Shareholders, shareholder representatives, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests from the media, sector banks, and the general public. Ladies and gentlemen, as Chairman of the Supervisory Board, I call this year's annual general meeting of Deutsche Börse AG to order. Pursuant to the company's articles, I shall be presiding over this meeting. I would like to welcome you very warmly on behalf of both the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to say a few words on my own behalf. Today is the last time I am chairing an annual general meeting of Deutsche Börse AG. In September last year, I announced that I would be resigning from my position before the end of my term of office.
It was important to me to inform the corporate bodies of Deutsche Börse AG of my decision at an early stage to enable them to organize a succession without any distractions or time pressure. After seven years of quite intense dedication in terms of both time and other resources in this office, I would now like to devote more time to my interests in the USA, as well as to the mandates I am involved in Switzerland and Germany. I would like to sincerely thank you, our shareholders, for the trust you have placed in me and for the support I have received over the past seven years as a member of the Supervisory Board and during my five years as Chairman of the Supervisory Board.
It gives me great pleasure and satisfaction, ladies and gentlemen, that we were successful in maintaining the profitability and promise of your investment in Deutsche Börse AG during this period. I would also like to use this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the customers of Deutsche Börse Group for their loyalty and support. The success of Deutsche Börse Group is, of course, primarily due to its employees. With their professionalism, sense of responsibility, and integrity, they help Deutsche Börse Group to create new value for all of you, ladies and gentlemen, every day. They therefore deserve my heartfelt thanks as well. The members of the Executive Board, and in particular the two CEOs, Theodor Weimer and his successor, Stephan Leithner, have played a key role in the success of recent years. Deutsche Börse Group's strategic orientation, in which the Supervisory Board was also involved, has proved extraordinarily successful.
This is also reflected in the share price and market capitalization. Both have almost doubled in the last five years. You, ladies and gentlemen, have additionally benefited from this through steadily rising dividends. In view of the difficult macroeconomic conditions during this period, this success is anything but a foregone conclusion. Pioneering M&A transactions also contributed significantly to this success. Let me just remind you of the acquisition of the US rating company ISS and the Danish investment software provider SimCorp. Both extremely successful companies with a global reach, which perfectly complement Deutsche Börse Group's portfolio. Together with the stocks business and Axioma, they now form the investment management solutions business segment. It was exactly five years ago that the COVID-19 crisis presented us with a particular challenge.
Thanks to the timely digitalization of company processes, we were able to switch seamlessly to working from home at the time and keep the entire group on track. I'm still impressed by how the employees successfully managed this crisis. This brings me to another point that has always been very important to me during my time in office and still is today: the corporate culture at Deutsche Börse Group. As many of you know from my previous speeches here at the annual general meetings, I was and still am a firm believer in stakeholder value. For me, this is not in opposition to shareholder value. In fact, the two concepts complement each other. Because in the long term, you, ladies and gentlemen, are best served by a company that creates value for all stakeholders. Those include employees, customers, and the social, political, and regulatory environment.
I have therefore advocated that Deutsche Börse Group define a corporate purpose that goes beyond its profit targets. With its commitment to creating trust in the markets of today and tomorrow, the group has succeeded in doing so in a very convincing manner. This corporate purpose makes explicit the self-image that Deutsche Börse Group has lived by for many years. The purpose was then supplemented by group-wide values and leadership principles, and further filled with life. Together, they form a culture that emphasizes not only growth and innovation, but also responsibility. In line with this, the nomination committee of the Supervisory Board also introduced new guidelines for management remuneration in 2021. We have made criteria that go beyond pure business figures an important part of the performance appraisal. These include goals such as employee satisfaction, climate neutrality, and the external benchmarking of our governance.
We will now develop these criteria in the new remuneration system that is being voted on today. I will shortly go into this in more detail in my report for the Supervisory Board. Throughout my time on the Supervisory Board, I have come to know Deutsche Börse Group as a very special company. What makes it stand out is not only its employees and management. Other important factors for Deutsche Börse Group's success, in my view, certainly include that it's firmly rooted here in Frankfurt, in Europe, and in global business, which is increasing. Combined with its diversified business model and its pioneering role in the development and use of innovative technologies, this is what drives Deutsche Börse Group's resilience and growth. Focusing on growth is also at the heart of the company. The revised remuneration system continues to provide management with strong incentives in order to maintain this focus.
In general, Deutsche Börse Group's good corporate governance, highly recognized by the outside world, helps to ensure that it meets the requirements of all relevant stakeholders. Ladies and gentlemen, before concluding with this introductory speech, let me say this: that your Deutsche Börse Group is in an excellent position to not only remain stable, but also to flourish even in difficult times. I'm therefore very confident about the future development of Deutsche Börse Group and can dedicate myself to new things with a clear conscience. Thank you very much for this. Now, I'm looking forward to a lively debate with you. Ladies and gentlemen, before we proceed to the business that we transacted today, allow me to make the following formal remarks on today's AGM.
The notice of meeting and any other mandatory documents are available on the company's website, as is any additional or explanatory information about today's AGM. Said documents are also available on the website during the meeting. I shall therefore refrain from explaining them again in detail at this point. For the record, the attendance area shall be this assembly hall and any rooms accessible to you between this hall and the admission and exit counters. With the exception of Ms. Johnston, who sends her apologies due to another commitment, all members of the Supervisory and Executive Boards are present at today's AGM. Also present is Mr. Müstier. Later on, when I explain the agenda, he is going to introduce himself as a candidate for member of the Supervisory Board. The minutes of this AGM will be kept by our notary, Roland Bergfeld. Welcome.
We are making video and audio recordings of the entire AGM. Furthermore, the full AGM is being streamed live for shareholders and other interested parties, streamed live on the internet. Any questions raised during the general debate will be transcribed by a stenographer to ensure we provide accurate answers. Third parties are not allowed to take pictures or to make video or audio recordings unless they are authorized representatives of the press. After registering for today's AGM, you receive a combined admission and AGM card. Alternatively, you were given an AGM card at the admission counter. You will need that card if you wish to take the floor, grant proxies, and to take part in the vote. Votes will be cast electronically. I will explain the voting process in detail later on.
Should you have received more than one AGM card, please make sure that all of them were registered at the admission counter, so that we will be able to count all of the votes that you cast. As well as here on site, votes can be cast by registered shareholders through all the other channels described in the notice of meeting. In particular, our online service allows you to cast votes by electronic postal ballots or by authorizing and instructing the company-appointed proxies, even while the AGM is still in progress. For further details, I would refer you to the notice of meeting. Should you wish to leave the AGM before it is concluded, please hand in your AGM cards at the exit counter. Alternatively, you may appoint someone to act as your proxy.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask our staff at the counters in the foyer. After Stephan Leithner's report and after the candidate for member of the Supervisory Board has introduced himself, I'm going to open the general debate on all items before the meeting. Since it's in everybody's interest that our AGM is concluded within a reasonable amount of time, I would ask all speakers to present their contributions and questions on all agenda items in one go. Should you wish to take the floor, please turn to the speaker's desk here at the front and present your AGM card. We'll then call you and give you the floor when it is your turn to speak. When you speak, please make sure that your contribution is limited to the items on the agenda or, if applicable, raises a point of order.
In the interest of all shareholders, I would also ask you to be reasonably brief. As the meeting chair, it is my duty to ensure that the annual general meeting is conducted in a compliant and orderly fashion. I have the authority to set limits for the speaking time, should I deem this necessary as the meeting progresses. This might become relevant when there is a large number of requests to speak or unanswered questions. With this in mind, I would ask you to register at the speaker's desk right now if you plan to take the floor on any agenda items. In principle, this AGM is being conducted in German. However, we're offering a non-binding convenience translation into English. So much for the formalities. With that, ladies and gentlemen, let us proceed to the business to be transacted.
The first item of business is the presentation of the approved annual and consolidated annual financial statements, the combined management report of Deutsche Börse AG and the Group as at December 31st, 2024, and the explanatory report on disclosures pursuant to sections 289A and 315A of the German Commercial Code or HGB. Furthermore, this agenda item deals with the report of the Supervisory Board and the proposal for the use of the unappropriated surplus. The aforementioned documents have been publicly available on the company's website since the AGM was called on March 31st, 2025, and they will also be available at today's AGM at our on-site terminals. With your permission, I will take them as read. Ladies and gentlemen, let me now give you an overview of our activities on the Supervisory Board in the past financial year.
In doing so, I will explain the report by the Supervisory Board. The report itself is part of the annual report 2024 of Deutsche Börse Group. I will refer to this report, but limit myself to the essentials. The Supervisory Board of Deutsche Börse AG had three priorities in 2024. The first priority was to take important decisions regarding the new composition, that is, of the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board. Secondly, we revised the remuneration system for the Executive Board, which will be presented to you for approval at today's annual general meeting. Third, we discussed important strategic matters that supplement the Group's strategy horizon 2026. In addition, the Supervisory Board discussed in depth and regularly the company's position, prospects, and fundamental strategic options. The Supervisory Board was also involved in an advisory capacity in Deutsche Börse Group's activities to buy and sell companies and parts thereof.
We perform the tasks assigned to us by law and the company's articles of incorporation and our rules of procedure. We have advised the Executive Board regularly on its management of the company and monitored its work. We were involved in all decisions of fundamental importance. We continued our overarching work on ESG matters, focusing on the social aspects of ESG, as well as on our governance in the form of the new appointments. We operated in a market environment faced with great challenges for the global economic and financial system. The development of global inflation remains uncertain. Economic growth in key markets, particularly industrialized European countries and China, is still below expectations. A change of administration took place in the U.S., and elections were held in Germany for the Federal Parliament in 2025 after the premature end of the previous coalition government.
At our meetings, the Executive Board provided us with comprehensive and timely information in accordance with the legal requirements. The high frequency of plenary and committee meetings and workshops ensured an intense exchange of information between the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board. The CEO in office until the end of last year, Theodor Weimer, together with Stephan Leithner, his Co-CEO from October 1, 2024, kept me continuously and regularly informed of the current developments affecting the company's business, significant transactions, upcoming decisions, and the long-term outlook, and discussed these matters with me. By way of continued professional development for the Supervisory Board and Executive Board, four workshops were held on artificial intelligence, the global economic outlook, digital assets, and the revision of the remuneration system for the Executive Board.
Furthermore, the nomination committee attended separate workshops on regulation, investor perspectives, and market trends in view of the upcoming revision of the remuneration system for the Executive Board. The average attendance rate of all members of the Supervisory Board for all meetings of the entire board and its committees was 99% during the reporting period. Let me now turn to matters addressed during plenary meetings of the Supervisory Board. As mentioned in the reporting year, we discussed in detail the upcoming new appointments to the Executive Board and Supervisory Board of Deutsche Börse AG. At the beginning of this year, Stephan Leithner took over as CEO from Theodor Weimer, who resigned from the Executive Board as scheduled at the end of the reporting year on reaching the age of 65. Stephan Leithner and Theodor Weimer had previously led the company together as co-CEOs.
Clara-Christina Streit was nominated by the Supervisory Board as its future chair as of the annual general meeting 2025. She has been a member of the Supervisory Board since 2019. She has extensive experience of working on Supervisory Boards and Boards of Directors in both national and international companies, as well as chairing a Supervisory Board. As Chairwoman of the German Commission on the German Corporate Governance Code, she has also proven expertise in the area of corporate governance. Dear Clara, I would like to wish you all the best and every success in your new role. Apart from the CEO succession, we also had to take other important decisions concerning the composition of the Executive Board in the reporting year. The Executive Board was expanded to seven members.
The former business area, pre and post-trading, was divided into two Executive Board areas in order to reflect the size and growing strategic importance of the investment management solutions segment. We first appointed Dr. Stephanie Eckermann to the Executive Board with responsibility for post-trading. At the end of the reporting year, we also appointed Christian Caromann as the Executive Board member for investment management solutions. He took over responsibility for this from Stephan Leithner with effect from January 1st, 2025. We also appointed Dr. Jens Schulte as a future Executive Board member and successor to our long-standing CFO, Gregor Pottmeyer, who is scheduled to resign from the company's Executive Board on September 30th, 2025, having been a member since 2009.
Pottmeyer, I personally, and on behalf of the Supervisory Board, want to express to you our heartfelt gratitude for your important contributions to the success of Deutsche Börse Group over the past 16 years. 16 years in a DAX-listed company is a very long time indeed, so thank you. As mentioned earlier, the Supervisory Board also discussed in detail the upcoming revision of the remuneration system for the Executive Board in the reporting year. This has to be presented to the AGM 2025 for approval. In this context, we closely looked at current regulation as well as investor perspectives and market trends relating to Executive Board remuneration. The revised remuneration system continues to set targeted incentives for sustainable economic growth of Deutsche Börse AG. In terms of sustainability targets, we focused on the employees of Deutsche Börse Group. They are essential for the Group's successful long-term performance.
We also looked at employees from a strategic perspective and were given a presentation by the Executive Board on the HR strategy for the entire Deutsche Börse Group. The climate strategy was expanded, and environmental activities were combined with social and corporate governance matters to form a new enhanced sustainability strategy. In the field of information technology, we defined artificial intelligence, AI, and digital assets as priority areas for the Supervisory Board and looked at these in detail. The Executive Board presented its strategic considerations regarding AI to us. We were also informed about specific use cases of AI within Deutsche Börse Group, AI-enabled programming, and the opportunities and risks of AI for a company's cyber resilience.
In the field of digital assets, we discussed in depth the digital transformation of financial markets, Deutsche Börse Group's strategy for its products and services in the digital asset space, and the status of its implementation. Another important matter in the field of IT was the status of integration of Simcorp from a technological perspective. In the reporting year, we again dealt with various legal matters and acquired an overview of the current status of important litigation and legal proceedings involving Deutsche Börse Group. These included the litigation and legal proceedings involving Clearstream Banking S.A. in the U.S. and Luxembourg, the European Commission's antitrust investigations into financial derivatives, and the ongoing investigation by the Public Prosecutions Office in Cologne regarding securities transactions by market participants over the dividend date, referred to as Cum-Ex transactions. Market participants used such transactions to make unjustified tax refund claims.
In this context, the Supervisory Board also dealt with investigations into such transactions by the stock exchange regulator in the German state of Hesse. Another important aspect of our Supervisory Board work was the efficiency, suitability, and effectiveness of the internal control systems and the handling of findings by internal control functions, external auditors, and regulatory authorities. I would now like to give you a brief explanation of the audit of the annual and consolidated financial statements for the 2024 fiscal year. PwC, based in Frankfurt, audited the annual financial statements of Deutsche Börse AG, the consolidated financial statements, and the combined management report for the financial year ended December 31st, 2024, together with the accounting system, and issued an unqualified audit opinion. The condensed financial statements and the interim management report contained in the half-yearly financial report for the first six months of 2024 were reviewed by PwC.
The documents relating to the financial statements and reports by PwC were submitted to us for inspection and examination in good time. The audit committee discussed the financial statement documents and the reports by PwC in detail with the auditors and examined them carefully itself. The committee reported to the Supervisory Board on its examination and recommended that it approve the annual financial statements and consolidated financial statements. Our own examination during a plenary meeting of the 2024 annual financial statements, consolidated statements, and combined management report, including the non-financial statement, did not lead to any objections. We approved the result of the audit, and thus the annual financial statements have been adopted. I want to thank the Executive Board and all employees for their exceptional commitment and outstanding work in 2024.
I would also like to refer you to the written report prepared by the Supervisory Board that is included in the 2024 annual report. In this report, you can also read the corporate governance statement, the declaration of compliance with the recommendations of the German Corporate Governance Code, and the remuneration report on the remuneration granted and owed to the members of the Executive Board and Supervisory Board in 2024. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now conclude with a summary of my main points. Number one, an important matter as part of our work on the Supervisory Board was the new lineup for the new Executive Board. Two, we have revised the remuneration system for the Executive Board and are presenting it to you today for approval. Three, with the nomination of Clara-Christina Streit as Chair of the Supervisory Board, we have made a forward-looking decision on succession.
And with that, I'd now like to hand over to our CEO, Stephan Leithner, and let me very warmly thank you once again. Thank you, Martin. We live in turbulent times. We need safe havens and a safe haven hub for the capital market. That is us, your Deutsche Börse Group. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, representatives, I'd also like to welcome you very warmly to the annual general meeting of your company, Deutsche Börse. I'm glad to see so many of you here. This year, we deliberately decided to have an in-person event, one reason being that it's important to me to get to know people personally with respect. Today is a special occasion for me. This is my first AGM as the CEO of Deutsche Börse Group.
I look forward to engaging in a dialogue with everyone here in the Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt, our hometown, and of course, with those joining us online from all over the world. A big hello to everyone on behalf of the entire Executive Board. Now, whenever a new CEO takes the helm, the company concerned will enter a new phase. I want to start this phase above all with gratitude and confidence. Let me thank all stakeholders for their trust, particularly you, our shareholders. Your support gives us in the Executive Board a tailwind to keep the ship on course, a course that can also be seen in our financials and our share price. We will do everything in our power to continue to earn your trust. Trust is based on transparency, reliability, and shared values.
It's the foundation for today's meeting, at which we're going to take a look at our financials, our goals, and this is particularly important at the successful cooperation within Deutsche Börse Group and with our customers. This company has grown considerably in recent years. It has gelled considerably, especially in the past year. None of this happened by chance. It was achieved with a lot of passion, after a lot of thought, and for the benefit of its stakeholders. Let's start by looking at the financials. In 2024, we once more over-delivered on our targets. We increased net revenue by 15% to a record level of €5.8 billion. Eight percentage points of this increase were achieved organically, in other words, without acquisitions. A further seven percentage points were added through successful acquisitions.
