to A.P. Møller - Maersk and to our ambitious transformation. Reinventing a company like A.P. Møller - Maersk requires more than just the right strategy and the right team.
It also requires the right owners who see the opportunities in our dreams for the future and who are willing to invest in the vital details. We call it constant care. Today was a special day in our history. We have shown that the course is right, we know the destination, and with today's change in generation, we are ready for the next phase in our reinvention. From a position of strength. I want to say thank you and wish the new Chairman, the company, and the employees all the best. Look after A.P. Møller - Maersk and our values. With that, I say thank you, and I conclude today's AGM. As many have come from far away, as I mentioned, we have provided some refreshments in the marquee outside, and we have opened our museum for those of you who might find that interesting.
Thank you all for today and have a safe journey home.