Good afternoon. Very welcome to Vestas' big office in Aarhus. It's a pleasure to have you all here. My name is Bert Nordberg. I'm Chairman of the Board of Directors, and I'd like to extend a warm welcome to all of you to Vestas' Annual General Meeting 2022. To those who have accepted the invitation to meet us today in our headquarters in Aarhus and those who are joining online, you're also welcome. The Board and I have been looking forward very much to meeting you in person again, after two annual general meetings under the COVID restrictions. In my upcoming address, I will be discussing Vestas 2021, the performance and the opportunities that lie ahead for our business.
Before this, I would like to invite, as always, Klaus Søgaard from Gorrissen Federspiel, to lay out the formalities today so we can ensure that everything runs as scheduled. Klaus, over to you.
Thank you very much. It's also a great pleasure for me to again be here in front of a live audience. It's much more fun with a live audience than just looking into a camera. I have a formal role. I have to ensure that the meeting has been convened in a timely basis and is competent for this transaction of the business. I have already checked that, but I want to mention some of the rules. They're both in the Danish Companies Act and in the articles of association of the company. In the articles of association, it's primarily in paragraph four. It says that the AGM has to be in the Jutland area or the capital of Denmark. That is the case. It has to be convened in a timely basis, both by direct mail and in a company notice.
We did all this on the fourth of March, so all is in place. I've also checked that everything is available on the website and has been available for the time it needs to be available, namely three weeks. Shareholders can ask to get proposals on the agenda, but they have to send it in at the latest six weeks before the AGM. No proposals have come in, neither before nor after that deadline, so there are no shareholder proposals on the agenda. I can conclude that we have been convened correctly. We also don't have any particular things on the agenda this year. No changes to the articles of association, for instance. Everything can be adopted by a simple majority. 287 access passes have been issued. Of those, 130 to shareholders.
123 shareholders have arrived, and the shareholders who have turned up represent 6 million votes in total. Quite a few have voted in postal votes already. The votes that have been posted already represent 389 million votes. More than 90% of the votes that have been cast have been in support of the proposals on the agenda today. The proposals on the agenda today will be adopted, but of course we will still have a good debate if we like, but we don't need to have an actual vote, even though we now have our phones ready to vote. You can take all the technicalities home to practice for next year, maybe.
As per usual, the first items on the agenda will be covered en bloc, and they will be presented by the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Bert Nordberg, and then he will give the floor to CEO Henrik Andersen, and then I will direct the rest of the AGM. Already have three speakers who want the floor later on, but for now, I give the floor to Mr. Bert Nordberg.
I thought I was an old-timer standing here after 10 years, but Klaus has been here over 20, so he wins again. Dear shareholders, when I addressed you this time last year, I reflected on the unprecedented disruption that impacted our industry and our business throughout the pandemic. I also shared that despite this disruption, the outlook for the renewable industry remained bright. As I look back over 2021, I'm pleased to share that this outlook has only grown more prosperous, supported by increasingly ambitious political pledges that predict growth for wind energy, and it's going to be big.
Over the past year, our more than 29,000 Vestas colleagues showed tremendous spirit and resilience, ensuring that our underlying performance remained strong throughout the unprecedented circumstances. We successfully increased our revenue, maintained a strong backlog, and continued the industry-leading growth of our service business. Our offshore business is now fully integrated, and our new development units have successfully begun to capture more value across the renewable value chain. We also reached a big, hugely important milestone in our sustainability journey. Vestas now holds the title of the most sustainable company in the world. This is a small snapshot into the strong strategic progress we have made. We are, however, facing some pressing challenges at present. A bumpy macroeconomic landscape has highly impacted our profitability, making it tough to translate these achievements back into our value to our shareholders.
Supply chain disruptions, cost inflation, and significant increase in raw material cost is just some of the contributing factors to this challenging situation. There is no doubt that we must focus on strengthening our foundation in 2022, and we have already taken steps towards this with a strategic reprioritization of our activities. Through this, we aim to mitigate the impact of the disruptive externalities and ensure Vestas is ready to thrive in a prosperous future. The COP26 summit spurred a renewed global focus on the urgent need for sustainable energy transition. Several nations committed to ambitious climate pledges, including the phasing out of fossil fuels. The need for this transition is now more pressing than ever. On top of that, Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has triggered a chain reaction and events that place us firmly in another global energy crisis.
In addition to these tragic events that are unfolding in Ukraine, we are now seeing the energy security of several nations under threat. Behind it all, the climate crisis continues to push the looming deadline for 2030 towards us. This picture may look bleak, but we must not forget at Vestas, we hold an important solution in our hands. Our industry was born from the last global energy crisis. We view this moment as a chance to scale up. Maturing both our organization and our operation is critical to enhance our value creation. This means building on our strong underlying performance to address our profitability. As a testament to this performance, and before Henrik Andersen takes you through the result in detail, I would like to take a moment and reflect on the 2021 highlights.
We achieved a year-on-year increase of revenue to EUR 15.6 billion, despite continued supply chain challenges and with a high delivery level of 16.6 GW. We reached an EBIT margin of 3%, heavily impacted by disruption across the supply chain, causing cost inflation, material litigation, and higher warranty provision. We secured a total order intake of 13.9 GW and increased pricing throughout the year to protect value. Our backlog remains strong. It's EUR 18 billion with a +3 GW preferred supplier agreement signed for our new offshore platform. We successfully increased service revenue by 20%, and with a EUR 29 billion backlog, we are still the strongest service company in this industry. Vestas was named the most sustainable company in the world by Corporate Knights in their 18th Annual Global 100 Ranking.
Strategic progress with full integration of offshore, establishment of development business, and two investments in Vestas Ventures. These achievements have led to an expanded leadership position for Vestas. In the BNEF recent Global Wind Turbine Market Share Report, Vestas emerged as the clear market leader, delivering the largest share of under 100 GW of global installed capacity. Although this achievement signals a huge growth potential, we still cannot be satisfied with our overall performance. Our internal challenges with quality, combined with the external challenges, have led to an urgent focus on profitability. This year, we will sharpen our presence in key markets and strengthen focus on our core technologies. We will also identify opportunities to drive efficiency in our organization. Beyond this, we have increased pricing to better reflect the value creation of our solution.