We have introduced a new, even more meaningful KPI, net revenue without treasury reserve, which excludes any cyclical effects from changes in interest rates. In total, this KPI rose by 16% to €4.8 billion. Organically, it also grew strongly by 8%. An important factor in our success is the proportion of recurring revenue, because this is what makes us robust. This KPI now accounts for 62%, which means when a new financial year begins, we already know where almost two-thirds of our revenue should come from. One thing makes me particularly happy is the cost leverage of our business. We managed to limit organic cost growth to 3%, while our revenue increased organically by 8%. In other words, profit increased faster than revenue. Overall, costs rose by 17%. Most of that was due to the consolidation of Simcorp. Everything according to plan.
We've successfully completed the integration and fully realized the cost synergies, and the growth in our respective revenue streams is mutually reinforcing. I'm very proud of my colleagues for this outstanding achievement. A big thank you. One thing is clear: we'll continue to keep a close eye on our costs. This is part of how we see ourselves and my promise to you all. This also enables us to achieve strong profit growth. Our earnings before taxes, EBITDA, were up 15% to €3.4 billion. Without treasury reserves, they rose even more strongly by 18% to €2.3 billion, and our net income amounted to €1.9 billion, an increase of 13%. Our colleagues have worked hard for this success, with commitment, entrepreneurial spirit, and a great sense of responsibility, and because they think ahead beyond their own business areas.
Intensive cooperation within our group, always with the aim of learning from one another, getting better together, and letting our customers benefit from our integrated business model. A big thank you to our teams worldwide. I'd like to take this opportunity to say another thank you to my predecessor, Theodor Weimer. He led this successful company for six years. We traveled this path together. At the end of last year, he handed over the helm to me. I want to continue the success story together with our reinforced Executive Board team. I'm glad to be here with them. Ladies and gentlemen, we share our success with you, our shareholders. For 2024, we're proposing a dividend of €4 per share, 5% more than last year, and a tenth increase in a row. This means that we're distributing 38% of the net income for the period to our shareholders.
Our aim remains to increase the dividend per share every year. In addition, we've decided to buy back shares, totaling €500 million in 2025. Implementation is already underway. This means that we share our positive development with you, our shareholders. The total distribution, including share buybacks, increases to a record value of €1.2 billion, an impressive increase of 24%, demonstrating the potential of our stock price. This year is no exception. Harsh winds are blowing on the capital markets. This applies not only to the stock markets, but also to the interest rate and currency markets. It's a time full of upheaval. We're all feeling this wind, but our strategy is working. Especially in turbulent times, we, Deutsche Börse Group, are an efficient, safe haven for the capital market, storm-tested time and time again. This April was a particularly stormy month.
It saw a record number of stocks traded on a single day, with our systems running reliably. Now, any harbor has a clear set of rules. Safe standards, harbors are places of exchange, transfer points for goods from all over the world, hubs for world trade. Harbors facilitate the flow of trade. They optimize themselves continuously, have to be innovative, use the latest technologies so they can offer maximum efficiency for their customers. Our safe haven offers tailored solutions, increasingly also for the buy side, that is, asset managers, pension funds, and insurance companies. Without them, there would be no stable provision for retirement. We organize each and every step of the investment process and ensure smooth access to the markets. Our customers can rely on us. We are their long-term partner, broadly positioned.
We're not dependent on market fluctuations or individual regions, and society can rely on us to be an efficient transfer point. We offer reliable, transparent, and innovative infrastructures for free capital flows, innovation, and growth. We actively support the current renewal in Germany and Europe. I'll come back to that later. We've created a globally competitive infrastructure on which the European Savings and Investment Union can build. We've invested consistently, organically, and through acquisitions, and will continue to do so. This puts Europe's infrastructure for the capital market in an excellent position. Our share price reflects this strength, our investments, our clear-cut strategy, and our potential for the future. In the first four months of this year, it has increased more than twice as much as the DAX. 2025 also got off to a strong start, as shown by the performance achieved in the first quarter.
Net revenue without treasury reserve rose by 10% to €1.3 billion. This puts it slightly ahead of the expectations of the Executive Board. EBITDA without treasury reserve was up by as much as 11% and will remain on course for growth for this year and next. We're planning an increase in net revenue without treasury reserve of 8% on average, and a cost growth that remains moderate at only 3% this year. We have delivered on our targets and will continue to do so. The following statement has almost become a platitude. Uncertainty is the new normal. Geopolitical crisis, tensions in long-term partnerships, pressure on trade flows, technological upheaval. Germany and Europe are experiencing turbulent times, and in times like these, structural problems become apparent: a lack of productivity, a lack of competitiveness, and a collapsing pension system. In uncertain times, some people only see the risks.
Let me emphasize, I see the opportunities, the opportunities of transformation, new beginnings, and innovation, exactly what will put the wind back in Europe's sails. I'm an optimist. We're all about getting things done for your company, Deutsche Börse Group, for all stakeholders. We know who we are. We're not just any company. We are the engineers of the capital markets. We stand for the leading infrastructure of Europe's capital markets. We're a safe haven for the capital markets. Innovative strength and technological leadership are part of Deutsche Börse's DNA. Let's think back to the complete electronization of exchange trading in the 1990s. We carry this origin in our name, Deutsche Börse Group, but we've grown far beyond that. As our name suggests, our German roots are the starting point, but we've become a European champion, and we operate worldwide.
We now employ a total of almost 16,000 people of more than 120 nationalities at more than 60 locations around the globe. We've become much more than just a stock exchange. Our growing integrated business model covers the entire spectrum of the capital market. This is possible because entrepreneurship is also in our DNA. We strive for ever better, more efficient, and more reliable solutions for the capital markets, the true art of engineering. We are the engineers of the capital market. This is a phrase that we coined over the last few months, and this applies to our 5,000 colleagues in IT, the colleagues in the product and customer-facing areas, but also to our experts in the regulatory departments. Let me introduce you to some of our engineers. Hi, I'm Rita from close to Sydney.
I manage the auto routing and headcount division, delivering top-tier fund operation services, and I am a Capital Markets Engineer. Hi, I'm Ilkay from 360T in Dubai. My responsibility is sales of FX trading technology and growth across the Middle East, and I am a Capital Markets Engineer. I'm Zohra Boumedel from EPX Sports. I make sure that the legal compliance and contract management department contributes to the company's strategy, and I'm a Capital Markets Engineer. Hi, from Washington, D.C. I'm Aston Adams, and I'm responsible for covering publicly traded companies, and I'm a Capital Markets Engineer. Hi everyone, I'm Marco Unternerer from Crypto Finance out of Switzerland. I make sure that vital data from crypto exchanges flows reliably and is ready for our market activities, and I'm a Capital Markets Engineer. Hello, I'm Susanna Trejo from Simkorp in Mexico City.
I'm responsible for the global support team, assisting our clients worldwide when they report incidents in our applications, and I'm a Capital Markets Engineer. Hi, I'm Liz from Eurex Singapore. I'm responsible for derivatives marketing. With the use of targeted marketing strategies, I promote Eurex benchmarks and products to market participants in the different regions, and I'm a Capital Markets Engineer. Hi, my name is Surab Srivastava, and I'm working for Deutsche Börse in Eschborn. As part of the second line of defense, I'm responsible for ensuring robust monitoring and oversight of ICT risks, and I'm a Capital Markets Engineer. These are just some of our almost 16,000 Capital Markets Engineers. Every day, their marvel inspires me, their passion for the infrastructure of the markets around the globe. Often, their actions are not visible, but they're indispensable.
We have a clear strategy in place for Horizon 2026, which is based on four pillars: first, strong organic growth, driven by entrepreneurship across all four areas of our group; second, a special focus on our growth segment, investment management solutions, IMS for short; third, our leading role in the digitalization of our industry; and fourth, clear rules and strict discipline for our capital allocation. You will recognize our strategy in our figures. I've already mentioned the organic growth 2024 that I've already spoken about. All our segments contribute nationally. The speed boats in our fleet include the European Energy Exchange, EEX, a leading energy exchange in Europe with global operations, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and there are good reasons to celebrate, such as the continuous increase in our OTC market share.
The next pillar of our strategy is IMS, our growth segment, focusing on institutional investors such as pension funds, a customer group that is becoming increasingly important as we mentioned before. IMS consists of two companies, with each of them catering to specific customer needs. The first is ISA Stocks, our provider of data ratings and indices, and enables our clients to make well-informed investment decisions. When it comes to sustainability, our customers around the world nowadays have to cope with major regional differences. ISA Stocks gives them optimal support in fulfilling the various requirements. The second element of IMS is Simkorp, our software provider for institutions. Basically, it offers 360-degree navigation for investment firms. Simkorp acquired additional new major customers in North America in 2025, including one of the largest asset managers in the world and one of the largest US pension funds.
The third pillar of our strategy is our leading role in the digitalization of the capital market. We've always been and always will be pioneers. Our innovation strategy is evident in all business areas, with a clear focus on next-generation technologies. We invested heavily in our expertise, not just through acquisitions, but also in our existing infrastructure, data, and technology solutions. Here are three examples. First, our digital platform, D7. Market participants can use it to issue electronic securities securely, cost-effectively, 100% digitally, in the fraction of the time previously required and available to anyone. We launched the platform in October 2022 and reached a milestone this year with 1 million issuances. Second, our crypto expertise and important future-oriented areas. Institutional investors need security, and that's where we come in. We offer traditional safe custody.
We have pooled the strength of crypto finance, you saw our colleague in the video, and Clearstream to achieve this. We combine innovation and security, which makes us certainly a pioneer. The third example is our contribution to the development of the digital euro. Clearstream and Eurex Clearing have successfully taken part in the ECB trials. We're driving the digitalization of our industry, always in partnership with our customers and, of course, in consultation with regulators. The fourth pillar of our strategy is discipline and a clear focus when deploying our capital. Organic investments remain our priority. In terms of acquisitions, our focus in 2024 was on integration, especially in all matters SimCorp. In addition, we completed our business by making smaller acquisitions, for example, at ISS. One thing has always been important to us, that you, as investors, receive a fair share in the company's success.
You know our dividend policy. When we have our excess funds that are not needed elsewhere, it's only logical for us to do share buybacks. I've already presented our buyback program to you, and we'll come back to it later on. When it comes to strategic foresight, I'd like to thank Martin Jetter. Martin Jetter has just delivered an impressive farewell speech for five years as Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Martin, you've made our company stronger in turbulent times with your sharp mind. We've benefited greatly from your vision of the importance of innovative technologies. With your foresightedness, you've always taken the critical and challenging approach through the further development of Deutsche Börse Group as a technology-driven company.
You've recognized the significance of new developments early on, and thanks to your wide global experience and your clear focus on growth, we've been able to successfully tackle some demanding issues and acquisitions. You've always set great store by good corporate governance, the long-term view, and the board's activities, which also became apparent last year in your forward-looking approach to the passing of the baton in the supervisory board. We will, of course, work with your designated successor, Clara Streit, in the same spirit of mutual trust and cooperation. That's for certain. Clara, I'm really looking forward to it, because we still have big plans. Our aim for the future continues to be growth with a strategic focus, and we'll always be more than the sum of our parts. Here's an example to illustrate my point. In April, we celebrated 25 years of ETFs in Europe, exchange-traded funds.
You all know them, funds traded on the stock exchange that track the performance of indices. They have revolutionized the way people save around their old age. We were the pioneers in Europe and are still a market leader. I'd like to use ETFs as an example to illustrate the strength of our fleet. We operate as a joint group pursuing a common goal, a strong ecosystem composed of various components from our own infrastructure. It all starts with issuers coming up with an ETF structure, for that, they use our DAX and stock indices. With more listings and higher trading volumes of ETFs than any other exchange, our XETRA trading platform has been and still is the leader in Europe. Our derivatives exchange, Eurex, helps ETF issuers to track the performance of indices efficiently, and we provide risk management.
Our clearing house ensures that buyers and sellers actually receive their money and securities. We take care of the settlement and custody of ETFs. With our subsidiary Clearstream, we've already overcome the often lamented fragmentation in individual markets in Europe. We are there for the whole of Europe. I recently met a colleague of mine who was already on board when the first ETFs were launched in Europe, Stefan Kraus. At the time, he was just a rookie, fresh out of college. Today, he heads our ETF team as one of those experienced capital market engineers. Passionate and highly competent colleagues like him make our group what it is. Talking to them always gives me inspiration. The ETF example shows how we see ourselves. To us, cooperation is a strength within our group, with our customers. It also shows how much responsibility we have with our infrastructure.
We ensure efficient capital flows and create trust in the markets, as we say in our purpose. These capital flows enable our economy to pick up speed again. These capital flows secure our retirement provisions and a future for our children. Our infrastructures strengthen the European capital market. We've put together a comprehensive offering for this purpose, covering the entire process chain in the markets, from searching for the right investments to the trading process itself. Just as important is safe post-trade custody. We ensure that all participants can always respond to new developments in the market, that they can hedge their activities, and our offering also includes global IT solutions. I've already given you numerous examples, and I could go on and on.
Strategically, this offering is well thought out and always guided by the major trends in the markets so that they can continue to develop efficiently, stably, and reliably. We see this as our responsibility. We do this as committed Europeans. A good two-thirds of our capital market engineers are based in Europe at around 30 locations. You met some of them in the video. Our compass is pointing in the right direction. We're driving Europe forward with our infrastructure, our innovations, and our reliability. This time of uncertainty and upheaval is a powerful demonstration of how Europe must also navigate in this direction towards innovation and strength.
Only a strong and united Europe can create a framework in which our excellent companies can operate successfully and thus contribute to social prosperity, assert our place in the world, play a part in setting the rules of the game, and defend our values. Strength means being able to rely on yourself to be autonomous. Now, autonomy does not mean closing yourself off completely, on the contrary, but it does mean not being at the mercy of others. Europe won't be able to achieve this autonomy without a strong economy, not without its own infrastructure. The basis for this is a strong and stable financial market infrastructure that can adapt to change by always coming up with perfectly tailored solutions in an efficient and transparent manner. That's where we come in, ladies and gentlemen. That's who we are, and Europe has recognized this.
Now it's time to clear the decks because we also need the right political framework in Germany and in Europe. There is an opportunity for reforms with Germany's new government and the new European Commission now in place. The capital market must be at the heart of these reforms so that we can close the massive funding gaps in infrastructure, in innovation. To achieve this, we need to mobilize sufficient European private capital. The new government's coalition agreement offers some promising approaches. They've recognized that to get things done, they need the capital market. We now have to build on this and walk the walk. Critical points must be addressed in the first 100 days. The new government must strengthen Germany as a financial center. This can help companies to raise capital.
We need more public-private partnerships to become more attractive to investors and to finance change together, the public and private sector together. We urgently need to make progress on the issue of pensions. The so-called early start and active pensions proposed by the new government are a step in the right direction, but unfortunately, only a small one. What we need now is a turbocharger. We have brought forward proposals to make all three pillars of the German pension system fit for the future. This includes a share-based pension, tax incentives for a company pension invested in the capital market, and retirement provision from birth. The government must also look at corporate and private income taxes, remove obstacles, reduce burdens, create incentives to enable growth. This also includes improved employee profit-sharing programs. In short, we need a new financial market mentality.
We need to move from a savings account mentality to an investor mentality. This movement has already gained momentum in Europe with concrete proposals for the savings and investment union. But now Europe needs to walk the walk, set sail so that we can finally create a single capital market and mobilize more private capital, for example, through standardized investment products or better investment terms and conditions for pension funds and insurance companies, for more investments into the future and fewer regulatory hurdles for strong European champions. We finally need rules that enable size, innovation, and growth. Growth creates prosperity. After all, this is in everyone's interest. At Deutsche Börse Group, we've laid the foundations for this in recent years. We have invested with foresight for a complete and globally competitive capital market on a European basis. Let me summarize.
As shareholders of Deutsche Börse AG, you co-own a company that is growing strongly and does everything it can to create value-adding growth. We're not just any listed company. We are a safe haven for the capital market. We ensure stability and reliability for the markets as well as our shareholders. We are a European champion, the hub of the European capital market, with a long-term focus, entrepreneurial spirit, and an art of engineering that drives innovation. Deutsche Börse Group stands for a strong and sustainable financial market infrastructure and for a strong and more autonomous Europe. You can be proud of your company's performance. Thank you for your trust also on behalf of the entire executive board. Now we look forward to your questions and contributions. With that, back to you, Martin. Lieber Stefan, ich danke dir für deinen Bericht. Thank you for your report, Stefan.
I can now announce that the final transcript of Stefan Leitner's speech and my remarks on the supervisory board report will be available on the company's website after today's AGM. For your preparation, the drafts of the speeches delivered by Stefan Leitner and myself respectively had been made available online in the run-up to this AGM. And with that, there is one more formal item. Stefan, you'd like to address the AGM again to say a few words on the acquisition of treasury shares this year. You have the floor. Lieber Martin, vielen Dank. Wie bereits angesprochen, für die Deutsche Börse. Thanks, Martin. As mentioned before, Deutsche Börse AG is currently conducting a share buyback program with a total volume of €500 million. So far, 303,013 shares accounting for €303,013 of the company's share capital have been bought back under this program.
This translates into 0.161% of the company's share capital. That's a rounded figure. The buyback price to date amounts to €78,039,652.13. The acquired shares will be canceled. Back to you, Martin. Vielen Dank, lieber Stefan. Thank you, Stefan. Ladies and gentlemen, the record of attendance is now available in electronic form and may be inspected on the screen next to the speaker's desk. For the record, the current attendance count is as follows. Of the company's total of 188,300,000 no-par value shares, 140,151,411 votes/NPV shares are currently represented, and this translates into 74.43% of the company's share capital. In addition, we have received postal votes for 1,272,220 shares. Please note that this in total makes up 75.11% of the registered share capital. Please also note that this is a continuously updated electronic register, and therefore the attendance I have just announced will change over time.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the run-up to this AGM, you received detailed information on the agenda, especially as part of the notice of meeting. Allow me at this point to make some additional remarks on some agenda items, and after that, we shall proceed to the general debate. Concerning agenda item two, I would like to point out that the board's proposal on the appropriation of unappropriated surplus needs to be amended to reflect the change in the number of shares carrying dividend rights. As announced in the notice of meeting, the proposal on the appropriation of unappropriated surplus published in the Federal Gazette will thus be put to the vote in an amended version later today. This amended version will reflect the current number of shares carrying dividend rights, which has changed in the meantime, but still provides for a €4 dividend per share.
The amended proposal is also available on our website and reads as follows. The executive board and the supervisory board propose that the unappropriated surplus reported in the adopted annual financial statements as at 31st December 2024, totaling €770 million, to be appropriated as follows: to pay a dividend of €4 for each no-par value share carrying dividend rights, which means in total €733,903,324, and to allocate an amount of €36,096,676 to other retained earnings. As a result, when you're going to cast your votes later on, you're going to vote on this amended proposal, not on the proposal originally published in the Federal Gazette. Our notary is going to record this in the minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd now like to give the floor to Jean-Pierre Mustier, who is standing as a candidate for member of the supervisory board under agenda item seven. Mr.
Mustier, you have the floor. Guten Morgen. Mein Name ist Jean-Pierre Mustier. Good morning. My name is Jean-Pierre Mustier. It is an honor to me to present myself to you today as a candidate for election to the supervisory board of your Deutsche Börse. Please permit me to continue my presentation in English. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to say a few words about myself. I am, with my accent, you can guess, a French national, but spent most of my professional career internationally. After having worked in France for four years, I spent three years in the US, six years in Japan and Hong Kong, and twelve years each in the UK and Italy, where I am currently residing. Es folgt jetzt die deutsche Übersetzung. Sehr geehrte Aktionärinnen und Aktionäre, meine Damen und Herren, gestatten Sie mir ein paar kurze Worte über mich selbst.
Ich bin französischer Staatsbürger, habe aber den Großteil meines Arbeitslebens in unterschiedlichen Ländern verbracht. Nach zunächst vier Jahren in Frankreich habe ich drei Jahre in den USA gearbeitet, sechs Jahre in Japan und Hong Kong, sowie jeweils zwölf Jahre im Vereinigten Königreich und dann in Italien, wo ich auch gegenwärtig meinen Wohnsitz habe. Thank you. I have been in charge of the corporate and investment banking activities of both Société Générale and UniCredit, where I gained a deep expertise of capital market issues. As partner in an alternative management company, Tikeo, and a sponsor of three special purpose acquisition companies, so-called SPACs, I was able to build on my investment management skills. Ich war Leiter des Corporate Banking und des Investment Banking, sowohl bei der Société Générale als auch bei UniCredit, was mir umfassende Kenntnisse in Kapitalmarktangelegenheiten gebracht hat.
Als Partner bei Tikeo, einer Gesellschaft für alternative Investments, und als Sponsor von drei Zweckgesellschaften, sogenannten SPACs, konnte ich meine Fähigkeiten im Investment Management aufbauen. As CEO of UniCredit for five years, Chairman of the European Banking Federation for two years, and Chairman and CEO of Atos, a French IT service company for two years, I acquired considerable experience in leading very large institutions and defining a proper strategic vision and interacting with regulators and sovereign entities. In fünf Jahren als CEO der UniCredit, zwei Jahren als Chairman der European Banking Federation und zwei Jahren als Chairman und CEO von Atos, einem französischen IT-Dienstleister, habe ich umfangreiche Erfahrungen in der Führung sehr großer Institutionen erworben. Von der Definition eines tragfähigen strategischen Leitbilds bis zum Umgang mit Aufsichtsbehörden und staatlichen Stellen.
I am currently Chairman of Areal Bank, a German commercial real estate bank headquartered not far from here in the wonderful Wiesbaden, and a board member of UniGestion, a Swiss alternative investment management company. I am also acting as Senior Advisor to Revaya, a French venture capital company, as well as Banking Circle, a Danish payment fintech company. Gegenwärtig bin ich Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender der Areal Bank, einer Bank für die Immobilienbranche mit Sitz hier in der Nähe im wunderbaren Wiesbaden. Außerdem bin ich Mitglied des Verwaltungsrats der UniGestion, einer Schweizer Investmentgesellschaft für alternative Investments. Daneben betätige ich mich als Senior Advisor bei Revaya, einer französischen Venture Capital Gesellschaft, und bei Banking Circle, einem dänischen Fintech für Zahlungsdienstleistungen.
Dear Shareholders, dear Ladies and Gentlemen, it will be my honor to use my extensive skills and many years of capital market and investment management experience as a member of the Deutsche Börse Supervisory Board and to contribute to the growth journey of Deutsche Börse Group. I am kindly asking you for your vote today and thank you deeply for your support. Sehr geehrte Aktionärinnen und Aktionäre, meine Damen und Herren, es wäre mir eine Ehre, meine umfangreichen Fähigkeiten und meine langjährige Erfahrung auf dem Kapitalmarkt und im Investment Management auch als Aufsichtsratsmitglied der Deutschen Börse einzubringen und zum Wachstumskurs der Gruppe Deutsche Börse beizutragen. Ich bitte Sie freundlich um Ihre Stimme und danke Ihnen von ganzem Herzen für Ihre Unterstützung. Vielen Dank. Ich wünsche Ihnen einen guten Tag. Thank you very much and have a wonderful day. Ich danke Ihnen, Herr Mustier, für Ihre Präsentation. Thank you, Mr. Mustier.
Merci, Monsieur Mustier, pour votre présentation. Ich fahre nun fort mit der Tagesordnung. And I'll proceed with the agenda. Ich habe just made some additional remarks on certain agenda items. You have received the full wording of all agenda items, so I am not going to comment on each and every one of them at this point. Meine sehr verehrten Damen und Herren, Ladies and gentlemen, I now open the debate on the items before the meeting. May I ask shareholders and shareholder representatives to lodge their requests to speak, unless, of course, you've already done so. Der Wortmeldetisch. You will find the speaker's desk in front of the stage on the left-hand side, as seen from your seats. I would ask those shareholders and shareholder representatives who have registered at the speaker's desk to proceed to the rostrum when it is their turn to speak.
The rostrum is right next to the speaker's desk. For any contributions, please be sure to use the microphone at the rostrum so that everybody can hear you. Generally speaking, there will be no limit on your right to speak and ask questions as such. But as a matter of courtesy, I would ask you not to make undue use of your allotted time. Having said that, I do reserve the right to set an appropriate time limit, either for the AGM as a whole or for individual contributions, should I deem this necessary. After all, we want to conclude the business of this meeting within an acceptable time frame. Out of respect for other speakers, I would kindly ask you to be brief and to speak only on the items before the meeting. Experience has shown that ten minutes should normally be enough for this.
It is also a question of fairness to ensure that all shareholders are given equal treatment. Once a block of speakers has had the floor, and when all speakers have had their say at the latest, the company is going to answer the questions addressed to it. Once all contributions have been heard and all questions have been answered, I will close the debate and move on to the vote on the items before the meeting. I have already received a number of requests for the floor, and I'd now like to announce them in the order and sequence in which I shall call the speakers to the rostrum. So we've got the following requests to speak: Markus Kienle, Klaus Bäding, Andreas Thomae, Alexandra Anneke, Tilmann Masser, Lara Kralisch, Max Goodbrodt, Thomas Gebhardt and Reinhard Martius. With that, I would now like to ask Mr.
Markus Kienle to present his contribution and question, and he'll be followed by Klaus Neiding. Einen Moment, können wir das Mikrofon überprüfen, bitte? Just wait one second, can we check the microphone, please? Jetzt soll das gehen. That should work now. Sehr geehrter Herr Jetter, Dr. Leitner, Ladies and Gentlemen of Administration and Management, dear co-shareholders, my name is Markus Kienle, I'm a lawyer based in Frankfurt am Main and member of the board of the German SDK. Dr. Leitner, you and Deutsche Börse seem to be moving from one record year to the next. Net revenue up by almost 15%, EBIT by almost 17%, the surplus for the period by plus 14%, and to me, always an important KPI, more than 18% return on equity.
You, or your predecessor in office, already presented the year 2023 to be a record year, and also the share price in the past financial year picked up by more than 22%, thus more than the DAX and the Europe 600 financial services. Only amongst the S&P, Standard and Poor's 500 capital markets, that's the one standard you couldn't beat. Maybe that's a challenge for next year. Now, for the performance of this past financial year, we owe a debt of gratitude to all employees, and can we ask the management please to convey our gratitude to the staff? Also, the first quarter 2025 is stronger yet again than the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Now, where do you see any potential for optimization at Deutsche Börse, essentially? Given the uncertainties in the markets and the high volatility, are you experiencing something like a special boom?
From Deutsche Börse's point of view, where do you see a healthy volatility, and what would the revenues and EBIT look like if this volatility were to materialize? Where do you see the risks for Deutsche Börse in the current political and economic environment, especially the high volatility on the markets, if this is to prevail? With interest rates, at the moment, there seem to be two contrary effects. On the one hand, the reduction of the key rates and the probably next rate reduction step of the ECB for June 2025, and on the other hand, there's the interest rate increasing effect given the intended funding volume provided by the national government.
At the day, it was announced that the federal level would be ready to extend their investment by this gigantic amount, interest rate for 10-year bonds improved by 0.2% on a single day to almost 3% effective interest rate. The Treasury result for the first quarter 2025 has decreased across all segments. What do you make of the development of the Treasury result for the current and also the next financial year? What do you think will be the interest rate level in the medium term, say, over the next three years? The current customs policy of the US administration is a threat to free world trade. Do you fear any negative effects due to this protectionist policy, and if so, to what extent? Are there individual segments that are more affected than others?
The US administration has adopted or has rather said that they would fight and go against the so-called DEI initiatives. Is Deutsche Börse also an addressee of this kind of project, and do you fear that this anti-DEI project will have an impact on individual business areas, particularly those that deal with sustainability, and if so, to what extent? In the investment management solutions segment, it is noticeable that the software solutions divisions have almost exploded in terms of revenue compared to the previous year. Is this exorbitant increase due to the acquisition of SimCorp fully consolidated for the first time? We also very much welcome the fact that after five years of virtual AGMs, you've now returned to a physical meeting. We do not share the fiction provided by the legislature that both versions are the same and are equal to each other.
That is already shown in the lack of interactivity between shareholders and management on the one hand, and the total lack of interaction of shareholders themselves on the other. A lasting and sustainable interactivity is a guarantee for a successful AGM, which can also help to gauge the atmosphere and the mood when it comes to approval and disapproval of the shareholder base. Also, allowing people to make interjections is part of a healthy debate and discussion culture. This exchange with shareholders during the AGM for requests that require a certain type of majority is an absolute necessity. The current way virtual AGMs are set up is sterile and makes the shareholder an outsider to an event at which they should be the main persons and characters.
We accept virtual meetings as an emergency form of AGM in emergency situations, such as pandemics or bans on people congregating or similar situations. The arguments in favor of virtual AGMs are not really convincing. In particular, this goes for including larger groups of the shareholder base. The information that I have available proves that participation rates in virtual AGMs are far lower than in physical ones. A hybrid AGM would be the best format to cater for all needs, but even emergency situations require certain characteristics to be fulfilled for a successful conclusion of an AGM. Apart from allowing for interactivity, we also request that at such virtual meetings, there are no general and fundamental decisions taken, and also reduce any disturbances of technical nature to pure negligence.
Since there is no provision for virtual AGMs only in an emergency situation and no other regulations are contained, we shall therefore not approve the resolution under item one of the agenda. The remuneration system with a variable component of at least two-thirds of total remuneration and the limitation of the short-term variable share of a maximum of 30% of the variable overall compensation fulfills important requirements of SDK. Also, we welcome the widening and deepening of the benchmark indices for the share price development, but in theory, it remains still possible to still grant a variable remuneration if the company was ever to incur a loss. So for that reason, we shall also not approve that resolution.
The parameter of the relative share price development compared to various comparison indices is to resolve that problem, and we do concede that this was never the intention of the designers of the remuneration system and the probability of such a scenario, given the width and breadth of the reference indices, is relatively low. It is still there. As a rule, the granting of variable compensation for years in which a loss is incurred is something that we refuse. But if you record in the notary minutes that for loss years, there will be no variable compensation granted, we would then be able and willing to approve that particular resolution. The other proposed resolutions, we shall vote yes on, and we will also agree on the introduction of electronic shares and the appointment of the auditor for the year, and we'll also approve the remuneration report.
We shall vote in favor of Mr. Monsieur being appointed to the supervisory board, and we very much welcome the fact that the company succeeded in attracting a person, an individual with such an impressive CV, to become a member of the supervisory board. Thank you for that. The draft resolution on the new authorized capital for 2025, we shall reject. The company already at present, without this additional authorized capital, has sufficient capital amounting to more than 20% of the share capital. With the draft resolution presented here, it would go up to more than 30%. The SDK would go up to 25% of share capital and 10% without subscription rights. But combining all of those capital amounts with this new amount of approved capital, these limits would be exceeded. We would like to stress, though, that the company has limited the exclusion of subscription rights to 10%.
It makes no use of this new rule where the so-called simplified exclusion of subscription rights in the amount of 20% of the share capital would become possible. If management of supervised report, however, would declare in the notary records minutes that either at the next AGM, there would be no replacement for the then expiring authorized capital 26, or alternatively, a resolution on the withdrawal of the authorized capital 27, we would then find ourselves able and willing to also approve that draft resolution. Next, I would like to talk about the personnel changes coming up. Mr. Pottmeier, when you leave the company, you will have worked for the company for 16 years. It hasn't always been easy, particularly remembering the controversy about whether it makes sense to acquire LSI or not, which in the end failed.
Sometimes also failed due to questions of where the headquarters was to be, regardless of entrepreneurial and other economic advantages. In an exchange with you, the controversial exchange also regarding whether it makes sense to use the return on equity as an important KPI is something which we will also always rather enjoy. We thank you for your service for Deutsche Börse Group and wish you all the best for your further career. Thank you very much at this point. Mr. Jetter, we would also like to say thank you to you as well. In terms of the business model, you've lifted Deutsche Börse Group to a new level and further developed the business model.
In today's uncertain times, which are highly volatile and characterized by change, nothing is as important as quickly adapting one's business model, particularly shown in industries which over decades saw a lack of adaptation and not even earned their cost of capital. We don't applaud the fact that you give us your job as the chairman of the supervised report before your period of office ends. We think that you're only free in your decision whether to accept or not accept your office, but we do accept your motivation for it and also wish you all the best. Mr. Leitner, at the very end, to you and your colleagues on the management board, all the best of luck and success for the current financial year, and thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much, Mr. Kienle, for your remarks.
Let me now call the next speaker, and once all questions will have been asked, we will answer them. That's the executive board and myself. Let me now call Mr. Klaus Neiding, and following that, Andreas Thomey will speak. Herr Vorsitzender, meine sehr geehrten Damen und Herren, mein Name ist Klaus Neiding. Herr Jetter should be a relatively simple name. Chairman, I'm an attorney based in Frankfurt, and I speak as Vice President of DSW, the German Association of Retail Investors, Germany's largest and leading association of shareholders. Chairman, at the start of today's remarks, I'd like to expressly thank you for the shareholder-friendly format for the annual general meeting. After the sad years of monotonous board TV, you have returned to the face-to-face meeting, which is the only format that's really shareholder-friendly.
It's only during in-person meetings that we shareholders are able to gain a first-hand impression of the company and its bodies and also have a personal exchange among ourselves. Shareholders often ask me what the criteria are according to which you should buy or not buy a specific company share, and my recommendation is to buy a single share and then go to a face-to-face annual general meeting of the company and then check whether you would buy a used car from the board or boards, and if you have had a good feeling about that, you could buy further shares as well. That's why I can only call upon you to please maintain the in-person format because what's good for the supervisory board and your meetings, which were by and large in-person, should also be good enough for shareholders and appropriate for shareholders.
That's why for item eight, we will vote no if and when the application of Article 15(2) of the amended articles will not be restricted to an AGM in a virtual format, allowing that is the virtual format only in the exceptional circumstances of a pandemic or other conditions preventing an in-person meeting at the end of 15(2), as suggested now. I suggest another amendment saying this authorization shall apply to the exception of a nationwide pandemic or similar situation of emergency precluding an in-person AGM. Without such a restriction, I will vote no for item eight. Mr. Leitner and Mr. Jetner, at this point, I'd like to pay tribute to you, the members of both boards, including those who left in the course of the year, but also all employees of the company.
We'd like to pay tribute to and thank you for the extraordinarily positive result. You delivered on your promise. €5.8 million net income, EBITDA at €3.4 billion, earnings per share €10.60, an all-time high, distribution of €735 million with a dividend of €4 per share and a share price of currently around €280. What more could a shareholder want? Our share during the 36-month period won 74% in value, which is remarkable in itself, although it's not the all-time high that was back in 2007. Shareholders of Deutsche Börse were happy to see 93.2% in that historic year 2007. Nevertheless, the performance of the share is excellent. Deutsche Börse is among the winners because Deutsche Börse shares won 263% in cumulative terms over the years. Annually, it's 13.8% each year. What other investment would see such an increase?
€10,000 invested originally would have turned into €36,310 in the course of 10 years. The risk is less than average with a loss ratio of 1.63%. The Deutsche Börse share should be in every securities account. This will not depend on the capital market situation. When Deutsche Börse is going well, all shares are going well because the rising flood will raise all boats. Even during times of turbulence, between the 7th and 9th of April this year, for example, when Donald Trump upset the markets with his tariff policy, even in those periods, trading volumes will go up and our company will benefit. When investors look at different trading platforms and opt for a change between platforms, we can also benefit from that. It's thanks to the current and the former CEO that we've seen this positive development.
We wish you all the best for Dr. Weimer. I would have expected that he would be here to personally accept our gratitude. He doesn't seem to be here, so kindly forward our gratitude. We'll certainly meet again. When it comes to DSW, in November last year, you won the award for good corporate governance, the DSW award. In a refreshingly clear way, Dr. Weimer always speaks up when talking about the economic policy of Germany in particular. Dr. Weimer announced to leave, but Dr.