This is key to step up to protect the industry profitability. Throughout this activity, we aim to enhance our value creation going forward and transfer this value back to you, our shareholders. In 2021, the Board of Directors continued to work closely with the executive management to ensure Vestas' strategy reflects the evolving renewable industry. To fully leverage the opportunities ahead, the Board has worked closely with the executive management to guarantee that Vestas refined strategic direction is reflected in our ongoing governance. It is crucial for us to have the right Board members to lead Vestas on its journey to become the global leader in sustainable energy solution. We also need a Board that creates long-term value, helping promote our values and enhance our company culture. After 10 years in Vestas, Lars Josefsson has decided that he will not stand for re-election.
Lars joined the Board at the same time as me, and has played a pivotal role in getting Vestas through the turnaround back then with his deep knowledge within R&D and his leadership. Lars has contributed hugely to making Vestas a technology leader and our efforts to drive industrialization he has led. He has served as chairman of the Technology & Manufacturing Committee for more than eight years, and as well as being a member of the Nomination & Compensation Committee, Lars has also been my co-pilot as a deputy until last year. I'd like to thank him for his long-term engagement and great value contribution to Vestas. I say thank you on behalf of Lars. He's on his way to the airport because SAS don't fly very late anymore.
Employee representative, Kim Hvid Thomsen, also recently announced that he will be stepping down as a member of the Board at the end of April. Kim's tenure in the Board is remarkable, and his insight and experience from Vestas organization has been of great value. I'd like to sincerely thank Kim for his 25 years in the Vestas Board and wish him the best luck on the future. Kim, thank you. As chairman, a key objective for me is to ensure that we have the right expertise reflected in the Board. On behalf of the Board, I'm delighted to propose Lena Olving as a new member of Vestas Board of Directors. With an extensive experience in driving technological innovation, I'm confident that Lena can be of value and a big value addition to the Board.
As an engineer by training, Lena has been driving technology development in the automotive industry for more than 40 years. She is awarded the Gold Medal for pioneering outstanding leadership within the tech sector from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering . She's so good, she has also been presented His Majesty the King's Medal of the 12th-s ize with blue ribbon for an outstanding effort in the Swedish business sector. To take over from Kim, I'm furthermore delighted to welcome Claus Skov Christensen as an Employee Representative from the 1st of May. In February 2021, the Board outlined a gender distribution target for 37.5%-62.5% among elected Board members. We committed to reaching this milestone no later than the Annual General Meeting in 2022, today, aligning our gender distribution with the definition of the Danish business authorities.
With the proposed candidates, the shareholder-elected Board members will consist of five male and three female members. Then when we add in the employee representative, we have two more females and two more male. With that, the Board will have fulfilled the gender distribution target as promised. Before sharing what the Board and I would like to prioritize for Vestas going forward, I would like to address the remuneration policy for the Board and executive management. The remuneration policy and remuneration report 2021 are available on the company website, but allow me to recap some key aspects. In 2021, the Board of Directors received a total remuneration of EUR 1.466 million. This was in accordance to the remuneration level that was approved by the shareholders in the Annual General Meeting in 2021.
As well as the remuneration policy, detailed information about the remuneration payments in 2021 is available in the remuneration report. The report will be presented for the advisory vote at the general meeting for the first time and in accordance to applicable law. With regards to remuneration of executive management, the Board continues to believe that a combination of fixed and performance-based compensation supports the company's short- and long-term value creation for shareholders. The purpose of the combined remuneration is to ensure motivation through the right incentives, the retention of top talents, and optimizing performance to align with Vestas' strategic focus area, on both an annual basis as well as toward a long-term value creation. Executive management remuneration is decided by the Board under the guideline outlined by the remuneration policy, includes four elements, salary, bonus, share-based incentive, and benefits.
In 2021, the CEO and CFO received a fixed remuneration of EUR 2.81 million compared to EUR 2.54 million in 2020. The CEO and CFO were allotted a total of 112,500 shares for 2021. These shares will be adjusted for performance in 2021, 2022, and 2023. For 2021, the performance adjustment is expected to be a reduction of 90% for 1/3 of the shares granted to the CEO and CFO. This applies for the 2019, 2020, and 2021 shares program. That concludes remuneration. If we go to Board evaluation, once a year, the Board evaluates our working methods, the result of our work, and the skills of our members, including whether each member is continuing to participate actively in the Board discussion and is able to contribute with independent judgment.
In 2021, this evaluation was facilitated externally by a consultancy company that works exclusively on the Board Effectiveness Review. Overall, the evaluation revealed that the Board's operational processes are working well, and that our dialogue is positive, constructive, direct, and without politics. Meetings are run in a structured way, and Board members feel they can say what they mean in the Board. Furthermore, the Board and executive management trust and respect each other. As I look back on the challenges Vestas faced 10 years ago, it's evident that the Board has succeeded with getting the company back on track. I'm pleased to say that we have guided Vestas into leading our industry increased maturity and industrialization. The Board is well composed, well organized, and has a positive overall track record.
Even through 2021, even though it was characterized by severe cost inflation, supply chain instability, following the spread of a global pandemic, the company is in good shape with strong position in the market. The valuation also identifies some key focus area to improve the Board's performance and the value creation during 2022. In addition, the Board committees also conducted a self-assessment in 2021. The valuation revealed a good collaboration across each of the committees and between the committees and the executive management. This year, we only have one proposal on the agenda. We propose renewal of the authorization to acquire treasury share. This is a standard item on every annual general meetings. During the pandemic, renewables quickly became the key to unlocking resilience across the global energy system.
When fossil fuel supplies were disrupted, renewables stepped in to maintain a critical infrastructure, and our role at Vestas took on an expanded importance. Carbon emissions went down, and the lights stayed on. It fills me with deep regret to say that we stand on the brink of another crisis. Fossil fuel volatility has already driven up energy prices, and beyond that, we see that energy security is under threat in many nations. Once again, in the face of adversity, our industry can offer resilience. Increasing the deployment of renewable energy can reduce dependency on fuel imports. It can shield energy prices from inconsistent fossil fuel supply, and it can strengthen national energy systems against negative impacts of geopolitical events. Yet, energy transition is restricted by long permitting processes and lack of grid infrastructure and investment patterns that still favor fossil fuel.
By protecting our value creation in this present, Vestas is laying a strong foundation to support the new, more sustainable global energy system. Our work in development and our ability to secure larger supplier agreement than ever before show that we can stand side by side with our customer as long-term partners through the imminent energy transformation. In an evolving energy reality, we continue to introduce market-leading technology. The introduction of the V236-15.0 MW turbine and our work with turbine modularity demonstrates how our capability supports the need of our customers, both today and tomorrow. Our world-leading sustainability performance will ensure that our partners can continue to operate successfully in a future where sustainability plays a more prominent role in the regulation of renewable products. It's time to stop deferring to the future.