Jetter, when you announced that you'd leave just after having been re-elected for another three years as supervisory board chairman, only a few months later announcing that at the end of today's AGM, you would resign, saying that, as the official version goes, spending more time on your interests in the U.S. and other mandates, quote unquote, let's hope that your successor will be as successful as you in your office and also will remain available to our company in the long term. Thank you very much to you for your commitment and wish you all the best and success with your future plans where you will have more time to look at the oppressive local nation. Allow me a few questions on the numbers presented for 2024 and on the agenda items. A large part of the annual report is accounted for by sustainability, ESG.
But ever since Donald Trump took office, the tide has turned on that. What's your position on that? What will Deutsche Börse use to align its ESG strategy in the future? What will be the indicators, the DEI development in the US? Do you expect a recalibration? What's in it for the company in measurable terms? What about climate alliances and initiatives? Did you leave any? When it comes to the Trump administration, the US, and the change in policy and potential impact on us, what are the specific or long-term impacts that you expect from the realigned US policy when it comes to the company's future setup, investments in CapEx and the future income statement? The current executive orders and tariffs announced or implemented, to what extent will they affect us? It seems to me that the half-life of proposals by Mr. Trump is quite short, however.
How strong will the impact of scenarios be on us? Which ones do you reckon with? What are the precautions when it comes to the incentivization system in the Biden administration and the change now? Have you realigned or do you plan on a realignment because of the threatened tariffs? What about the business in Germany compared to international business? What are the locations that would still be attractive from your point of view? To what extent do you feel the more negative economic perspectives in the U.S. and what measures are you taking in order to maintain our returns? Deutsche Börse has always been strong in IT, depending on collected data and access to data, and this was an ideal playing field and is for AI. That leads me to the current questions on AI and digitalization. Is there a long-term AI and digitalization strategy?
Can you name the three biggest opportunities and also risks of digitalization and AI for our company? How would you rate Deutsche Börse in products, work, processes, and mindset when it comes to digitalization and IT? In the context of AI and digitalization, cybersecurity is key as well. How often has our company been attacked with cyberattacks last year? Which sensitive areas were affected? Which measures did you take in order to avert and avoid such attacks in the future? Is there a structured vulnerabilities analysis, test checking, access, and the structure of the company? Chairman, in conclusion, let me thank everybody again for the work and wish you a lot of success in the future and good health. Please pass on my good wishes to Dr. Weimer.
Leitner, as CEO of the company, we wish you a lot of good fortune representing the interests of the company, your engineers of the capital market. Please remember that engineers don't shy away from anything. So we wish you a number of good years ahead. Again, thank you very much. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much, Mr. Needing. Apologies for my slip of the tongue with your name. We now turn to Mr. Thomey and following that, Ms. Alexandra Anneke. Mr. Thomey. Thank you very much, Mr. Jetter. Ladies and gentlemen, members of the executive board and supervisory board, shareholders. My name is Andreas Thomey. I represent Decker Investment, one of the largest fund companies in Germany and subsidiary of Decker Bank, the securities company of the Sparkassen or savings bank sector in Germany.
Ladies and gentlemen, when it comes to the share price performance of Deutsche Börse, we're very happy both with past years and the last fiscal year. The growth path pays off and the management did a good job. Operating income stood at €3.4 billion, which was an all-time high. You have a grip on the cost and the debt level has clearly improved. Leverage has improved. That's something you can be proud of, Dr. Leitner. We're happy about the steadily rising dividend, now €4, and the additional share buyback program from the €500 million reserve program. After many years, we meet again in person for the AGM and we appreciate that a lot. That very much promotes the shareholder culture and the dialogue, which we believe is essential. Especially Deutsche Börse should be a role model there and continue to be a role model.
Leitner, from your predecessor, Dr. Weimer, you took over a smoothly running machine, but it is also thanks to you that this came about. Now it's up to you to continue to be ambitious and make sure the company keeps being poised for growth. Your team has enough clout to do that. With the corporate strategy Horizon 2026, organic income without the more volatile interest rate income is to grow by more than 8% annually and operating income by 11%. Secular growth is the main driver and the acquisition of Simcorp contributes to this in a major way. We have a number of questions on this, in fact. Do you plan further acquisitions? If so, in which areas? How high is the minimum target return for acquisitions? Secular annual recurring revenue, how strongly is that to grow in the next few years?
How can you go against automation or, sorry, inflation with automation and price increases? What's the impact of global uncertainty driven by the threatened tariffs of the US administration and the turbulence at the exchanges? How does that impact your business? The new geopolitical situation means increasing debt for the EU. Will that give a positive boost to Deutsche Börse's business? The European Commission has announced its strategy on the Savings and Investment Union, SIU, which is to strengthen the European capital market. How strongly do you benefit as a market infrastructure provider? Ladies and gentlemen, last year, Deutsche Börse made sure that investment management solutions were given a boost. SimCorp and Axioma called itself SimCorp One now and is a full-service provider along the value chain from front to back investment management solutions. That makes it a very strong player in the market.
Here you're benefiting from the strong outsourcing trend on the buy side. In other words, institutional investors, asset managers, pension funds, and insurance companies. Mr. Krohman, a question to you. How high were the synergies of SimCorp and are you now aiming for more than the previously planned $90 million in 2026? How well is the cross-selling with ISS going? How strong is the recurring share of revenue, software as a service, that is? In the US, SimCorp grew by 20% last year, a clear growth path. How well are you positioned compared to your competitors? Are you gaining market share, which previously stood at 8%? Which market share are you aiming at for the US in the medium term? Are further acquisitions necessary in order to strengthen your position? General Atlantic still holds a 20% stake in ISS.
Are you aiming for a buyout of the minorities or an exit via an IPO? What's the EBITDA margin that you want to achieve at investment management solutions in the medium term? Ladies and gentlemen, the structural trends are unbroken. The shift towards exchange-based trading and the use of high-quality data along the value chain and the outsourcing trend are all intact. Here, a strong position will be decisive in order to fully benefit from the potential revenue pool. Our questions in this context are: within the group, where can you utilize further synergies on the earnings side in order to offer bundled high-quality products? In which areas do further acquisitions make sense in order to strengthen the company? Dr. Borg, question for you. Trading and clearing. Were you able to increase your market share in Euro OTC clearing?
How are your recently launched short-term interest rate futures or STIR performing? Will the new EMIR 3.0 regulation provide a boost for OTC clearing due to the advantages of cross-margining? Will the trend towards more repo business continue due to higher interest rates? When it comes to EX, the power and commodities performed, the performance was very strong last year. Do you see a sustained trend here due to the increased hedging requirements for renewable energies? Why was it not possible for you to take over the Nasdaq Commodity Exchange in Scandinavia? You've established a new platform for power derivatives in Japan. How is this investment doing? What are the prospects in Asia more generally? You are now reporting on foreign exchange and digital assets under one item, 15% growth reported last year.
How much of this was accounted for by the FX platform 360T and how much by the digital trading platform Crypto Finance? The question on security services. Dr. Eckermann has an infrastructure provider with the platform as a service model. You plan to achieve growth. The Canadian Stock Exchange TMX is someone you entered into a collaboration with. What exactly does this collaboration look like? Are other partners in the pipeline? How far along are you in using blockchain technology for the accounting and custody of securities? Ladies and gentlemen, fund services is a business where it's especially the settlement of funds that Deutsche Börse has seen growth. Sale and distribution of funds saw much lower growth. What's the reason there? Deutsche Börse is an IT company. Dr. Bohm, you're very much IT-driven. For every digital model, and especially Deutsche Börse's model, cybersecurity is an absolute must.
How do you protect your infrastructure against cyberattacks specifically? Given that parts of your IT have been outsourced to the cloud, you want to develop digital assets together with Google Cloud. Are there any specific products for this? AI is a key competitive factor, especially for a company such as Deutsche Börse. Where are you using artificial intelligence right now in your business processes? What are your plans in the near future? Ladies and gentlemen, at this AGM, Deutsche Börse presents the new remuneration system for our vote. There are a number of improvements, more ambitious goals when it comes to the relative performance established for the long-term remuneration portion. In ESG goals, the focus is clearly social with the employees. Pension commitments and pension provisions for the executive board were determined at and reduced to 30% of the fixed remuneration. We welcome that.
What we're criticizing is, just like for the previous remuneration system, that at a profit growth of only 7.5%, the full target achievement would be determined. Although 11% is sought in the business plan, that should have been more ambitious. Nevertheless, we will vote in favor of the remuneration system because the latter will also include volatility in the future. Only part of the long-term compensation is accounted for by this point. Shareholders, we are seeing more headwind from the US when it comes to ESG goals, especially diversity. That's why we have the following question. Do you stand by your diversity goals? Ladies and gentlemen, the management team sees a completely new lineup leading the company to the next growth and through the next growth stage. It started last year when you, Dr. Leitner, took over as CEO. Now the story continues, and Mr.
Pottmeier will be leaving this year. Mr. Pottmeier, we appreciate you very much as a CFO. During the last 16 years, you always made sure that there's clarity and continuity. You shared details with us on complex numbers and M&A activities, explaining those. You were instrumental in establishing the profile of Deutsche Börse, and we owe a debt of gratitude to you. During the next few months, you will onboard your successor, Jens Schulte, and that will make the transition easier. Thank you for that as well. At this early stage, we wish you a new exciting future as a retiree, where probably you will be able to look at the numbers in a calmer way with more time. Mr. Krohman became an executive board member. He was the CEO of Simcorp, and he's responsible for pre-trading investment management solutions. Dr.
Eckermann is head of post-trading, the security services business, that is. These decisions are good decisions, and we wish the entire management team a lot of success for the challenges ahead. Mr. Jetter, you will leave the supervisory board after seven successful years, of which five years you were the chairman. You will hand over the baton to Ms. Streit, which we think is a well-rehearsed process, well-prepared process. Ms. Streit, we wish you all the best, foresightedness, and a skilled hand. You're very familiar with Deutsche Börse, and we appreciate your corporate governance strategies and finance know-how. We also support Mr. Mystie becoming a member of the supervisory board, contributing finance, risk management, and regulatory knowledge to the supervisory board. For all agenda items, we vote with the management proposals.
We wish both boards and all employees at Deutsche Börse a lot of success in implementing the growth strategy of the company. Thank you very much. Thank you for your remarks, Mr. Thomae. Let me now call Ms. Alexandra Anneke. Liebe Mitglieder des Vorstands, members of the executive board and supervisory board, shareholders. My name is Alexandra Anneke, a fund manager at Union Investment. As a fund company of the cooperative banking sector, we are among one of the big shareholders of Deutsche Börse and represent our 5.9 million investors. Meine Damen und Herren, an der Deutschen Börse stehen die Zeichen. At Deutsche Börse, things are restarted as a kind of relaunch with the change of the CEO. Mr. Pottmeier hands over the baton after 16 years as CFO to Mr. Schulte. Mr. Jetter hands over to Ms. Streit after five years as Chairman of the Supervisory Board.
Quite a few changes in top positions. That's unusual, and that's often a signal of crisis, but not for Deutsche Börse. Mr. Leitner, you are to fill big boots. Under predecessor, Deutsche Börse established its very successful footprint due to organic and non-organic growth. Earnings per share grew by 13% every year on average, leading to an outstanding share performance. In addition, the business model was made more resilient and more predictable, leading to a higher valuation at the exchange. Since July 2018, you have played a major role in achieving that. And as CEO now, we wish you all the best. May the era under you, Mr. Leitner, be as successful. Thank you very much for your successful work. Mr. Leitner, a question to you. With M&A transactions, Deutsche Börse has been very active in recent years, and some of them were very complex.
The current focus is on integrating Simkorp, and larger acquisitions are not on the radar screen. But in the long term, M&A will remain an important growth driver. But equally important is that M&A should be an important value driver. Allow me an observation there. The return on equity of Deutsche Börse does not see any progress: 21% in 2018, then stabilizing after 18% in 2021. So, stabilization at slightly over 19% in recent years, despite the tailwind through the interest rate levels and other developments that usually strengthen return on equity. It's too early to say how the return of the recent acquisitions will be, how positive the impact will be. But for the long-term value of the share and for the share price accordingly, it is important that the ROE should not be eroded.
Ultimately, your acquisition strategy will always have to prove that Deutsche Börse is the better owner of an asset and that one plus one must be more than two in the end. Mr. Leitner, what's the weighted average capital cost that you apply to acquisitions? Please give specific examples from the recent past. How does this ultimately affect the return on equity? Meine Damen und Herren, Ladies and gentlemen, Deutsche Börse uses structural growth trends, and with its knowledge, its data, and its competence, it's in an excellent position in capital markets to see continued organic growth, establish and use synergies between the business segments, and be a technology leader. In particular, the blockchain technology has the potential, when transforming financial markets, to make sure that it plays an important role in the medium and long term.
All parts of the value chain of Deutsche Börse are affected by that, which presents a risk and an opportunity, which is why it's very important to recognize risk and opportunity potentials to become a technology leader. Mr. Leitner, what importance do you attach to the blockchain for Deutsche Börse and the digital capital markets? What growth potential and risks do you recognize for Deutsche Börse, and what measures are you pursuing or planning? Meine Damen und Herren, Ladies and gentlemen, as a sustainable investor, ecological and governance criteria, or ESG for short, are very important to us. Unfortunately, climate change is progressing. Deutsche Börse has zero carbon targets; they were validated by the science-based target initiative. That's an important step, and it shows that you are addressing the CO2 issue seriously. At the same time, we find that the remuneration system and the climate criteria have been deleted.
Can you actually achieve carbon neutrality by 2045? What incentives will there be for the executive board in future? Ladies and gentlemen, artificial intelligence is an important driver in the financial industry. Again, Deutsche Börse wants to be a pioneer. As a sustainable investor, it's important for us to make sure that when AI is implemented, the focus is not just on economic advantages, but also on the ecological impact. Therefore, Deutsche Börse needs to establish clear governance structures for ethical standards, transparency, and sustainability when it comes to artificial intelligence. What social and environmental impact does the use of AI have on Deutsche Börse and its stakeholders? Today we're going to vote on a new remuneration system. There are some weaknesses, some minor weaknesses in detail. Therefore, Ms. Streit as the future Chairperson of the Supervisory Board, here are some observations.
The ambition level of the relative total shareholder return is too low compared to the peer group. The peer group should actually focus more on the specific business model and the international footprint of Deutsche Börse for a better comparison. Classical KPIs should also be factored in to get a full picture of the operational stability. The focus on social KPIs is also commendable. But all three ESG components should also be reflected in the business model of Deutsche Börse. In total, the remuneration system meets our criteria, so we're going to vote yes. But we do expect that the points I have just addressed will be factored in in the future development of the system. This brings me to the agenda, ladies and gentlemen. The acts of the boards will be ratified by us with two exceptions.
We are going to vote no on item six because the total amount achieved will be over 40%. We believe that 20% would be sufficient. We're also going to vote no on virtual AGMs on item eight on the agenda because there is no clear explanation under what conditions the executive board can exercise this right. We're not going to simply say yes, you can have virtual AGMs. There is no reason for that because this is a very successful in-person AGM. We're going to support all the other items on the agenda, especially the election of Mr. Mystie to the supervisory board. Last but not least, we wish to thank Mr. Jetter for his successful work. Ms. Streit, all the best to you for the years to come. We look forward to entering into a dialogue with you.
We'd also like to thank all the employees of Deutsche Börse Group for the hard work and dedication. We wish them every success so that they create value for this company's shareholders. Thank you very much for your attention. Vielen Dank, Frau Anneke. Thank you, Ms. Anneke. Before I call Mr. Masser, we have seen quite a bit of movement in the auditorium, and you have the advantage to go to the toilet. People standing up in the audience, you can go to the restroom anytime you like. We can't do that, really, and therefore I'd like to announce a 15-minute biological break. So we'll be back in 15 minutes so that the two boards also have an opportunity to use the restrooms within the framework of the legal requirements of this AGM. Thank you.
Ich habe gesagt, ich will auch ein bisschen mehr Aufmerksamkeit, aber jetzt durch dieses Jahr ist es wieder ein bisschen am Leben. Zum Beispiel, das merke ich jetzt, wir kämpfen als Mannschaft, die Halle wird wieder voll, Leute kommen, Zulauf wird. Also das ist schon, das waren so die zwei Dinge. MMA ist geboren, das ist das Problem. Aber ich mache ja alles. Ich mache MMA, Jiu-Jitsu, Wrestling, Haltamayudo, also bin ich Profi, alles andere ist auch. Wenn du nie was gemacht hast, Jiu-Jitsu, da machst du nichts, du bist ja eine Legende.
Also ich denke, sein Sport, wie wir das immer so sagen, von Anfang an, ich war 15 Jahre alt, direkt, ich habe nicht gesagt, ich will so ausschauen, mit Vermeidung, so wie ich es in der Vergangenheit nicht getan habe, ich habe nie gesagt, ich werde so und so und so und das mache ich nicht, sondern ich habe einfach gesagt, ich will so sein, ich will keine anderen Freunde, keine Sportkollegen, ich will nicht wissen, dass ich so bin, ich will nicht, dass die Leute sagen: "Oh, du bist so cool, du bist so geil, du bist so geil, du bist so geil, du wolltest das nicht ganz so machen." Meine sehr verehrten Damen und Herren, wir haben 12:17 Uhr. Right, ladies and gentlemen, it's 12:17. Ich habe mir sagen lassen, viele genießen das Essen, das unten ausgegeben wurde.