We must drive electrification to every corner of the energy system, and we must accelerate the deployment of renewable energy.
Vestas's contribution to the fight against the climate crisis is undeniable. Renewables now have a far more imminent role to play in supporting the modern society. Our technology can keep the lights on and the prices down. At Vestas, we stand proud and ready to fulfill this role and to accelerate energy transition in every way we can. While our ambition continues to be the most sustainable future for generations to come, we also embrace the role of ensuring more secure ones. On behalf of the Board of Directors, executive management, and each of our dedicated, skillful, and loyal employees, I assure that we will work to achieve our vision and continue to create value for you, our owners.
Thank you for your time and support, and I would like to extend a special thanks to executive management and to our Vestas more than 29,000 employees for their hard work and dedication in 2021. Thank you very much to them. Now I hand over to our CEO, Henrik Andersen.
Thank you very much, Bert. I will then just speak Danish and thank all of you who have come here today to visit our headquarters in Aarhus. We have all been looking forward to that so much. Last year, it wasn't possible. Again, it was quite sad when we were all asked to stay at home. We didn't save the food from last year, so you can be happy about that. It's fresh food. I would like to go a bit further into the areas that we have made progress in and also some of the areas I think we can all recognize that we are still struggling with in the current financial situation. I want to start by saying that we have achieved some highlights and milestones this year. It's a highlight to be called the most sustainable company in the world.
That's very important to us and our colleagues, but also to our customers. We have also integrated our offshore activities. That's not something you would just do because it was 3,500 colleagues who needed to be onBoarded, and we succeeded in all of that on November last year. At the same time, we have achieved high growth in our development activities, which means we help our customers around the world to get permissions to build wind farms and thus supply the energy. Those projects are in high demand, and there will always be one who's happy and nine who are disappointed when we sell our projects in the world. We have made strong progress in service. Kristiaan, who's sitting down here, is the head of our service department, and we now look after more than 129 GW.
That's quite a few turbines that we service now in more than 75 countries. 2021 also was affected by a cybersecurity attack in November, which was quite a negative experience. On 24th of February this year, there was the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We will also get into that a bit later. It has been a challenging 12 months with a great variety of challenges, and that is for both our employees, our customers, and for us in the daily management and in the Board of Directors. Let me look at our operational and financial figures. First, I want to emphasize that our priorities are clear. They've been the same since we got out of COVID.
We have prioritized security and health for our employees, and the people who have to work through the COVID crisis have needed our support. For the first time, we were critical infrastructure in every country where we have a wind turbine. We are critical infrastructure in supplying electricity. Of course, that means that most of our colleagues around the world, more than 80 countries, had to keep working to keep the wind turbines going. Our priority has been safety first. Even though it's been difficult, it's been important to us to operate Vestas and keep offering our solutions to our customers, and we've succeeded in that. As we talked about in 2021, there have been plenty of issues which I'll touch upon later.
We also said early on in 2021, at the latest in our third quarter numbers, that we expect these challenges to continue throughout most of 2022. That turns out to be correct, and the latest developments haven't made things easier. Again, it shows that wind energy has never been in more demand than it is now because you can see what freedom it gives you if you get it right. When it comes to geopolitical tensions, we have to condemn what happens in Ukraine. We condemn the Russian aggression, and there can be no doubt about that. That's also why we say when we look at Ukraine and Russia, where we have activities, we will have to withdraw from Russia as part of this crisis.
When we withdraw from Russia, we withdraw from customer activities and from other activities we might have in plants and other places. That's a logical consequence of the world no longer being open. It also means when we do that, we look at both international law and local law to do things in a correct way. We have one customer in Russia, a Finnish energy company that we also know from many other countries. It's called Fortum. They have one primary shareholder, and that's the Finnish state that owns more than 50% of the company. The debate between Fortum and us is not in an AGM or on television. It's via the telephone channels you have between both CEO and the normal team running the business in Russia.
That's also why we need to find out who has the ownership and the service contracts in Russia. So far, it is on one side, it with Fortum, and we need to talk further to them. We've already been in discussions with them in the past weeks, and that will continue in the weeks to come. One thing we learned during our cyberattack, and which we also learn now with Russia, is that when we have to do with emotional subjects like this, we need to stick to the facts. The facts in this matter is that Russia is not one of our 10 largest countries in our business. Russia is like Austria. We have a little more than 1 GW in Russia, and we've been part of their policy to extend its renewable energies in Russia.
When we talk about this, just to compare, in Denmark, we have 4.5 GW, which is 4.5 x more than in Russia. Russia is the 24th country on our list of countries. If there's any doubt about anything, do call us next time and get the facts straight. I hope that covers our situation in Russia. I would be happy also later on after the formal AGM. I'll be happy to have the discussion with our dear shareholders who are present here today. We also need to talk about something that's much more important, namely the green transition. The world needs our solutions because everyone can now see that energy is security policy, and security policy is energy policy. Through our solutions, we can create an independence and freedom.
That has shown in the past two years to work in spite of a pandemic and in spite of a cyberattack. We succeeded in keeping Vestas going. They were tough weeks, I won't lie to you, but there's no doubt that there were dark forces behind that attack. For the climate and for energy security, this is critical infrastructure, and we stand up for that at any given point in Vestas. We have to do it in a sustainable way, so we need to see how can we reduce our CO2 emissions, both our own operations and along with our supply chain. We also need to look at circularity. We have come far with recycling, but we can't recycle our blades 100% yet, but we will get there before 2040, I expect.
When it comes to finance, we are now at a point where the cost size of putting up a wind turbine is the cheapest solution. It's cheaper than gas, it is cheaper than oil, and it's significantly cheaper than nuclear power. It's also faster to put up a wind turbine. We need to emphasize that. We need to call out about this because it's the best thing. There's no longer a financial reason not to put up wind turbines in all the countries we operate in. If we are to worry about something, and I will worry a bit today, we would like to have a bit more, walking the talk from the political side of things. Things aren't moving fast enough, and we will be mentioning countries more directly.
Because if you look at, for instance, the framework conditions in Denmark, we are worried that 20% of our employees in Denmark are located in Denmark, but we don't have much turnover. Last year, three wind turbines were put up in Denmark onshore, and over the past two years, 87 MW have been put up. I don't know if you know the figures, but our energy minister needs 8 GW by 2030. And at the current rate, we will only be finished in 2104. 2104, almost 100 years from now. It's not just Denmark that has that issue, many countries have that. I visited India recently, and we have been active there six years, and only 1/4 of the ones we've put up have been put up to tender.
In India last week, they actually had blackouts. There is a real urgency in our work. If you then look at the area we've been working in past years, I just want to remind you that there have been easier times. Actually not that often, because if you look at the slide here, such a thing as shipping has increased by a factor of 4-5. It's become 4x-5x more expensive to ship something across the world. We can also see that the waiting time in Chinese ports has increased by 1.4. Unfortunately, what has arrived on time has been significantly lower. I saw a statistic recently, the 10 largest shipping companies in the world, Maersk was the best one, and they had a correct arrival time of 46%.
That's not very promising actually, because the one that was in 10th place only arrived on time 16% of the time. This is a real problem. Steel costs have also increased. They've doubled, in fact, from the beginning of 2020. Just last week, it had increased by 46% in Europe. It's not the easiest job in the world to operate Vestas currently. We work together as a team, and we will meet the challenges. The most important part of this slide is what we're also annoyed about at home, namely that the electricity prices have gone up. That means that our solutions work because electricity is much more expensive. This graph shows that at the moment in our part of the world, we trade in EUR 90-EUR 95 per MW.
In Germany and France, that cost has been three times higher. It's almost EUR 300 per MWh. The ones who can put up a wind turbine are in a very good position in all of this. It's bad news when we have these changes to our backlog, and it's something that's been an issue for us in 2021. We cannot raise prices going backwards, only going forwards. The contracts we got at the end of 2021 were actually about 21% higher compared to the same period the year before. 2021 was, as Bert said, a year where we achieved a revenue of EUR 15.6 billion. This was in a difficult time where people couldn't travel in and out because of the closing of borders.
Many employees stayed for months on end, and we supplied 16.8 GW in spite of all this, and I'm very grateful for that, and so are customers. As a shareholder, I might say, "Well, then we should have made more money." That's true that we only had an EBIT margin of 3%, and that's not satisfactory. Our free cash flow was EUR 183 million, and we had investments of EUR 813 million, where we expected about EUR 1 billion earlier on. We are worried about how we spend our money. If we then look at our order intake, it was much lower in 2021 than what we would have hoped. We think it's because the industry needs to change from having a number of competitors who lose money every quarter. That is worrying in itself.
The only way an industry leader can change this is moving away from orders that don't create value for the shareholders. If you see we got orders for 13.9 gigawatts, then it's probably a few gigawatts too few to keep all our employees working. We prefer to work less in the plants than produce materials at a loss. This is a consequence of that. We need governments to accelerate the green transition because we can put up more wind turbines, and we are sure that that can create a better balance in the energy mix. We need to make the industry more mature, and I'm sure that our competitors will also be convinced that they need to stop making losses.
When it comes to our income statement, you can see here that it's the same numbers as you saw in the annual report. As you can see here is that our EBIT margin has decreased slightly from 5.1% to 3.0%, and that's of course not satisfactory. We can also see that we spent more on SG&A costs. They increased throughout the year, and that's not surprising because offshore wind joined us and we needed to integrate it. It's part of the investment that we needed to do in being an industry leader in offshore wind. We do need to make this effort and investment because this is such an interesting area.
We can also see that some of the special items were that we closed some manufacturing plants in Spain and Germany and some further reductions in the U.K. because it's necessary when we make our changes in the offshore platform. It also means when we talk offshore, it's a more long-term cycle. It's not like onshore, where you get a result in within two years' time. This is typically four-six years. It's looking towards 2025 that we will see the results of this investment. If we look at our strategy, there's no doubt that when we were here two years ago, we didn't have offshore activities under our own control as we have today. That is significant because we can combine many of the things we need both for offshore and onshore.
When we looked at offshore two years ago, it's true that our best guess was that offshore activities in 2030 would be putting up about 15 GW a year globally. That's a large number, I know that, but it's not so large when each wind turbine is 15 MW. What happened in the past 24 months is that that number has increased to about 30 GW, and we come from a number in 2021, which was around 6 GW. It's a market we expect to increase 5 times over the next eight years, so we need to be present in that market. That's, of course, what you've also heard about our 15 MW V236 that is now being produced in Nakskov currently. Offshore, 4%-6% growth.
We will grow in services by 7%-10% over the next many years. Then, of course, we will have our fair share of the offshore activities, as you can see here. It's also important to say that we will continue to push developments because that's where we can help countries make the transition and extend renewable energy sources. At the top here, there is no doubt that there will also be future innovations. We are investing in Vestas Ventures. That's also something other people talk about, Power-to-X. Power-to-X is not a magical spell that solves all of it. What it needs is plenty of renewable energy. You cannot solve the energy challenges in the world with Power-to-X, because you need to produce the renewable energy first.
Now, looking at how far we've come, and I know we are here today and we've heard that Kim has been here 25 years, and Klaus, you're also close to 25 years, and we have come far. The fact is that wind energy today only contributes about 1% of the energy generation in the world. We shouldn't complain so much because we still have 29% to chase, 99% to chase. This is the use of electricity, but that's only midterm because all transport and our homes and a lot of things are changing to electricity now. There's an electrification. We need more energy and we need more electricity. Then, of course, Bert mentioned COP26, and that gets us back to the politicians. There's no doubt that many hopes are associated with this.
You can see it in the gray areas here to the right. I don't know where we'll be heading towards 2050, but if we are to be at net zero carbon emissions, we need to put up about 300 GW a year. At the moment, we're putting up about 70 GW a year. That's a significant increase that's needed. If you look at the stated policies in the countries, we are heading towards 115 GW. If you want to reach the announced pledges, it's 175 GW. We don't know where this will end, but we know it's somewhere in this gray area. The higher up we get in that gray area, the more fun it will be to be a Vestas shareholder. All of this needs to be sustainable.
It needs to work until we reach the finish line. That means we want to be carbon neutral, not by using offsets, but by being neutral ourselves and by having our supply chain investing in carbon neutrality. We also want our turbines to be fully recyclable. Early on, we didn't have the technology, and we still don't have 100% technology to recycle, especially our blades. But we will get there, and I think we'll get there before 2040. Our employees are the most important asset. We need to retain employees, and we need to attract the best talents in all of our 80 countries. Last but not least, we want to push governments and the way we work in this sector because we need to be independent. We need to be significantly more independent, not just of fossil fuels, but also of certain countries.