I've been told that people are enjoying lunch, but still, I'd like to call the meeting back to order. Our next speaker is Mr. Tilman Masser. You have the floor, sir. Vielen Dank. Thank you. Ja, sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, sehr geehrter Herr Vorstand, ladies and gentlemen, ich bin Executive Board, Supervisory Board, also wir haben im Tilman Masser einen Speaker gehört, von dem wir von Ihnen in der deutschen Börse erwarten, we demand that Deutsche Börse das Mo for Human Rights. Ich habe ein paar Fragen stellen. I have a number of questions. Aber auch an Ihre Verantwortung. I'd like to remind you of your responsibility, because you are Deutsche Börse, you are a major trading venue. Ich möchte mich an die bereits genannten Punkte in der Hauptversammlung anschließen.
But first of all, I'd like to underscore what people said about the virtual AGMs, some criticism was raised. We appreciate this in-person AGM, thank you for making this possible. Nevertheless, we do have some points of criticism, we're going to vote no under item 8. In fact, we've submitted a counter-motion, because the format of the AGM should not be decided by the Executive Board, but by the AGM. I'm going to come back to that in a minute. First of all, I'd like to thank you, Mr. Leitner. 80 years ago, Europe was freed from Nazi terror. Mr. Leitner, you and other CEOs, even beyond the DAX 40, have signed a statement, a declaration regarding the responsibility that companies and managers have.
Thank you for your clear-cut statement, and I quote from the statement: "Nazis supported certain companies and many CEOs and company leaders were involved in the Nazi regime at the time." We still can't see that you are doing enough for sustainable investments, and we submitted another counter-motion on that as well. Because of this counter-motion, we cannot ratify the acts of the Executive Board. In this declaration, I just mentioned, there's also something about democracy and about conflicting interests. My colleague Ms. Kraljic is going to talk about ISS in a minute. I'd like to ask a few questions on human rights and human rights due diligence. Mr. Leitner, you said in your introductory speech that you want to see fewer regulatory hurdles, but you also said that safe havens have rules in place.
When it comes to rules for sustainable investments and human rights in the finance sector, the entire financial industry, and that includes you and also the associations that you fund, they try to fend off uniform rules for the financial sector, be it in Germany or at the European level. At the European level, there shouldn't even be any checks whether the new sustainability regulation should apply to the financial sector. But there is no reason why the financial sector should not also meet its human rights obligations in its value chain. Mr. Leitner, you said you are the engineers of the capital market. Of course, your work is different from that of other engineers, but there are also people and human rights risks in the capital market too. You also need to check the people that are playing on this playing field.
We need a level playing field and fair competition in the financial sector. My question is, don't you think that it is to the disadvantage of companies when they support climate change? Und auf die Verpflichtung zur Umsetzung von Klimatransitionsplänen. It's important, but there's no obligation to support climate protection. Companies who support climate protection are put at a disadvantage, don't you think? The financial sector should be excluded from protecting climate. Can you give me one reason why this makes sense? All the other industries and sectors are doing something to protect the climate. I mean, you're doing something, but on a voluntary basis, and we need the same rules for all players. In your human rights declaration, I can't see a uniform approach. Your risk analysis mainly focuses on your supply chain.
Yes, I do understand that this is the legal requirement, but the fact is that there are so many exceptions for the financial sector due to your lobbying activities. Risk analysis was conducted concerning the risks and your impact on people in the entire supply chain, but the focus is only on your direct suppliers. But you know very well that human rights and environmental risks are not related to new office chairs. These risks are further down in the supply chain when it comes to fossil energies or land rights. In your report on the Supply Chain Act, you report that you identified one violation in your area of responsibility, but that was just because one telephone did not work properly.
I know that I cannot blame you for the legal requirements, but you can change the lobbying activities of your associations, and you can also become active and try to prevent human rights violations. So my question to you is, are there any minimum standards, any guidelines for the players on your trading venues when it comes to climate protection and human rights protection? Do they have to prove that they adhere to these rules? If there are rules, what are they? Mr. Jetter mentioned CumEx earlier on, and this is exactly where entrepreneurial responsibility comes in, because CumEx basically, those are crimes. This year and last year, did you terminate any relations to certain clients because their activities violated human rights and climate protection? How many cases were there, if any? What exactly did you do? Did you try to discuss the problem with the people concerned?
What exactly did you do here? Are there any current violations of human rights based on your risk analysis? Have you identified any risks? If so, what are the risks specifically, and what is your reaction? I'd like to emphasize the value chain, because this is exactly where the risks are, not necessarily in your supply chain. Moving on to the reporting on costs, and later on we're going to vote on the auditors as well. So far, there have not been any regulations on sustainability reporting, and the EU published some rules and regulations, but they're also being criticized. They are trying to end the chaos in sustainability reporting, because currently there are no standards at all. Companies complain about the high costs, but my question to you is, I'd like to know two things specifically from you.
What were the costs, the total costs in the last financial year, and also, if possible, for the current year for your normal financial reporting under IFRS or the German Commercial Code? What were the costs in the last year for sustainability reporting based on the new EU standards? How much did you spend on advertising last year? I'd like to know those figures, you know, just to get a better feeling, some indication, just how expensive those new reporting standards really are. Obviously, when you introduce them, it's expensive, but in the long run, I think the costs are going to decrease, and it's difficult or even impossible for me to say what the costs are precisely at this point in time. Finally, I'd like to address the issue of virtual AGMs, like I said before.
Now we're going to vote no under the relevant agenda item, because this is a decision not for the Executive Board, because it concerns elementary shareholder rights. ISS, your proxy advisor, also has certain rules in place here. We don't really understand and don't really know what your plans for the future are, and this is why we submitted our counter-motion. If a decision on the format of the AGM is to be taken, that decision should be taken not by the Executive Board, but by the annual general meeting. Actually, you could just follow the advice given by your own proxy advisor. I have a number of questions. Would it be possible to have a hybrid meeting in presence/virtual, a combination? I know to a certain extent this is possible today. Thank you for that.
It's important for shareholders to be able to participate, but the focus for us should be on in-person meetings. What would be the additional cost of a hybrid meeting compared to an in-person or a purely virtual meeting, and do you have any specific plans for next year? With that, thank you very much for your attention, and thank you for your answers. Thank you, Mr. Masser. Next, Ms. Kravic. And after that, Mr. Gutbrodt. Ja, danke schön für die Wortverteilung. Thank you, Chairman. Executive Board, Supervisory Board. Mein Name ist Lara Kravic, und ich spreche ebenfalls für die Deutsche Börse and also speaking on behalf of the Association of Ethical Shareholders. Wir fordern von der Deutschen Börse. We demand Deutsche Börse does a lot more to protect the environment and human rights.
The focus of our criticism is that Deutsche Börse is still intransparent when it comes to sustainability and in particular as regards ISS. Since 2021, ISS has been a subsidiary of Deutsche Börse. They do proxy advisory service for institutional investors, and they also draw up ESG ratings. This is a dual function, and it's highly sensitive, and it's also a problem, because ISS makes ESG corporate ratings, and here they look at how sustainable a company is in terms of environmental, social, and governance. ISS gives this rating also for Deutsche Börse itself, and ISS does this rating for Deutsche Börse, its parent company and related companies, but there is no hint on the ISS website that in fact a subsidiary is rating its own parent company. To us, this is a conflict of interest.
At the 2020-24 AGM, this problem was already addressed by us, in fact, and at the time it was said that you would work with ISS to come up with a transparent solution, and my question to the Executive Board is, have you had those conversations with ISS, and if so, why is there still no indication or no hint of this conflict of interest on the ISS website? How do you make sure that ISS ratings remain objective? Because obviously, a subsidiary is rating its own parent company. The ratings are also intransparent. ISS only publishes an aggregate value without breaking it down into different E, S, and G parameters. Does Deutsche Börse plan to get ISS to publish separate E, S, and G scores publicly, available for all interested parties? The same also applies to the underlying sources. ISS only publishes general sources.
They just say NGOs, the media, or international organizations. That's where the information they use comes from. Is ISS going to publish a detailed list of all the sources it uses in the ratings? I'd like to come back to another thing, the human rights strategy of Deutsche Börse. The review declaration of November 2024 does show goodwill, but at the end of the day, it is disappointing because the analysis only focuses on your own operations and your immediate suppliers. But many risks, especially when it comes to fossil fuels or land rights, they are further down in the supply chain. Executive Board members, people are becoming skeptical towards ESG, this greenwashing, and companies are withdrawing from voluntary disclosures, and therefore we need a maximum of credibility and transparency.
Against this background, Deutsche Börse unfortunately does not meet the necessary requirements when it comes to sustainability and human rights. We therefore demand more openness, more accountability, and this is why we are going to withhold ratification of the acts of the Executive Board. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Ms. Kralic. Our next speaker is Mr. Gutbrodt, but let me make one remark. A counter-motion was submitted under the relevant item on the agenda, and when we take the resolution, I'm going to come back to that counter-motion. With that, I pass the floor to Mr. Gutbrodt, and then Mr. Gebhardt, and then Mr. Martin, Mr. Salton, and Mr. Witt. Sorry, the interpreter cannot hear what the gentleman is saying. It seems the microphone is not working. I apologize. I wonder whether people in the hall can hear what Mr. Gutbrodt is saying.
My colleague is going to talk to the technician. I apologize. Das organische Wachstum über viele Jahre plausibel vertritt, plausibel mit guten Zahlen, mit einer Expansion des Produktportfolios, mit einer Krisenresilienz, von der wir gehört haben. Okay, the technicians are working on the problem. Again, I apologize. Please bear with me. Einen kontinuierlichen Ausbau des ESG-Geschäfts, das für sich gesehen für viele von den Vorrednern. He seems to be talking about ESG. Ein Bedarf des Marktes da ist, der befriedigt werden kann, indem man entsprechende Geschäftsideen verkauft, wenn man, wie auch Herr Leitner sehr eindrucksvoll dargestellt hat in der. Mr. Leitner made some very impressive remarks about the ETFs, product portfolio, specifically Kundenbedarf, ETFs. Kann, sondern auch Geschäft machen kann, dann zeigt das die Rolle eines Intermediärs. Meet customer requirements and make money at the same time. That is always a good thing.
Solche Übernahmeträume und von denen wir früher gesprochen haben. Deutsche Börse has a very important position when it comes to ETFs. Wenn man sich mal genauer anguckt, was wir gehört haben über Spielregeln mitbestimmen. We both heard about rules of the game. Wenn man alle die Regeln, von denen wir auf den Financial Markets gehört haben, zusammenfasst, dann sind das Regeln, die eigentlich mehr oder weniger die Gesellschaft verursachen. Actually, I would expect that they generate even more revenue for the company. Genauso wie die vorherigen Renditeberichte sind ein Thema, but there are other aspects as well. By the way, I'm going to vote no on the Rentier System and the Rewind Rationing Report, because here the focus on ESG has been eliminated. You also mentioned the concept of digital leadership.
You mentioned the phrase "engineers of the capital market." You mentioned the different countries you operate in, people spoke in different languages. My impression was that all of these people are very ambitious, and by accident they seem to be dealing with regulatory affairs as well. Sometimes they seem to be left alone when they do that. Dr. Weimer said last year the state, the government, is not going to solve that problem. By imposing sanctions, the state, the government, is not going to do anything. Therefore, we need a stronger remuneration system for the Executive Board. I took a look at the remuneration reform. There was something about CumEx and critical situations, and we all know how quickly legal action can be brought in Germany.
Weimer also mentioned that some people just hope that they can sit it out, but the supervisory board looked into this issue. We don't know where exactly measures were taken, and many years ago we were able to read that there were a lot of anomalies in the CumEx businesses, and this was in fact identified by the authorities, and this can lead to sanctions, to fines. But that's a job for the legislator, for the courts, and the longer the court deals with an issue, the tougher the verdicts are going to become. But like I said, the state, the government, is not going to solve that problem. Why isn't anyone doing anything to promote meaningful standards? This seems to be sort of a pipe dream driven by internet technology. People spoke about that on Facebook or other platforms.
People want to be able to trade crypto assets without any rules and regulations, and the same problems are going to appear there as well. In the US, it'll be even more difficult to solve those problems. We have this debate on tariffs, on capital market regulation, and the same problems in fact could also arise with cum-cum transactions. There seems to be a new focus on those transactions recently. Wie Herr Dr. Weimer zum Beispiel die zunehmende Zahl an aufsichtsrechtlichen Prüfungen abstreift. Das passiert einfach, meint er. Es sei eben so, dass wenn mehr aufsichtsrechtliche Prüfungen stattfinden. Your interpreter apologizes. The gentleman is a bit confusing in his statement. Teil des Vergütungssystems, das ich hätte finden können in dem Reward Rationing System, at least.
To the extent that I have read and understood it, there doesn't seem to be anything about the reduction of possible audits, and I'd like to come back to what Mr. Weimer said when he talked about Deutsche Börse's business model. Information providers have a supremacy. They are superior to the state, and this phenomenon is growing. It's the phenomenon that we can observe in the CumEx transactions. We've known about CumEx for a long time, and there is a delay in clearing up those transactions. I don't understand why there are no legal standards in place. In fact, we have a member of the Executive Board that is the subject of a criminal investigation. This was addressed at the last AGM, but I haven't heard anything about this at this AGM so far. I mean, if there is a criminal investigation that needs to be communicated.
To my knowledge, a similar investigation is not going on at any other company or at any of your competitors. Bei der die Richterin der Deutsche Börse hätte heißen, dass die Deutsche Börse auch so wie investigated, die Erstikator said, we can only hope that Deutsche Börse has taken the necessary actions. It should be made more difficult to commit criminal acts by introducing the necessary systems. By the way, in this same article, it says that Deutsche Börse believes that this is an individual case. But even individual cases can be avoided by introducing the right systems. Why didn't you explain to the Handelsblatt Daily which systems you introduced? It was simply said that this is the end of the avalanche and the right system was put into place. Just one last comment, just to wind up, in his well-known speech, Dr.
Weimer also said, in eine komische, in eine nicht sehr hilfreiche Richtung ginge. Hat es am Beispiel seiner Frau deutlich gemacht. Investment advisors sometimes give strange advice, and he gave the example of his wife. I don't know how you can improve investment advice. We spoke about the pension system. Ich finde, ich immerhin die Anlageberatung auch im Bereich Krypto. I think investment advice also in cryptos is a good thing. Das fehlende Gleichgewicht zwischen den technischen Möglichkeiten. But there's a lack of balance between the technical possibilities on the one hand and the state on the other. In Dr. Weimer's speech, we heard about excellent contacts to politicians, especially the late Dr. Schäuble. To my knowledge, no one has ever tried to solve the CumEx problem together with Dr. Schäuble. The public prosecutors, they are overburdened. So far, I've only mentioned individual cases.
But there seems to be an underlying systematic problem. To me, Deutsche Börse as an infrastructure provider must have an interest to solve the problems confronted by capital market providers. We've heard comments about what should be the right problems. There have been PhD dissertations on the same subjects and on technological progress. I'm wondering why didn't Deutsche Börse position itself in this debate. I think this should also have an impact on the remuneration report and the remuneration system. But I can't see this in either the system or the report. So with that, I wish you every success and let's have a good debate. Thank you. Vielen Dank, Herr Gutbrod. Ich darf jetzt Herrn Gebhardt. Thank you very much, Mr. Gutbrod. Next is Mr. Gebhardt and after him, Mr. Marcius. Sehr geehrter Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender, Herr Jetter. Dear Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Mr. Jetter.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Supervisory Board and of the Management Board, dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for providing me with the opportunity to speak here in the framework of this AGM. My name is Thomas Gebhardt and I'm a committed shareholder and I'm particularly interested in safety and security, both when it comes to protecting the Management Board and also the company as a whole. On December 4th, 2024, Brian Thompson became the CEO of the United Healthcare Group Insurance and got shot dead when he was on his way to an investors' conference. This incident led to a loss of confidence amongst investors. Within a few days, the United Health share lost about 10% of its value, which means a market loss worth $63 billion US dollars. My questions about this.
What did Deutsche Börse AG make of the attack on the United Healthcare CEO and what were the consequences drawn from it? Were there any adjustments made to the protection scheduling plans for the management personnel? What measures are in place in order to avoid such security-related incidents, such as with United Healthcare, also as part of investor stability and market confidence? What role does the Supervisory Board play in monitoring and assessing security-related corporate risk? How do you ensure the safety of the Management Board as part of the overall strategy of the company? What about the physical protection of the Management Board members of Deutsche Börse AG, particularly when traveling, when performing and appearing in public, and attending events? In the recent years, were there any specific dangerous situations for members of the Management Board, and if so, what was the reaction to it?
The protection of top management, is that something that is regularly adjusted to the international threat situation and international developments? Now, referring to the way the Management Board members are transported, what is the policy on self-driving, having several board members in the same means of transport, car, bus, or plane, and are the policies adhered to? What about the protection system at DBAG? How often do you carry out so-called sweeps in the offices, private residences, and vehicles of the Management Board members? To what extent is the Management Board included in safety-relevant trainings, physical safety, cyber security, and so on? Or is the Management Board trained at all in such topics? External expertise provided, for example, by specialized companies or state bodies, are they also used for working out a security policy? Is there a communication system to provide quick information amongst security staff and management?
All of these questions addressed and mentioned here have to do with attacks and similar incidents involving CEOs worldwide over the last five years. Some examples of that: Brian Thompson, as I just mentioned, United Healthcare, December 2024. May 2025, the CEO of Star Health in India, severe threat. Family of a crypto CEO in France, May 2025, kidnapping. As for driving or self-driving by members of the Management Board, we have numerous examples where Management Board members drove themselves and ended up dead, such as Angela Chau, Foremost Group USA, February 2024, Bob Harritz, Skydive, Deland, USA, May 2025, Richard David Hendrickson, Lifetime Products, the CEO, July 2024. In order to prevent all of that and to also prevent a massive drop in the share price, I would like to ask you to answer these questions. Thank you. Danke schön, Herr Gebhardt. Ich darf nun... Thank you, Mr. Gebhardt.