Last but not least, we need to also enjoy the win and becoming the number one sustainable company. It will keep us proud for a long time. No company has won this two years in a row, but we will try. I have to say, we probably won this award about a year too soon, a year or two too soon. We'll probably be a competitor in the next few years' time again, to again win that award. We also need to get to something that's for the benefit of the shareholders, i.e., through a larger dividend. We can only achieve that if we get towards an EBIT margin of 10%, and we need to achieve that by 2025.
That journey is a bit more difficult now because our point of departure is lower because that's the way the world is at the moment. That doesn't mean that we won't reach the 10% EBIT in 2025. We have some gadgets we can use, and we can look at revenue, FCF, etc., but we can't put percentage points on any of this. Of course, we have a plan for where we want to go, but I won't tell you the details because I'm sure our competitors are also listening. Our journey in the current year, we want our revenue to be between EUR 15 billion-EUR 16.5 billion. Service expects to grow by about 5%. Our EBIT margin needs to be between 0%-4%, and our service margin will be about 25%.
Then we want total investments in the area of about EUR 1 billion. Of course, we look at that every single month in the things that are happening now. We will give you some updates about that also in our quarterly accounts. The first quarter will arrive in about May. With that, I thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much. That was the report and the presentation of the annual report. Now you have the chance to ask questions or make comments. We have three speakers already, and I'll pass the floor to ATP to begin. The floor is yours.
Thank you for the floor. My name is Kristiaan Garde , and I represent ATP. I would like to thank you for the report and the presentation of the annual report 2021. The horrible war in Ukraine is very relevant these days. It's all over the place. Thank you for updating us on Vestas' handling of the situation in Russia, a situation that makes it impossible to operate in Ukraine right now, willing to make those difficult decisions. If we turn to 2021, it was a difficult year for Vestas. Earnings were under pressure due to increasing commodity prices and supply chain disruptions.
The wind energy industry has some very complex supply chains, especially when it comes to installing wind turbines. Of course, I understand that it's been a hard and busy year for management and for the employees, investors. The guidance for 2022 shows us that the pressure on earnings has continued into the new year. With increasing input prices and pressure on supply chains, while that's not the whole explanation, there's also a tough competition going on in this industry, and this tough competition has made it difficult to achieve prices that give a reasonable dividend to the producers. The wind energy sector is one of the industries that are best positioned to make use of the green transition. If they can't benefit from it, then what will it take to increase profitability? Do you need further consolidation of the industry?
Do we need further demand, further efficiencies, or possibly other elements that Henrik also touched upon? Also, how important is today's news that you are going to launch a new 7.2 GW wind turbine? One last comment is about ESG. There's no doubt that Vestas has a strong position for the upcoming green transition. As an investor, it's a great pleasure to follow your work within all areas of ESG. Most recently, we have seen Corporate Knights acknowledging that work and that effort. In January, Vestas was awarded the title as the world's most sustainable company. That's impressive, and congratulations. With those words, I wish you the best of luck for the coming year.
Thank you. I'll give the floor to Henrik Andersen to begin to comment and answer those questions.
Thank you very much, Kristiaan. I'm glad you took the time to come to Jutland today. I know you've come from far away, so it's good to see you here. I would also like to start by saying that we fully acknowledge that we have had to make a number of very difficult decisions. As I said, we don't need to involve the press in our difficult decisions. Now, when I'm heckling the politicians, I would also like to praise our foreign ministers in the EU because they made us very comfortable. We knew that we had to get our non-national people out of Ukraine, and there was not a lot of understanding in Ukraine about this becoming a possible scenario. Therefore, I would also like to thank the foreign ministry and the security aspects of this whole situation.
They really helped us along the way, and they supported us in following our gut feeling in this situation. Looking back, that was the right decision. Nonetheless, it was difficult to make that decision when so close to the events that were unfolding. The pressure on the supply chains, I don't think I need to comment any further on that. About how to fix or finding solutions to the industry, I think as a leader in an industry, you need to be brave enough to say that you have to do what's right. I don't think necessarily that it will attract shareholders, that you need to contribute with your money to something that gives a negative impact or a negative dividend. Along the way it will solve itself.
Just for the past quarter, I've heard comments that there's no price pressure in the industry, in spite of the fact that we see a negative development quarter on quarter. That's not sustainable in the long run. I can say that. I know Bert joined us in 2012, but I think since 2013, we saw that 2012 and 2013 were difficult years when if you didn't have the discipline that we have. We have a lot of discipline, and I think we have showed that, and I think we can contribute to the industry by setting the course, and I hope that's the solution. Can I tell you when? No, but we will be making money someday. The next speaker is Søren Svendsen from the Danish Shareholders Association. Oh, there was theirs. I'm glad.
Well, from the Danish Shareholders Association, we are pleased that we can meet physically again here at the AGM. We would also like to thank you for a good report from management. Warren Buffett, if you know him, he wouldn't invest $1 in airlines, and that's because they don't make money. They compete each other to death, and when a company like Swissair has filed for bankruptcy, it is indeed a difficult industry. You can just look at Scandinavian Airlines and Norwegian. They have a lot of trouble. What does that have to do with Vestas? Well, Vestas is also in a difficult industry, a very difficult industry these days. Costs are skyrocketing when it comes to commodities as well as freight. Last year, Vestas made DKK 1.3 billion. That's a very unsatisfactory result.
That gives a price-earnings ratio of more than 150, and that makes Vestas more expensive than Ambu, and I've been criticizing Ambu for years due to their high pricing. Price earnings is an indicator that shareholders take very seriously. In the Association of Danish Shareholders, we normally don't like shares with a price earnings above 25. There's a reason for this unsatisfactory result, and that is the cost development. R&D has gone from EUR 265 million to EUR 364 million. I can understand that development, and that is what means that Vestas is at the top of the list. Distribution costs have increased from EUR 281 million to EUR 367 million. We can also understand that because we've heard about increasing freight rates, so we knew that.
Administrative costs have increased from EUR 242 million to EUR 368 million. That's an increase of 52%, and I think that's a lot, and I can't really understand why that is. I would like to hear your explanation. Special items have increased from EUR 52 million to EUR 139 million. That's a 167% increase. Without this significant cost increase, the result would have been DKK 3 billion more. Such a cost increase calls for strict management of costs in the future. I've been a controller myself in companies like Danfoss and Grundfos, so I know that costs can be controlled if it's prioritized.