The next speaker is Mr. Marcius. After him, Mr. Salden and Mr. Wind. Mr. Marcius, please. Mein Name ist Reinhard Marcius. My name is Reinhard Marcius. I am a retail shareholder. Unfortunately, I sold my share sometime in the meantime and have only just rebought some in recent years. Now, the company behind this share is a very excellent one. I'd say one with the 10 largest trenches, say, in the DAX 40. That is why I will continue to invest more, also in your products. But I am not satisfied with absolutely everything. I am very happy that this is a physical, an attendance AGM. If I look at the success of having this as a physical meeting, it gives me the feeling that this is a very traditional venue, the Jahrhunderthalle here in Frankfurt. What do they say when there are general elections in Germany?
The participation rate could be somewhat better. On May 3rd, I was in Omaha, and that is where you can see how to attract people to your AGM. Now, capital participation for employees, participation schemes. As a shareholder, I'm not just interested in the products, and I'm also not just interested in Management and Supervisory Board being remunerated well and having capable ladies and gentlemen in the respective positions. Rather, I am also very much concerned with making sure that the employees are also on board, just like we as shareholders are. When I started in the capital market quite some decades ago, we had €350 carrying tax incentives. Today, the amount is €1,440.
With an excellent stock amongst the DAX 40, I think that buying the share cheaper at 20% is and continues to be a good thing, which is why I don't very much like the fact that you say the shares from the buyback program will be canceled. What I would like to see is a high rate of participation amongst the workforce, the employees, and I would also like to know how exactly you're going to do that. In April, I was at the Telecom AGM for the first time. Lots of, a lot more participants. The attendance was way higher but your counterpart, Tim Hertges, how did he put it? He said, "You're quite right, Mr. Marcius. We only go for €1,000 and we're now checking out those €1,440." Please do something for the capital market.
The majority of the population in Germany is getting poorer, and I would wish for the same thing that Mr. Jetter experienced, who started with IBM one year after me. We were able to buy every month at a reduced price. That's excellent motivation, and you don't need lengthy holding periods for that. You have an excellent product. Let me call it STOXX 600 Europe, and let me compare it to the product of your larger competitor on the other side of the Atlantic, the S&P 500. That includes 10 industry indices, ours 19. We have an extreme diversification across Europe and across country borders. When I worked for Börsenseite, and this stupid DAX index was designed and set up, I can only say the STOXX 600 Europe and these 19 industry indices are excellent. In the retail investor market, that's not even represented in terms of sales.
It is only listed for your institutionals. That's great. But why not get those products also available for the broader public? For any ETF, there's an ETF for all of them. There's a future. There's a futures option for any of them. Now we also get the, say, capital tailwind that we haven't had in Europe for quite a while, by hopefully bringing peace or at least a ceasefire to the Ukraine conflict. That will mean money will be flowing into Europe like in recent months, and then we need such products, and they are excellent and also don't come with a currency risk. So I would wish to see a lot more of that. Now a technical question.
The new federal government, which is off to a somewhat bumpy start, unfortunately before the elections thought it a wise idea to lift the restriction on incurring new debt, which is something I don't necessarily share. But from my point of view as a private individual, I see two pieces of legislation which run a risk of actually ever being applied. Firstly, you're not a credit institution, you're not a bank, so you are open to speak about the corresponding piece of legislation about restructuring and settlement, which the ladies and gentlemen in the banks don't like to do. The second aspect is also a rather poor one, the change law on balancing the burden amongst the federal state, which under Chancellor Merkel and the former Chancellor Olaf Scholz was changed in 2019. So the so-called Lastenausgleichsgesetz, dating back to 1952, can quickly be brought to application.
We all know this through our parents and grandparents and through real estate. My father owns one of the largest collections of historical shares in Germany, and that is why I know that it also has an impact on the share. Over that time, the nominal value of the shares were reduced. You are a systems group. Telecom could not explain to me how they're handling all of this. If not right at the AGM, but if you could enlighten me on this, maybe over the next four to six weeks, if this Lastenausgleichsgesetz, the Equalization of Burden Act, was to be applied, what impact would it have on the share price and in specific terms on Deutsche Börse AG? In 2001, if my data is correct, you went through your IPO, so Mr. Jetter will unfortunately be missing the 25-year anniversary of having become a listed company.
I would hope he will remain an ordinary shareholder and experiences at that, but the chair of the Supervisory Board will have moved to mistrial by then. So how do you plan to go about this? If I look at how you celebrate such events and how you have celebrated them in the past, just recently there was one department from your group, not just ETFs or Krenker, and I always have the feeling that there's one single product which got people to invest in the stock market. But you've got products where Krenker and others use services who are actually sellers of the services offered by Deutsche Börse AG, and none of them are present. So what I'd like to see is more cross-selling. Your abbreviation, DB1, that's something I noticed, used to be behind Deutsche Bank when floating, and these days you're in the pole position.
You're rather catering for professional investors and not so much retail or individual investors. That is, amongst others, due to regulation, but regulation isn't the bad thing, really. It's the history of Deutsche Börse AG, actually, which is an obstacle. At the floating, there was Deutsche, there was Dresdner, there was Commerzbank, there were the savings banks, and so on. All of them had a conflict of interests. So the regulation of these exchanges meant that in Germany we have certificates, options, and so on, as a wild mix. What I would like to see is that representatives from the Management Board became more actively involved there. All of these large shareholders left us. So there was their worst decision ever, given participation in recent decades, but it's still an obstacle for us.
If I have 100 shares of Telecom and so on, then your regular citizen at Deutsche Bank has to overcome a massive hurdle. If I open an account with Interactive Broker, it takes me half an hour. I need to be careful about my tax declaration, but that's wonderfully handled by my tax consultant, and then everything's nice and well. Please make sure and help your CEO. This new Dutch guy who came in last year, he's really committed. He wants to attract retail and private investors into Eurex products, and he wants to have a share of 35% in the German market, and you can achieve that. This also means, of course, that you need to provide information. I'm using an app for futures exchanges. I use investing.com. It's a top app for the US.
Any product, any news, any piece of news and competitive products from the US are included there with calls and puts. For Europe, radio silence. I think there is room for improvement. So I would like to see you thinking about a shareholder rate. Investing into shares has become a lot more expensive to me with the taxation here in Germany. I would like to hold 500 shares in you, and I can then get them at better prices. I would also like to see you introducing stackers on Deutsche Börse. If you were to take over the rates from other German banks, I'd just like to see you do more of that. I used to work for Börsenzeitung after leaving IBM. The German Börsenzeitung does not report about the capital markets, so I have no use for it anymore.
That used to be the case in the past, but nothing now about Eurex, nothing about transactions that stand out, something I don't really like. I think it would be quite a lever for you in the medium term. This is also linking up to one of the previous speakers who covered the history of Deutsche Börse. If you were to think about the following in the US, your subsegments with your competitors are almost all separately listed companies, which doesn't mean you should be giving anything away. That's not what I'm on about. But visibility for the final investor is an entirely different one. So I would like to see you starting with Eurex at 24% and in Frankfurt on the football shirts of the local team, Eintracht, which is a very good team these days.
There used to be a group of chaotic guys, but Eurex would certainly be a logo that came across well on that particular shirt. I am very happy to see you doing such an excellent job. But I'd be happier if there was more interaction between segments and divisions. There are two fund entities at the moment represented here, fund managers, Dicker and UI. The thing in the market is this: your retail, your private investor in the market, he's the most loyal one. Once you've attracted them and never committed fraud on them, never took advantage of them, they'll stay loyal and will be ready to invest more.
I'd be very pleased to see if for your 25th anniversary next year, you would manage to invite and attract something like a thousand people, or if you don't even manage to attract at least a thousand people here to Jahrhunderthalle, then I think the venue is way too large. I'd be happy for a change. I myself am a resident of Staufen near Freiburg. For an AGM starting at 10 with the fast track ICE train failing or being canceled, that's something you cannot do. My daughter, who's very environmentally minded, said anything that starts before 11 a.m. is not feasible if you have to cover all that detail.
So do it like Fresenius and go to one of the halls on the trade grounds, or you come up with making this a full hall like with any concert, and I'll be happy to show up on time next time around. Thank you. Vielen Dank, Herr Martius. Wir kommen nun zu Herrn Saltern. Thank you, Mr. Martius. Next is Mr. Saltern, and after him, Mr. Witt. Sehr geehrter Herr Jetter, sehr geehrter Herr Dr. Leitner, der Supervisory Board and Management Board, and dear co-shareholders. Ich habe mehrere Fragen. I have a number of questions. Die Kosten zu der Kollegin regard the cost of this AGM. One of the colleagues already compared the cost, virtual meeting versus physical meeting. But when it comes to the cost of an AGM, I always like to hear about what the split-up is. How much is renting the venue? What's the cost for ADIAS?
So the AGM service provider, how many back-office staff have you got? What will they cost? How many staff are working there? What's the price of the catering? As an individual item. Also a question on AI, a question that was asked here in the company. There's this next tool coming up, quantum technology. I once heard a presentation by a professor from Munich Technical University, Professor Remper, and he said, "We are leading in this." Is Deutsche Börse also active in this, working with quantum computers, the qubits? Have we already made it to that next level, that next step? The Americans, the Chinese are busy about it too. Let me also point out, many of the AI companies in Germany are actually financed by the Americans. Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, they're all involved here. The most successful AI company in Germany is Deep Learning.
No, they're located in Cologne. It's DeepL. Again, the Americans are a key investor. That's one of the problems, Dr. Leitner, you mentioned it. What's the state when it comes to quantum technology? I have another question. Excluding subscription rights, I'm not a fan of that. Let me point out that the manuals from which professors teach at universities and schools, the French method, the Opération Planchet, when it comes to excluding subscription rights, is no longer possible. I think that is an interference into the free play of forces in the market. I've never been a friend of it. It's become pretty much the standard with all companies in Germany. It's only with Henkel that I experienced that they do operate with the exclusion of subscription rights because a shareholder after all wants to be able to also sell their subscription rights.
In my view, this is an undue limitation, which I, as I said, am not a fan of. I have another question, which also has to do with financing. Dr. Leitner, I quite agree. Pensions, I agree the federal government is doing way too little. Just now we are seeing the dispute about what's to happen with civil servants because we have an average rate of pension, which is at €1,200, €1,300, with civil servants €3,200. Quite a discrepancy there. Professor Werding in the body of the five consultants to the federal government has conceded that fact, and there's agreement that this needs to be addressed. As you can see already, the politicians are arguing about it. Another thing you mentioned, Mr. Jetter, Frankfurt as a financial hub and location. This is Frankfurt-Höchst, where we are today.
That used to be the largest chemical company in the world, headquartered here, no longer owned by German owners. And then there's Commerzbank. Mr. Klingbeil keeps saying that he's opposed to the transaction, but who caused the crisis from which Commerzbank is now impacted? It again was German politics. They sold their 5% share, and UniCredit struck. Now we've got the problem of UniCredit, Mr. Arcel, is about to buy Deutsche Bank, which some time ago wanted to buy Dresdner Bank, which in the meantime has been acquired by Commerzbank, is staying out of it. What I hear from the German financial institutions is relatively little. Ms. Olof is pretty much left to her own devices, maybe with a bit of governmental support, but it's only words in Mr. Klingbeil's mouth. Whether anything comes out of that is another question. Again, let me just remind you, Mr.
Wernotat, some of you might remember him, dead a long time now, former head of E.ON. He wanted to buy Endesa, a large Spanish energy supplier, and the Spaniards and the Italians joined forces, I think, with Enel and prevented this as White Knights. Question being, Frankfurt as a city, as a location, do they want to lose many, many jobs and see them go to Milan? I mean, it doesn't have to be Deutsche Bank on their own. There's DZ Bank here, Deutsche, no, there's the cooperative organization, DZ Bank here. Why don't they all get together and talk about what can we do and what can the German government do? Can they maybe buy the 5% again, and then we can get it done? Because the way politicians behave about this, I see that in local politics all the time.
Somebody once said that usually goes south, and we end up with even more debt, and we have to refinance it with taxes. Now, that was one of the points I wanted to make here, to look at whether some additional assistance can be found. Let me once again thank you for the performance, for the good numbers you've delivered, and I also very much welcome the fact that this is a physical meeting. I've been to a number of virtual AGMs now, and I don't know the virtual AGMs at Deutsche Börse. There are some companies with whom it works well. There are others where it doesn't work well. You get kicked out once every seven minutes, have to re-log on and dial in yet again, and that the one or the other shareholder gets fed up.
I asked one of the other companies, "Why not please pass this on to the Notary Public?" They don't even do that. I believe that is not a good thing. That's not okay. Also, intra or internal communication doesn't work out. I once saw a supervisory board member whom I couldn't even hear. Somebody here in the room would immediately have shouted out, saying, "Louder, please, or speak clearly." Again, some things don't work out. Those are the pros and cons that you have with your virtual AGMs. I very much welcome this being a physical meeting and you also planning to have physical AGMs in the future. To you, Mr. Jetter, I wish you all the best for your future, and also to Mr.
Pottmeier likewise, and may Deutsche Börse AG continue to enjoy God's blessing for best of success and the future of this company. Goodbye. Vielen Dank, Herr Saltern, für Ihre Ausführungen. Thank you very much, Mr. Saltern, for your remarks. Let me now call Mr. Witt. Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren. Ladies and gentlemen. Guten Abend. Good afternoon. Let me introduce myself. My name is Johannes Witt. I'm a retail investor, and for a long time, I've been an employee of Deutsche Börse, including the Works Council and the Supervisory Board. It looks as if I'm the last speaker today. That could still change. But let me first of all say thank you for hosting this in-person meeting. A first since 2019, where I attended as well. I hope Deutsche Börse will continue to be a role model when it comes to Germany and the financial sector with this format.
I deeply regret that others such as Allianz or Mercedes or Volkswagen quite soon only hold their AGMs virtually. Looking at the corporate governance code, Ms. Streit, perhaps some influence should be exerted there, making sure that the virtual format is really only for emergencies. I don't have any major comments on the agenda. Just wanted to make this comment when it comes to changing the articles in terms of the virtual format for the AGM. I agree with the previous speakers in saying that it should be up to the shareholders what the format will be, not to be determined by the executive board. As for the remuneration system, I can say from painful experience, when I saw and dealt with the first drafts, that it's very complex. There are many parameters.
In the Supervisory Board, it became clear that we would speak in German and not in English, as previously decided, because otherwise it would have been even more difficult. In the end, the executive board will get enough, and that will happen this time as well, irrespective of which parameters you change. So I wouldn't find a discussion on the parameters very useful. But there's one thing in particular why I'm here. Looking back, it was in May 2005, 20 years ago, where Deutsche Börse was threatened in its very existence. At the time, stripping the company was a risk. TCI, among the activist hedge funds with Mr. Hohn, who made sure that in early May at the time, Mr. Seifert, the then CEO, was kicked out essentially and was not able to attend the AGM later on. And afterwards, eight other supervisory board members were forced to resign.
The first successor to fill the gap, one of the first, was Friedrich Merz. Together with Mr. Hohn, he joined us in the then building of Deutsche Börse and had Mr. Seifert and the previous team explain the strategy. Mr. Merz stayed. He stayed on for 10 years, was my colleague in a way on the Supervisory Board. We had different opinions very often, but with respect to Angela Merkel, we held the same position. What I'm saying is that this risk of dividing up the company was averted later in 2008. Another attempt was made, €31 being the share price. Comparing that today, you see how successful the company was. In the next few years, there were many attempts, major mergers with France, the US, or the UK were attempted. Then came Theodor Weimer, bringing back the ship into calmer waters.
Also the very good leadership by Mr. Jetter in recent years. These challenges have been successfully mastered in recent years. Thank you, Mr. Jetter, for managing this successfully with Mr. Weimer. I'd also like to refer to Mr. Pottmeier as well. He was CFO for 16 years, but that's not all. You served different masters, Dr. Franconi, Mr. Klingbeil at the time, quite a different character than Dr. Weimer, and now Mr. Leitner. Four different CEOs that you served is remarkable. All the best for your future, Mr. Pottmeier. Ja, Frau Streit ist jetzt auch als nächstes. Ms. Streit, who is a candidate and should be the next chair. Back in 2005, you published a book with Mr. Seifert to give a boost to shares. You were in touch with the financial sector. It's not a new business for you, quite the opposite.
All the best to you as well. I wanted to say that we can quickly come across the evil in the world, and you mustn't rest on your laurels. Yes, you can be proud of your achievements, both boards and grateful. However, you shouldn't be greedy. In particular, I hope that the Supervisory Board will successfully implement its control function and challenges critically. In the corporate sector in Germany, you see situations such as Bayer, Volkswagen, or Mercedes, a lot of inappropriate decisions where the Supervisory Board approved and didn't stop things. In spite of all the good numbers, this has been remarkable. I'd also like to launch an appeal, and that is that the Supervisory Board should live up to its mandate. In that spirit, I wish Deutsche Börse all the best for the future. Vielen Dank, Herr Witt. Thank you, Mr. Witt.
For your comments, ladies and gentlemen. That completes the list of registered speakers. We've gone through the questions and will now turn to the answers. But let me first of all say thank you very much for your contributions. There are wide-ranging questions to the company, and we'll give the answers in different categories for the different subject matters. The Executive Board will answer some of the questions. Anything addressed at the Supervisory Board will be answered by me. When it comes to the Executive Board, it assumes responsibility for the answers, and it will start with Stefan Leitner. So let me ask you to start with the answers. You account for the lion's share of the questions.
After a certain number, I suggest that I could take over again so that you can draw a deep breath, and then we'll ask the next executive board member. Thank you very much, Martin, but let me say at the outset, thank you for the very active contributions, the many questions, and constructive remarks that we heard today. Let me start at first with the subjects, one point that many mentioned, Mr. Kiene, Mr. Lieding, Mr. Thome. You all asked about the potential impact of the tariff policy of the Trump administration. We are observing those developments very carefully. There can't be a final conclusion as to yet because of the ongoing negotiations. As a global company, we clearly support an open international trading system with the hope that this will be adopted in terms of unanimous solutions in the next few months.