Every month in my previous job, I had to go to top management to explain myself if my costs were rising, so I know that it is possible to control costs if it's a priority from management. That should be a must, I would say. It is consoling, however, that Vestas' competitors, most notably Siemens Gamesa, and GE, and secondarily, Nordex, are doing even worse than Vestas. They have an actual loss, not just an unsatisfactory profit, but a downright loss. Indian Suzlon is not making any noise at all anymore. Are the companies en route to competing each other to death? We're back to the wind energy industry as an industry. Is the industry simply incapable of making money just like the airlines? That is a question that shareholders need to ask.
Fortunately, there are highlights, and like Henrik Andersen has said several times that the competitors are losing money on the orders they take in. Luckily, Vestas is not going to do that. Vestas is in front when it comes to transferring costs to the customers. It seems that the other companies are lagging behind. Siemens Gamesa has fired its CEO and hired another one with a different goal, which is to turn a profit. If the three leading companies and the next couple of companies in the row can agree that they don't take in orders that give a loss, then perhaps, probably, there will be light at the end of the tunnel for the wind energy industry. Add to that the whole demand side problem. Even though it's on a tragic background, the Ukrainian situation has been an eye-opener for Europe's energy needs.
That combined with the wish and the target of a green transition, that is going to give an impetus for green solutions, including wind energy. The price alone on conventional energy, as you mentioned before, is higher than green energy. Electricity from wind turbines is cheaper than electricity from fossil fuels. The wind energy sector is probably looking at a golden future. What could be better than having invested in the best company? That is Vestas. Technologically, Vestas is far ahead of competitors. I read somewhere that Vestas spends as much on R&D as the three closest competitors combined. Is that true? At least I read that somewhere. Normally, good corporate governance says that you cannot mix the Board of Directors and executive management. Personally, I welcome the fact that Anders Runevad has joined the Board.
I believe that Anders Runevad is the best CEO Vestas has ever had, just like I think that Bert Nordberg is the best Chairman Vestas has ever had. For a number of years, Vestas has been blessed with a strong Swedish trio with roots in the Swedish industry, and they've done well. Therefore, Vestas is a strong company today, very differently from the time when Bert Nordberg took over, when Vestas was on the brink of bankruptcy. I hope that Anders Runevad will take over from Bert Nordberg when the time comes. Just today, we've seen some good news. Credit Suisse, a Swedish and a Swiss investment bank, has lifted Vestas from underperformed to outperformed. You have been given two notches in an upward direction by Credit Suisse.
The second thing is that you have launched a new V172 wind turbine. Those are two pieces of good news, and perhaps that's why the third piece of good news is that the share price has increased by between DKK 16 and DKK 18 today. Thank you very much.
Yeah, I think the chairman would like to thank the shareholder for that speech, but I think the questions were aimed at the CEO. While it's great to have people back in the room here in Jutland.
I think it's dangerous to say too much about the industry because we focus on our own business. Of course, we follow the development in the industry, but I think it all comes down to one basic thing, is that you do what you say and you say what you do. That said, I think you can come a long way just by observing what you do as an industry leader. As an industry leader, we like to take on that challenge of management and leadership, and that's where you can build your strength.
The scenarios you describe here, well, it's evident that when you started 2021 with a guidance of 6%-8% in EBIT, of course, it's not because we have added costs on administration or fixed costs during the course of 2021. They were already there in the beginning of the year. Most notably costs for integrating our offshore division. Sam, of course, you have made your career in Danfoss and Grundfos. We don't put things on individual budget items or meddle with the annual report or the financial statements. So our costs are where they have been from the beginning of the year. Of course, we will continue to aim at running a profitable business. We do our very best every day. Of course, we want a global industry platform.
We want global leadership, and that means that we need to keep investing, and that requires costs and investments in technology. Of course, I'm glad that you acknowledge that on a day like today, we do show that our wind turbines are becoming bigger and technologically better. That also strengthens our industry. When it comes to the special items, I must say that with the technological development, you cannot produce the same in the same buildings that you did 20 or 25 years ago. It's a natural consequence if you want to strike that balance. Of course, when we need to transport blades that are 115 meters long, that's just not feasible. That means that our production plants will be located closer to where the turbines are needed.
Finally, last but not least, I can tell you that it's been 12 months with some pretty hard discussions when you integrate activities like that. Just the week before we gave the final green light to combining the activities, and that was in November. Then on 19th of November , we had a cybersecurity attack. Luckily, we merged our systems just 3 weeks before that, and that gave us some costs in 2021 that will not be coming back. When it comes to the chairmanship and the two Swedish gentlemen, it's always dangerous to comment on your own boss.
When it comes to the chairmanship, I can say as the CEO, Sam, that it's a pleasure to work with the Board of Directors, because in situations like these, when it becomes difficult, it really helps that we have some humor, and I would like to demonstrate that with a picture. I don't know if you can recognize them. They're called Statler and Waldorf. They were the two elderly gentlemen in The Muppet Show who would always be on the balcony, and they always kept saying that things were better last season, and we are trying to prove them wrong.
Thank you. Before I give the floor to Mr. Bjørn Hansen, I want to ask whether anybody else wants the floor. Then I would ask you to come over here to my left to sign up. Everyone who wants the floor. Björn Hansen, you have the floor.
My name is on the screen. I like what I heard from Søren Svendsen before. First, I think we can thank the gentleman for a good report, both in American English, Swedish, and Danish. I would like to start sort of from the end. A few years ago, I called these two gentlemen Laurel and Hardy. We can't do without them. The two Swedes are really very, very useful to us, and they pulled us back from the brink of bankruptcy.
Bert Nordberg and Anders Runevad, you maybe shouldn't switch places, but at least don't leave the Board at the same time. Because it's important to have you here on the Board. I like those two Swedes because they have an attitude to industry that we need in Denmark. In Danish trade, we seem to share some of the things, but in industry, the Swedes are always ahead of us. It's just like football. They were ahead of us for 30 years. I have a couple of questions about revenue. I can see there's an issue with revenue, but I want to consult the entire group because looking five years. I look back five years, and there are two types of shares, the old Vestas s ystems share. That was among the best 10 shares we have invested in.
It doesn't reach the level of the three best, but it's a solid middle-class share. You shouldn't get rid of that just because of a bit of crisis. There's the new share, a split share. I don't really know what the point was of that, whether it was because the larger part of the population should be able to buy it just like Novo Nordisk did. That's not a public share anymore. It's at DKK 700 now, but I think the Vestas share was about DKK 1,000 or DKK 1,200 . I think in the long term, it's a good idea to do a split when you reach that share price. We have seen losses in the energy company Ørsted, but we have made money through Vestas.
Because the politicians are making life difficult, and I can understand why a managing director left Ørsted and said it's difficult to work in a state-owned company. Vestas is privately owned and can therefore maneuver more quickly. During the pandemic, Vestas has had problems with engineers that needed to travel across countries, both within the EU and outside of the EU. Have your issues been solved in the travel restrictions, for instance, through the EU or through other authorities? Is my first question. Having 40 turbines someplace when you can't get them installed doesn't help. It's the weakest link in the chain needs to be eliminated so that we can get a strong chain throughout. I know it's difficult, but I see many examples when I travel that some people have reduced security also because of the pandemic. I'll get back to that later.
My second question is looking at the order book for 2021, 2022. There's a reduction in the number of contracts, but an increase in the number of megawatts or gigawatts. What about the service contracts? Have they also been affected, or will service contracts increase growth and revenue in the next five years? When we last had an AGM with physical attendance, I was told by the Swede in the first row that things were going well, and that's also what I've been told by the Swede at the head table now. It's always good to know that if you can't make as much money on the turbines, you can make money on the service side of things. I think you're very good at doing that. It's like buying a Volvo. You get ruined, but only later on after you bought it.
Here, you're not ruined, but you get more energy and energy at the right time. That's good. My third question, when will you start constructing wind turbines with solar panels on the large areas? With grants from the EU and other authorities, I think there should be a possibility. We have with Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the. She used to kick in the door here and can take a few of the gentlemen from the main table here and then talk to the European Commission, etc., because we need more renewable energy. I'm sure there are several different funds you can get grants from here. I mean, there are billions available in the different funds also after the COVID epidemic. I'm sure we can kick in some doors also through the EU. We need more money through grants.
About six months ago, I read that sometimes there's no wind, and therefore you don't earn as much money. I thought, "What? That's ridiculous. The wind turbines aren't turning, but they can still produce energy if they had solar panels, at least during the daytime." Last week, I traveled from Dubai, and I looked through the window of the plane, and I saw that there were solar panels, and I also looked at solar panels on the roofs of the buildings there. That was used for cooling at the airport, for instance. They even used it for the train service in the airport. Let's also put solar panels on wind turbines. In Dubai, I visited a fair, and I maybe covered about 1/8 of that major fair, and I saw that Vestas wind turbine was built in Lego there.
I asked the man there whether he knew what it was, and he said, "Yes, I work for Vestas." He told me about wind turbines, and he really knew his stuff. I thought, I'll be damned. He said, "Unfortunately, when Expo 2020 is over, I won't be working there anymore." He took a picture of me. I don't know the royal family, but I think you should do a search there because they actually do need people working there. Now, this was not the Danish part of the fair or of Expo. It was the part that was called the best expo in the world, Saudi Arabia, the kingdom. That's where they had Vestas. With Siemens, I didn't see anything like that. Not in the German pavilion, I didn't see anything.
Some people there were able to kick in some doors. Vestas really has a major opportunity here because there's a lot of wind in the Emirates and in Saudi Arabia. What we may lose in Russia, I'm sure you can earn tenfold in, on the Arab Peninsula. They have money there, and you have something to offer them. They're willing to learn foreign languages. They're very polite, and you can negotiate with them. Back to my question, what calculations have you done about such hybrid turbines with solar panels? What will you do after Expo 2020 is over in Dubai? Because they're talking about building a town there now, and that could be another major city in time. They are very busy, and the money is there, and the construction companies are ready.
In just three years, they've put on a lot of wind turbines. I hope you'll get your share of that pie. My fourth question, when will we get the Vestas annual report in Danish and also happily in Swedish, German, like Hapag-Lloyd in Hamburg? They're now publishing their annual report in five languages, also Chinese. By the way, they are, their dividends are 10 x higher this year than last year. I won't criticize you for that because the important thing is that you survive, then we'll get our dividends later. Those were my first questions, and I still believe that the two Swedes are very important parts of Vestas, and they have my trust. They have pulled us back from the brink, and they have really showed how you can make something great. Congratulations on the good result.
Thank you. While Henrik Andersen makes his way to the rostrum. Oh, he's already here. No, I think I'll just answer in the microphone.
Yeah.
Thank you, Björn. I will attempt to make it a brief answer so that we won't delay our dinner too much. About the COVID pandemic, I think most of our employees, it's about 29,000 non-Danish employees, and it's still difficult for them with travel and so on. There are still many countries with very great restrictions, but things are at least easing. You can travel in and out of Australia now. In 2021, many of our employees in engineering had to stay, for instance, in a country like Vietnam for much longer periods of time than planned. Things are easing, but we are still struggling a bit, both in Saudi Arabia, South Korea and India. There's still testing and quarantines, etc. About order intake.
Of course, service contracts will reflect that we have service contracts that are connected to our order intake. You'll also see in recent years that our service contracts are longer, more long-term. That means our contract length has gone from less than eight years to now more than 10 years for our order backlog, which is EUR 29 billion. That's not too shabby. I won't comment on that, the Swedish phenomenon of after service with Volvo. I think that could cause me a few issues if I comment on that. Technology development beyond. I said it recently to a prime minister in a foreign country, that he can always seek a job in our development department.
When we talk about hybrid solutions, we talk about having wind turbines here and solar panels next to them, and then you can have batteries in between. When the wind turbines are turning, especially the blades, the speed at the tip of a blade is often at more than 300 km/h. There are only companies like us that build turbines that hold 30 years, otherwise it's like a Formula One race. If you put solar panels on blades like that, they won't stick and they won't keep functioning. You can't have something running at 300 km/h and have it work. I see that, you like the Middle East and the Arab countries, and we have a large, wind farm in, Saudi Arabia, and it's about 400 MW.
We think it's the beginning of something much greater because there will be a transition there as well into renewables. This is not just Expo 2020, it's long-term. We're in Saudi Arabia at least once a month at the moment to investigate our opportunities. When it comes to languages, though, I have to disappoint you. We will not publish an annual report in Danish or the Jutland dialect. What Hapag-Lloyd does, I think that industry I can understand how they can pay out larger dividends this year, because I can see that the freight rates are very high. About there being no wind, I think that's not an argument we've ever used, but I'm sure we'll meet at the dinner in a moment. Our next speaker is Hans Ulrik Balslev. The floor is yours.