The geopolitical situation, which I said in my speech as well, led to increased trading in almost all markets, and that led to a strong Q1 result, which, as I explained as well. In addition, the share of Deutsche Börse has proved resilient and a safe haven during these turbulent times. Again, I'll refer to this, the outperformance over the DAX. Now, taking a closer look, your questions were also as follows: not only the political development in the U.S., but Mr. Thome, you asked about the impact of global uncertainty and increased debt levels in Europe and in Germany and the potential impact on our business. I can only repeat myself in saying that we're not only observing the Trump and tariff situation very closely, but also the overall question.
In other words, uncertainty and volatility in the market, potentially higher revenue in the Q1 results, and to what extent it drove this. Anything to do with higher debt levels makes clear just how well Deutsche Börse Group is positioned and prepared to benefit. For example, Clearstream Securities Services were structurally prepared for more issuance to support that. The same is true for EurEx, where Deutsche Börse Group has expanded its offering by introducing forward contracts on bonds of the European Union. Also one of the areas where the increased debt level plays a role. In total, we're talking about an ecosystem, the home of the euro, we call it, which is where we bring everything together and cover this in quite a good way. Same context then, Mr.
Thome, for your question on the impact of the Savings and Investment Union project of the European Union, potential impact on Deutsche Börse. As I said, we welcome the planned deepening of the European capital market under the Savings and Investment Union, clearly advocating this. A strong European capital market remains a cornerstone for competition and innovation, especially given the geopolitical matters. Currently, we can't give a conclusive assessment with respect to the potential impact on the revenue of Deutsche Börse Group. The Commission has communicated many important areas, but specific legislation is only expected for the second half of the year. Earlier on, I mentioned that we don't only have to design things, but also walk the walk, and the European Union is on its way towards that. By sticking to our diversified business model, we're ideally positioned to benefit.
What I mentioned in answering the debt question earlier is also true for anything to do with the Savings and Investment Union, the EU project. Let me try and answer some more questions about the political situation. We move on to the questions by Mr. Lieding. I hope you're still here and hear my answers. Thank you very much for your question about the alignment of our ESG strategy and potential disadvantages given the current development in the US. That was also a subject mentioned repeatedly in addition to tariffs. In principle, as Deutsche Börse Group, we don't expect any relevant negative repercussions with respect to the anti-ESG measures of the new US administration. Specifically, the DEI issues and their impact on our business are the question. We are observing the development, and of course, we comply with locally applicable rules and regulation.
That is in particular true for ISS in the US. In a wider sense, Mr. Lieding, you asked about the measurable value that ESG contributed to Deutsche Börse. We see ESG as an integral part, as part and parcel of our corporate strategy. Mr. Jetter and I referred to that in our speeches. In the short and medium term, goals to reduce carbon emissions and increasing employee satisfaction are what we set for ourselves, part and parcel of ESG, as I said. But our ESG products and services are also relevant. ESG data, ratings, and sustainable commodities markets are the basis of that business. So there are some wider aspects in addition to the strategy relevance where it can lead to revenue, revenue that we publish.
Another question was about the climate alliances and initiatives, whether we are leaving those given the current administration's attitude in the US, whether we have removed ourselves physically or in spirit from associations. When it comes to the climate alliance and similar alliances, Deutsche Börse has not withdrawn from any such initiatives during the last few months, i.e., since the new administration in the US has taken office. In connection with geopolitical developments and our corporate development, Mr. Lieding, you asked about potentially attractive locations. 120 locations is our global footprint, quite a wide global footprint. We are investigating and exploring opportunities on an ongoing basis, of course, and in North America and in Asia, we see some attraction.
Lieding, this ties in with the question you asked, relocating business segments because of the Inflation Reduction Act of the Biden administration and the pressure to localize exerted by the Trump administration. Based on the Inflation Reduction Act under the Biden administration, Deutsche Börse has not relocated any business actively to the U.S. The same is true subject with a proviso when it comes to the final assessment on the Trump administration's policies, including tariffs. So no final judgment is possible yet, but I wouldn't expect currently that relocation issues might arise under that to the U.S. Mr. Thome, following upon your questions, in addition to geopolitics, you asked questions about further acquisitions. Which acquisitions were on our agenda? In my speech, I extensively described Horizon 2026, i.e., a very disciplined approach of capital allocation that we committed to very clearly.
That's why our priority is internal or organic investment, and at this point, rounding off acquisitions, as we call them, such as the ones made during the last 10, 12, or 15 months. But when it comes to potential larger acquisitions, we will also always be very disciplined. When there's an attractive opportunity, financially or strategically speaking, we'll look at those, expecting a return on capital that has to be longer than the capital cost of Deutsche Group in the long run as a basic rule. Our capital allocation strategy, we publish the rules. For 2025, the same thing applies that I referred to earlier and in my speech. We will focus on making sure that the IMS segments, investment management solution segments, potential is fully explored. Also when it comes to our ISS stocks, minority shareholding options, we'll investigate that accordingly.
You asked about income synergies in the group beyond the question of acquisitions. Using the example of ETFs, I think I gave you a graphical example of the potential of collaboration. Deutsche Börse Group examines potential income synergies on an ongoing basis and seeks comprehensive approaches for the best possible result in the interest of our customers, but also synergies in the interest of our shareholders. When it comes to revenue synergies, we assess them as being significant across the group. Many products and services have significant potential of collaboration that were identified. Again, I can only refer to the example of ETFs. When it comes to the income side during the last 12 to 15 months, the integration and collaboration with SimCorp and Axioma were prominent. Highly attractive activity in investment management solution customers or for them where cost and income synergies are clear.
I'd also like to emphasize the collaboration between Clearstream and Crypto Finance across segments. I referred to a case study, a good example with a lot of potential where we have a pioneering role. In connection with the digital assets, there is a completely new offering for institutional investors for custody of crypto assets. In the future, we also seek synergies between our business segments, using them actively for revenue strengthening to increase the value for the whole group. Mr. Anneke, your questions addressed to me. You asked about the acquisition and specifically capital cost, weighted capital cost of the target company that's used, also taking into account the risk of the company to be taken over at the time of the acquisition.
About 8% at the time of the acquisition of SimCorp and the return on capital of our investments has to be higher than the capital cost of Deutsche Börse Group in the long term as a rule, with accordingly a positive impact on our return on capital, total capital. Fund Center acquired from UBS a few years ago is a case in point. Positive development, strengthening our return on equity, stabilization and development, all those were contributions under this acquisition. Mr. Anneke, you also asked about the goal of climate neutrality 2045, whether it's questioned. This goal is still important to us. Let me underline that. We are still committed to that goal. It's part of our climate strategy. The climate strategy itself will be updated annually when it comes to the compensation system, and there will be regular reports.
In other words, we will report to shareholders about the progress of our climate goals under the annual reporting exercise. So this is not lost. It's just mapped or reflected differently in the compensation system. Let me now answer a number of questions that Mr. Gebhardt asked. Just a second. Let me perhaps hand back to you, Martin. Thank you, Stefan. A number of questions, so we will take some time and also spend a few seconds on breathing in between. It's Mr. Pottmeier who had the second highest number of questions. So Mr. Pottmeier, let me ask you to start answering your questions in quotation marks, and you can hand back to me anytime if you need a short break. Thank you. Mr. Kienle, answering your first question about the optimization potential at Deutsche Börse. Essentially, there is always further potential to optimize things.
We observe the development of our company and markets on an ongoing basis. That is how the growth opportunities can be better exploited and our operational efficiency increased. In that, our goal is not necessarily to make sure that the currently pursued growth is accelerated, but keeping it as stable as possible in the future as well. Let me turn to your question with respect to high volatility and special boom. In the first quarter of this year, the higher volatility had a slightly positive impact on our net revenue with our treasury results on an intermittent basis, a growth of 10% intermittently, slightly above our forecast of an average of 8% per year. In April, the effect was a little stronger all in all. In the meantime, however, we could see a clear normalization of volatility.
Our projection or guidance for 2025 has been kept unchanged for the time being. In the case of constantly higher volatility, the guidance can, of course, be raised in the course of the year, if necessary, that is. Let me now turn to your question about our treasury result. Mr. Kienle, $1.05 billion was the result last year. We're currently expecting a decline to about $850 million for 2025 and about $700 million for 2026. This estimate is based on the current market expectations by and large when it comes to the development of short-term interest rates in the different currencies. The next follow-up question is about the healthy rate of volatility, Mr. Kienle. Essentially, our expectations are based on a normal development of volatility. When it comes to the volatility indicator V-STOXX, this is a level of about 15 to 20 points.
Our forecast of €5.2 billion of net revenue and €2.7 billion of net EBITA this year, both without treasury results. Those numbers, that is, don't include the result from a clearly increased volatility. As I just said, our guidance can be raised in the course of the year should this prove necessary because of this higher volatility on a sustainable basis. You also asked about the interest rate level, Mr. Kienle. Under our multi-annual planning, we use the tradable interest rates determined by the market, which depend on the central bank's monetary policy and other currencies and exchange rates, that is. For the dollar and the euro, we are expecting lower rates for 2025 and 2026, followed by a stabilization of the short-term rates in 2027. For 2026, the currently expected short-term rates in US dollars amount to around 3% and just under 2% for the euro.
Kienle, you also asked about the risks for Deutsche Börse given the current geopolitical environment. As a company with a global footprint, Deutsche Börse constantly analyzes political and economic risks, focusing on operational risks in particular, to make sure that during times of higher volatility, we are able to roll out our services to all market participants in a reliable way. Despite record volumes in April, we were still able to prove the resilience and performance of our systems. In addition, we constantly observe and assess geopolitical events to make sure that we adapt our business activities to the new situation as needed. Mr. Kienle made a proposal as well. In 2026, Authorized Capital One is to expire, and in 2027, Capital Four is to expire. To not replace that was your proposal. We, unfortunately, cannot agree with that, Mr. Kienle.
Even though full utilization of the entire authorized capital is highly unlikely, we need to preserve an appropriate level of flexibility. Mr. Aneding, turning to your question about the impact of the worsening EU economic situation on our business activity. We don't depend a lot on the current economic situation. Our opportunities are based on structural factors by and large, which means our goals can be pursued by and large independently from the current economic development. We are on a good track in that. Turning to your questions about the level of returns, we will invest all our energy in sustainable returns in the future. The focus of our growth strategy should go far beyond our short-term horizon of 2026. If the current growth trajectory is pursued and continued, this should have a positive impact on our valuation.
In addition to that, a continuous increase of our dividend is planned, which will also have a positive effect on the overall dividend return. Turning to your question about competitive disadvantages in Germany, Mr. Aneding, you asked that. Especially for Germany, we don't see major competitive disadvantages for our group as a whole, for the simple reason that our business is international. Because of our diversification, we only depend on the German market to a limited extent. As for our position in Europe, we do have a certain competitive disadvantage against our competitors because capital markets are bigger elsewhere and more developed than in our case. We hope that this gap will close at least partly. The EU Commission tries under the Savings and Investment Union to take steps in the right direction. They're good steps. With our service offering, we will, of course, support them.
Let me now turn to your question, Mr. Thome, about the growth of annual recurring revenue over the next few years. Because of the diversification of our business data and software in particular in recent years, the share of recurring revenue has increased constantly. Last year, accounting for about 62%. In the future, we also expect a further increase because many areas generating recurring revenue show or are expected to show disproportionate growth. Cyclical factors, however, will have an impact on transaction-based income and the share of recurring revenue accordingly. That is why we can't give you reliable guidance for future periods. Mr. Thome, you asked about inflation and our countermeasures. The clear rise of inflation in recent years had a direct impact on our operating costs, increased HR costs, and procurement costs. The continuous improvement of operational efficiencies, however, and automation are part and parcel of our business model.
Because of that, inflation effects were by and large compensated for. In addition, we regularly monitor and assess our pricing models and amend them to adapt them in terms of the product offering to match the product offering against markets. With that, back to you, Mr. Jetter. Thank you, Mr. Pottmeier. I'd like to hand over to Ms. Eckert. She'd like to answer the questions that were asked about her responsibility. Mr. Thome asked about diversity targets in the context of the developments we're seeing in the US. We have employee engagement, diversity equity, and inclusion as targets. Therefore, we place special emphasis on our employees, who are the basis of the success of Deutsche Börse Group. On an annual basis, we conduct people service. They are the basis for those two KPIs, which are measured objectively.
There is no conflict with the executive orders of the Trump administration on DEI. But, of course, our targets will always respect local regulatory and legal requirements. Let me continue with a question by Mr. Masser on possible human rights violations in our value chain. The BBAG fully complies with the relevant German Act, and we conduct analysis on a regular basis. In 2024, we found one violation in health and safety, and we took immediate action and solved the problem. Another question by Mr. Masser on non-obligatory audits on human rights violations in the financial sector. The BBAG fully complies with the legal requirements, including human rights requirements. We cannot speak on behalf of the entire financial industry, but the BBAG is a neutral infrastructure provider. As such, our job is to operate liquid and well-working markets and to provide market access for everyone without discrimination.
Next, a question by Ms. Kralisch again on human rights risks with respect to listed companies. Again, the BBAG fully complies with the requirements of the German legislation. We are a stock exchange. We are a neutral infrastructure provider. As such, our job is to provide access to all market participants on a non-discriminatory basis. If they meet certain requirements, we are obliged to admit their securities for trading on the stock exchange. Next, Mr. Martius on employee involvement. As part of our attractive participation programs in 2024, employees were able to buy shares with a discount of up to 40%, and therefore they were able to use the free amount under German tax law of €2,000. Thank you, Ms. Eckert, for those answers. Next, I would like to ask Dr. Böhm to answer the first part of his questions. Dr. Böhm. Thank you, Mr. Jetter.
First of all, question about Mr. Aneding, Mr. Thome and Ms. Anneke. Mr. Aneding, question on AI and digitalization and our related strategy. Digitalization and AI are relevant technologies for Deutsche Börse, and therefore they are core elements of our long-term technological transformation strategy. Examples for successful transformation are cloud migration, development and use of specific AI applications, and the development of a digital post-trade platform. Mr. Aneding, you asked about risks and opportunities of digitalization and AI. Digitalization and AI open up new uses and workflows. Employees at all levels can improve their workflows, and we expect also economic benefits. But of course, there are also risks when AI is used. Data quality is important, and we have to protect sensitive data. Thank you, Mr. Aneding, for your question on products, processes, and the mindset in terms of digitalization and AI.
Deutsche Börse is a global marketplace and infrastructure provider. Technology is the basis and the guarantor of our business model. The technological trends, digitalization, and AI have an impact on governance, workflows, structures, and also the corporate culture of Deutsche Börse Group. This company has long experience with digitalization and the use of AI in different applications. Both technology trends are increasingly being used across the company, and they are becoming part of our everyday lives. Mr. Aneding, question on cybersecurity. Like any other company, Deutsche Börse is, of course, permanently being attacked. In 2024, no core system of Deutsche Börse was attacked successfully, though. This is thanks to a comprehensive network at all IT levels. These measures aim at general security. We conduct permanent tests to ensure the efficacy of the systems, including structured analysis for known weaknesses.
You will understand, I'm sure, that for safety reasons, we cannot give you any specific details on what we do in this regard. Moving on to Mr. Thome's question, that was a question on the protection of our infrastructure against cyberattacks. The IT infrastructure of Deutsche Börse is being protected by a multi-layered system. This includes all IT infrastructure components. There's a network of sensors. It monitors IT to identify any cyberattacks. The cloud-based infrastructure is protected directly by the cloud service providers and also by us, Deutsche Börse. Again, I'm sure you will understand that for security reasons, we cannot share any details on the methodologies used. Thank you, Mr. Thome, for your question regarding the Google partnership, the development of digital assets, and the specific products. The strategic partnership between Deutsche Börse and Google Cloud is broadly based.
Part of the strategic partnership is the joint development of the digital platform D7 for digitized securities. On this platform, we're offering the digitalization of two asset classes of structured products and bonds. Going forward, we're going to build on this offering. Mr. Thome, question on AI as a competitive factor and on the use of AI at Deutsche Börse. Deutsche Börse sees AI as an important and relevant trend. Deutsche Börse Group has long experience in the use and application of artificial intelligence, including automation and generative AI. Already, there are a number of use cases in different areas of our company. For example, support in software development for several hundred developers. We also have an in-house AI user platform, and this is accessible to our workforce. Other examples are document administration and support functionalities, also at the interface to our clients.
Thome, a question on the protection of the IT infrastructure against cyberattacks with respect to the cloud. The IT infrastructure of Deutsche Börse is being protected by a multi-layered system. This includes all IT components. A network of sensors monitors IT to fend off cyberattacks. The cloud-based infrastructure is monitored directly by cloud service providers and by Deutsche Börse. You will understand that for security reasons, we cannot share any details on the methodologies used. Mr. Anneke, thank you for your question on the social and ecological consequences of AI. AI is an important and relevant technology for Deutsche Börse and is therefore an integral part of our strategy. Deutsche Börse already uses AI. Potential AI use cases and also uses by third parties are carefully analyzed before they go live. This includes risk management and also a governance framework.
This was expanded to include rules and regulations from the EU AI Act. We are an AI user, an early user, actually an early adopter. Fundamental social and ecological impacts are not expected in the short term, but AI also changes processes at our clients, means that we have to train our employees, and it also is a new element for regulators and we're in dialogue with all those stakeholders. Thank you, Dr. Böhm. We'll come back to you later. Can I ask Christian Kroman to answer the questions addressed to him? Thank you. I'll try to do this in German. I apologize for my Danish accent. Mr. Kienle, you asked about the potential consequences for different areas of Deutsche Börse. We can't see any negative consequences at Deutsche Börse when it comes to anti-AI.