Thank you for the floor. I'm one of the small shareholders, but I would like to start with an eternity machine. That was a word I ran into as a kid, and my dad said, "We will never achieve that or invent that." I do see wind turbines as a sort of eternity machine. Bjørn Hansen actually touched upon that already. I think you should be able to store electricity in large batteries and that then send it into the wind turbines when there is no wind. I don't know it's feasible, if it's feasible, but it's a suggestion anyway. Solar panels, well, you don't have to put them at the tips of the blades. Of course, they would just fly off, but the nacelles are quite large. Wouldn't you be able to place solar panels on them?
They would be closer to the sun, at least. Now we're also offshore, creating offshore wind farms. Here you could have turbines placed on the islands that are created like that. Those were just a couple of suggestions and you're welcome to use them if it could only lead to a larger dividend, please. Finally, let me congratulate you with the title as the world's most sustainable company. Thank you for the floor.
Thank you very much. The next speaker is Mr. Frank Jørgensen.
Yes, my name is Frank Jørgensen, and I would like to talk about my worries for the future, my concerns financially. Financially, compared to Siemens Gamesa, Vestas is quite small and will continue to be small. In the old days, it was easier. It was Danish companies, and they had the same size as us. General Electric can afford to keep putting up wind turbines with a loss. We can't afford that, so what can we do? We can only compete, as I see it, on making sure that Vestas turbines can do things that nobody else can do. When we have hurricanes, the Vestas wind turbines should just continue to increase and produce more electricity the more wind we have. Just the other day on YouTube, I saw that Siemens in western Germany produced a wind turbine with the generator placed down.
On the ground. It's problematic to have a heavy generator high up in the air. If you could place it on the ground, then it would be better. That was all. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We've heard some good contributions and some suggestions and proposals that require no royalties. That must be interesting to management. I don't know if the CEO wants to comment. If anybody else wants to take the floor, please let me know. Well, I think next year we should have two meetings, one general meeting and what I would call an open technology fair. Afterwards, our Head of Technology Development is also a Swede called Anders Nielsen, and he's seated right there. The eternity machine might sound like a dream, and I think in the annual report we also explain what happens when we build on our foundations with more advanced technology.
For the past 10 years, we have reduced our Levelized Cost of Energy by 2/3. What we're doing is that we are upgrading our technology instead of trying to invent an eternity machine. The battery solution and the capacity for storing energy is something we can get better at. This is where batteries come into the picture. This is also where we start talking about Power-to-X, where we can create hydrogen or other derivatives. Thank you very much. The development positions are available in Portugal and in India, and I would look forward to receiving your applications. When it comes to GE, I must say, and I think their journey will also come to a halt at some point.
I know you say they are big, but they have said that they need to find a solution for their unit for renewable energy by 2024 when they want to be listed on the stock exchange. I think we should welcome that because that means that they can't hide anymore. They need to become an independent share that shareholders can buy and sell. I think there is light at the end of the tunnel, and I think we're quite close to that light by now. As I said, there are some indications of promising trends, but we can't put a date on it. As I said, I look forward to chatting with you afterwards. Thank you very much. Thank you. Does anybody else want the floor or is it the thought of refreshments that is keeping you quiet now?
This has been a presentation of the various items on the agenda. I'll now follow up and conclude. As I said, there's not much doubt about the results, and I hope we can avoid an actual vote on the various items on the agenda, but I'll go through them one by one. The first item on the agenda is the report on the company's activities. That's just a presentation and then the presentation is adopted. The next item is the presentation and adoption of the annual report for 2021. That has also been covered thoroughly. I consider that adopted. Item three is resolution for the allocation of the result of the year with DKK 0.37 per share. You can decide to reduce that number but not increase it.
I'm sure that from what I heard, and no one is interested in reducing that amount, so I consider that adopted. Item four is presentation and advisory vote on the remuneration report. That's a separate report that's available on the website where the remuneration is described and which the chairman also went through in his report. If it's rejected, it doesn't mean that you have to pay back the wages, but it is. I still assume that this is approved. Item five is approval of the Board of Directors remuneration. There's an increase proposed by an increase of 2%. There's a basic remuneration with multiples for the chairman and the deputy chairman, and separate remuneration for members of subcommittees. If nobody protests, I also consider that adopted. Item six, election of members to the Board of Directors.
Section eight in the articles of association say that there are to be 5- 10 members of the Board of Directors, plus the employee elected members that are elected by the employees for four years at a time. Currently, the group elected by the AGM is consists of eight people. Lars Josefsson does not run for re-election. The rest do. Anders Runevad, Bert Nordberg, Bruce Grant, Eva Merete Søfelde Berneke, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Karl-Henrik Sundström, Kentaro Hosomi, and then there's a proposed new election of Lena Olving. The CVs are available on the convening notes and the website. I don't think there are other candidates, but I just ask. That doesn't seem to be the case, so I congratulate the members who are elected for one year. Next item on the agenda is appointment of auditor.
The Board of Directors proposes reappointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and this is proposed by the Audit Committee, and the Audit Committee has not been influenced by third parties. There are very rarely alternative proposals for the post of auditors, so I don't expect that to be the case again. I can congratulate PricewaterhouseCoopers for another year as auditor. The next item on the agenda is proposals from the Board of Directors. The proposal is a renewal of the authorization to acquire treasury shares. That's a standard authorization which all listed companies ask for. They ask for the opportunity to acquire up to 10% of the company's share capital. But you cannot exceed 10%, and you cannot deviate more than 10% from the price quoted on Nasdaq Copenhagen. Business as usual, I consider that approved.
The last point of the agenda, item nine, is one for me, authorization for the chairman of the meeting to register the results. It's very simple for me this year, and I don't expect that there are any protests there. I thank you very much before anyone can protest. That brings us to any other business. Before I give the floor back to the Chairman to close the AGM, I of course want to open the floor to anyone else. We cannot make any decisions here today, but you can comment. I think the lovely scent wafting through the room now is more tempting than taking the floor. I will lay down my mandate and give the floor to the Chairman of the Board.
Yeah.
I almost feel Danish now, and I try to follow Danish customs. I just want to thank you all who have made your way here. I want to thank everyone who followed online. I wish you all a safe journey home, and I hope to see you all again next year. Thank you.