We are monitoring the developments, and of course, we're going to comply with local rules and regulations, especially at ISS in the US. We expect that there will be continued demand for high-quality ESG data, irrespective of what opinions individual investors are going to have on the subject of ESG and DEI. Question by Mr. Kienle. You said that the IMS segment in software solutions saw revenues increase and you asked whether this is due to the acquisition of SimCorp. It is true that software solutions saw higher revenues, and yes, there was also a consolidation effect following the acquisition of SimCorp and the integration of Axiomo. The segment rose by 8% in 2024. Software solutions, that is. Mr. Thome, you asked the synergy effects in 2025 of SimCorp and whether we will achieve more than $90 million in synergies in 2026. You also asked about cross-selling with ISS stocks.
For 2025, we're aiming for 90% of the run rate synergies of the total of €90 million. It's a little more than €80 million for SimCorp and ISS stocks taken together. We believe we are well on track to actually achieve that target. Cross-selling is an important growth driver, not so much between SimCorp and ISS stocks, but also with other segments of Deutsche Börse Group. There's a growing number of buy-side clients, and we're offering different products for them at Deutsche Börse Group. Another question by Mr. Thome. You asked about the proportion of software as a service revenue at SimCorp. SimCorp is switching over to SaaS. We're making good progress in 2024. We saw solid progress in SaaS migration. This is reflected in SaaS net revenue increase of over 30% year on year.
We activated more SaaS customers this year, and we also attracted new ones in 2024. SaaS net revenue as a proportion of total revenue rose to 37% in Q1 2025. This figure stood at even 43%. Mr. Thome, to what extent or how well is SimCorp positioned in the US compared to competitors where we're gaining market share? The US is a high-priority market for SimCorp. We invested in sales and marketing last year. We are well positioned, and we expect a positive business dynamic in our segment. This is confirmed by two new customers. We are growing at a double-digit rate. The market is growing at a single-digit rate, and that means, yes, that we are gaining market share. There's one more question. You asked about the market share of SimCorp in the United States going forward and whether we need further acquisitions to strengthen SimCorp's position.
We're not aiming for a certain market share percentage. It's important for us that we are successful in the most important segments. We want to grow faster than the market, and we're attracting new customers, so it seems that we are on the right track. Additional acquisitions in individual segments, yes, they can play a supporting role. Another question by Mr. Thome. About ISS stocks and whether we are planning a buyout of the minority share or whether we're planning an IPO exit. It's too early to say, really. We're still looking at both options. No decision has been made so far, and of course, this decision also depends on our partner and the market environment. One last question, Mr. Thome. Question on the medium-term target of the EBITDA margin of the IMS segment.
For the IMS segment, we're planning an EBITDA margin in the medium term of 45%. We have run rate synergies of $90 million, and this is going to support this target. Thank you. Back to you, Mr. Jetter. Thank you, Christian. Moving on to Stefan's second round of answers. Thank you, Martin. First question by Mr. Martius. It goes back to what Christian Kroman just said. Mr. Martius described a lot of details on our business. Thank you very much for your remark that Stoxx 600 is an excellent product without FX risk. Thank you for sharing this view. Of course, we also agree Stoxx 600 Europe is an excellent product. ISS stocks is working closely with asset managers and banks to make this index even more widely known and more widely accessible. We're supporting your idea.
Next, there's an entire block on the format of the AGM asked by Mr. Salten and Mr. Massa, respectively. Question by Mr. Salten concerning the costs of today's AGM. The rent for Jahrhunderthalle amounts to a low six-digit figure. Our service provider, Adeus, also costs a low six-digit figure. It seems to be a popular format. I have to remember that. We have back office support. Around 50 people work in our back office, but of course, they do not incur any special costs. As for catering for shareholders and for the staff of the company and our service providers, it amounts to a medium five-digit figure. I hope, Mr. Salten, that this is going to answer your question regarding the costs of this AGM. Next question by Mr. Massa regarding hybrid AGMs, whether we've looked into that.
When determining the format of today's AGM, we looked at the different options and the various pros and cons. The executive board did that, and we discussed it with the supervisory board. The hybrid format includes two different legal formats, and therefore it makes the whole thing a lot more complex and prone to errors. That's the reason why most companies do not use a hybrid format. To our knowledge, none of the DAX 40 companies opted for a hybrid format last year. You also asked about the question about the cost of a hybrid meeting compared to an in-person/virtual AGM. We use excellent technology, but like I said, a hybrid meeting is a lot more complex, and this will, of course, also have an impact on the costs.
We're going to look into this format, but as for the costs, that really depends on the year in question, and therefore we cannot give you any specific figures here. Next question on the AGM. You asked about our plans for 2026. So far, no decision has been taken on the 2026 AGM. This decision will be taken in due course on a case-by-case basis, and of course, we're also going to factor the interests of our shareholders and the company. But like I said, this is going to happen in due course. Your last question in this block, Mr. Massa, you asked about the omnibus process of the European Union. You asked about sustainable finance regulation and whether this is an incentive not to do anything about sustainable transformations. Deutsche Börse does not speculate on ongoing legislation.
We cannot see, cannot know at this point in time what the law will bring. Therefore, we have to wait and see what the law is going to say. But generally speaking, we welcome the sustainable finance regulation of the European Union and its increased consistency with global standards. When it comes to financial stability, consumer protection, and the promotion of sustainable business models, this will certainly come in handy, and at the same time, it will promote competition. Deutsche Börse Group has an ESG and service portfolio, and we are going to lend support here. As part of our ESG strategy, we try to achieve global sustainability targets, even given the rather complex rules and regulations that we have in place right now. Ms. Kralich, moving on to your questions concerning ISS.
Your first question in my block here was to what extent Deutsche Börse plans that ESG ratings remain objective and understandable, because you said that is self-evaluation. That was the term that you used. Governance, ESG data, and the research organization at ISS, they're all independent. Deutsche Börse does not interfere. We respect the independence of research recommendations and research of ISS, and we have documented that in great detail. ISS works under a guideline of non-interference, and in fact, it says that on the website of ISS, and this information was published last year. Ms. Kralich, you also asked about a full list of all the sources used by ISS for their ratings. Again, let me emphasize, ISS chooses its own methods and sources. ISS also documents its methodologies and how it comes up with its ratings.
You will find that information on the company's website, and we believe that this is a sufficient level of transparency. For ESG ratings, for instance, there is a 49-page document, and it includes specifically the sources that are being used, including public information, corporate information, obviously, but also alternative sources of information in addition to corporate information that broaden the perspective. It's a wide range of information and information sources, and the underlying methodology is described in great detail and with great transparency. Plus, ISS is independent. I'd like to emphasize that. You ask another question in the same context. Is Deutsche Börse planning to separate to publish separate E, S, and G scores, respectively? Like I said, ISS is an independent company, and we respect that, and we're not going to exert any influence on the methods and processes used by ISS.
There was a last question raised by you in the same context: a lack of transparency on the ISS website concerning the conflict of interest regarding the relation between ISS and Deutsche Börse and the related ESG rating. This is also one of the aspects in your counter motion. Let me say this very clearly. We cannot understand this point of criticism. The ISS proxy report and the ISS ESG corporate rating report on Deutsche Börse here clearly says that Deutsche Börse holds 80% of ISS, so we think we are fully transparent here. Plus, we have this policy of non-interference. Therefore, I believe that we are quite aware of this conflict of interest, a potential conflict of interest, actually. Question by Mr. Gutbrodt: You spoke about CAMEX and Deutsche Börse's position in that regard. You raised questions to both boards.
I'd like to take the question addressed to the executive board. We, Deutsche Börse AG, did not perform our own CAMEX transactions. As was said in previous AGMs in 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2022, we at Deutsche Börse Group learned that the Cologne public prosecutor is investigating certain people and that this group of people includes board members and former and current employees of Deutsche Börse Group. Since 2022, to our knowledge, this group has not been increased. There have been no new allegations by the public prosecutor, and there is also no new information. The investigation is still in an early phase, so we cannot say what the scope is going to be, and we don't know what the consequences or the end result of that investigation is going to be.
At this point in time, to our knowledge, no employees or board members have been actually accused by the public prosecutor. The company is concerned to fully cooperate with the authorities. The important thing is that as early as 2019, we hired renowned law firms and external advisors to conduct our own internal investigation on CAMEX throughout the group companies concerned. We are meeting the highest standards here, and the internal investigation has in the meantime been concluded. The result is that no one on the board has violated their duties and obligations. I hope that this explains the position of the executive board, and Martin, I'd like to hand over to you for the perspective of the supervisory board. Thank you, Stefan, and thank you, Dr. Gutbrodt, for your question on CAMEX and to what extent the supervisory board has taken action.
As explained by me in previous years, the supervisory board dealt with CAMEX on a regular basis and in depth, especially the impact on Deutsche Börse. We had external counselors, legal advisors. We had workshops and extraordinary supervisory board meetings. I can assure you that we looked at that in great detail. Dr. Leitner mentioned the internal investigation. We also reviewed this investigation, and in fact, we were also involved in this investigation. The supervisory board is, of course, monitoring any future developments and we're in close touch with the executive board in this regard. Moving on to other questions addressed to me by Mr. Kehnle. In your statement, you mentioned relative total shareholder return, a single KPI of the long-term variable remuneration in the specific situation of a possible loss.
Under this KPI, it's possible to pay variable remuneration if the share price of Deutsche Börse performs better than that of its peers. The supervisory board believes that the relative comparison is an important indicator of the performance of the executive board, and therefore it's based on the system pay for performance. It's an important element of executive board evaluation. Going forward, we're going to use three different peer groups to determine that KPI in the interest of our shareholders. For the following reasons, we find it deplorable that even though you believe that the remuneration system is in good shape, that you still do not want to vote yes. You said that Deutsche Börse's performance has been good over the past few years, and we stand by, we believe in our business model.
Relative total shareholder return is a parameter only in long-term variable remuneration, and it is based on a five-year horizon. The likelihood that payment is actually made, even though a loss occurred in the period under review, that likelihood has been decreased considerably. Therefore, we hope that you are going to vote yes on the relevant resolution under the appropriate agenda item. Mr. Gebhart, you asked for the role of the supervisory board in monitoring and assessing security-related company risks. The supervisory board of Deutsche Börse regularly looks at risks to the company. To this end, it has set up a separate risk committee which monitors the monitoring of operational risks, including security risks, as well as financial risks and business risks for the group. With that, I'd like to hand over to Dr. Bock. Dr. Bock, let's now take your answers. Thank you, Mr. Jetter.
Thomas, you asked a number of questions to do with trading and clearing that I'll be happy to answer. First, regarding fixed income, which is very much a focus of ours. Your question was, what is the market share with the Euro OTC clearing? With the open volume within Euro OTC clearing, we currently see €42 billion, which is an increase of 22% over the last 12 months, with a stable market share at around 20%. The average daily volumes and interest swaps were also increased significantly by 19% for the first quarter, and we also saw increases in the market share versus the previous period. Thomas, you also asked whether the EMIR 3.0 regulation would mean a boost for OTC clearing. For this, let me maybe briefly explain where we stand.
With our fixed income strategy, home of the Euro yield curve, so full coverage of the European interest yield curve, we are the only derivatives trading platform within Eurex covering all product segments: swaps, repo, and futures. With that strategy, we have provided a unique pool of collateral, providing to our customers a high degree of efficiency for the capital employed. The cross-product margining is thus an essential part of the Eurex offer. Your question pertaining to EMIR 3.0, the so-called active account requirement will be introduced in Europe in June. This piece of legislation means that market participants for system-relevant products need an active account with the EU clearing house. In that respect, we expect market participants, particularly buy-side customers such as institutionals or pension funds, will continue to expand their activities with Eurex.
That particularly goes for OTC clearing, and that also means that the relevance of cross-product margining will increase in order to generate cross-product portfolio efficiency. We're already seeing more customers actively using cross-product margining. Mr. Thomay, you asked the question about the trends in the repo business. Now, we have to say, given the strong growth in 2019 through 2024 with an average annual growth rate of about 13%, the repo business of Eurex in 2024 and also for the first quarter of 2025 saw a period of consolidation. This consolidation is mostly driven by the measures of the European Central Bank, such as the reduction of their own holdings in European bonds. We assume, however, that the growth trend will return and the Eurex repo business will continue to grow in the medium term.
Factors such as the increased issuing activities of the federal government that we mentioned and other countries, and the further reduction of excess liquidity in the Euro region should have a positive effect on demand. Mr. Thomay, let me then cover your questions on the energy segment. You asked for the strong performance of EEX. Yes, indeed, the energy markets of EEX connect more market participants than trading participants than ever, and we see clear growth signals for 2025 and beyond. The main driver of that trend is, for instance, the advancing energy transition, and in this, it's more and more market-based instruments that get used as offered by EEX. The second clear trend we observe, the increased participation of traditional financial institutions and specialized commodity traders in energy trading.
That means more liquidity in the order book trading at Börse and a stronger use of the offered technical interfaces of our trading infrastructure. Your question regarding the acquisition of the Scandinavian Nasdaq Commodities Exchange. We made a great effort to implement the agreement reached with Nasdaq, but it wasn't very promising to achieve regulatory approval for that over the set amount of time or the set period. Next, your question on the EEX platform for electricity derivatives in Japan. EEX clearly focuses on the growth region, Asia, and the Japanese power market is the strongest growing market within EEX and is supported with new products being launched all the time. Also, EEX tries to attract Asian participants for the European power markets. Just recently, with Gage I Securities, the first agent clearing member joined the EEX group.
EEX thus in Japan is well positioned, and we assume we can continue to expand our business there and offer excellent service to our customers. In 2024 alone, the EEX business in Japan increased by a factor of six. Mr. Thomay, you then asked about the split of revenue within the segment foreign exchange and digital assets. The answer is as follows. In the 2024 financial year, the revenue of 360T were at about €156 million and that of crypto finance at around €9 million. For the first quarter 2025, the segment achieved revenues of about €46 million, and that corresponds to a growth of 20% versus previous year's period. Of that, 44% were 360T and the remainder crypto finance. I would then want to address two of the questions asked by Mr. Masser.
Firstly, you asked whether any actors in our trading platforms observe climate, environmental protection, and human rights, and whether they have to prove adherence to these rights. That is not the case. Our trading platforms are legally regulated and therefore come with certain access requirements. If those requirements are met, the trading platforms have to admit participants for trading. Requirements for climate or environmental protection or observance of human rights do not fall into the category of legal admission requirements. Your second question, whether the access to trading platforms can be refused because of violation of environmental or human rights, that too is not the case. Please note that trading platforms are bound by the legally stipulated access requirements. If those requirements are met, the trading platforms, that is us, are obliged to trade such equities and admit such traders.
Those were the questions that fall into my responsibility. Back to you, Mr. Jetter. Thank you, Dr. Bock. I'd then like to ask Dr. Eckermann to provide her answers. Thank you, Mr. Jetter. We've already had a few questions and answers on digitalization, so let me start with that block of questions first. Thank you, Ms. Anneke, for your question about blockchain technology. We consider blockchain to be a key technology for digital transformation of capital markets. Numerous digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies, are based on that technology. Blockchain can also be used in order to take traditional elements and processes of the capital market and digitalize them. For Deutsche Börse and their market participants, this allows the untapping of efficiency potential and to implement manifold growth opportunities. At the same time, it constitutes risks such as regulatory uncertainty and technological challenges.
We observe all of these and factor them in diligently. Our strategy includes both untapping new assets but also digitizing relevant processes. For instance, Clearstream, in partnership with Crypto Finance, offers custody for crypto assets. With the post-trading platform, D7, digitalizes the issuing process for securities. With that, to your question, Mr. Thomay, regarding the use of blockchain, when booking and providing custody for assets. End of March 2025, we already counted 1 million such transactions. Apart from structured retail products for the German markets, we now focus also on classic bonds, both national and international. Additionally, Clearstream was the only central custodian in Europe who took part in the test runs by the European Central Bank on the digital euro. Our D7 platform was expanded by blockchain functionalities for that, manifesting our leading role in digital post-trading. Thank you, Mr.
Thomas, also for asking about the cooperation with the Canadian exchange TMX as part of the platform as a service model. This cooperation includes the provision of a digital infrastructure for efficient and secure financial services. Together with TMX, we developed the Canadian Collateral Management Service, which is about the optimization and collateralization of asset financing, of security financing transactions, and offers triparty repo capabilities. The platform is already operational, and since the beginning of the year, we have had transactions worth about CAD 13 billion. New customers are being attracted and connected continuously, and we expect the overall volume to go up. In parallel, we work on extending the functional scope of the platform. Your question regarding the development of revenue in fund settlement and fund sales. Thank you for that question. Generally, we are happy with the growth of our fund service business.
Both in fund settlement and also fund sales, we've been able to grow successfully. The overproportionate growth in fund settlement versus sales is due to a trend towards more passive fund products and the general pressure on sales margins or fees, commissions. Back to Mr. Jetter. Thank you, Mr. Eckermann. The next is Dr. Böhm answering the second round of questions. Thank you, Mr. Jetter. I'll now address Mr. Geppert's questions to start with. Thank you. You asked about the impact of the attack on the United Healthcare CEO and our assessment of it. The incidents and attacks on CEOs in the market are being continuously monitored and assessed by Deutsche Börse. The security concept for management board members is continuously revised and adapted to such attacks and incidents. Please understand that for security reasons, we will not disclose any concrete and specific measures.
That is a sentence that you'll continue to hear on quite a number of the following questions. Thank you also for your question on our reaction to such attacks. The incidents and attacks at CEOs in the market are continuously monitored and evaluated by Deutsche Börse. The security concept is constantly revised and adapted where necessary. Please understand that we will not disclose any specific measures for security reasons. Thank you for the question regarding protecting against being listened out. That is part of our concept on cybersecurity, and it includes offices and private residences, and we also involve security authorities. Please understand that also here we cannot disclose any further details. Thank you, Mr. Geppert, for asking about security-relevant trainings for top management and reaction to threat situations. The management board is regularly trained in all respects of security.
The geopolitical threat situation is permanently monitored and assessed by Deutsche Börse Group. This results in flexible adjustments of security measures. For security reasons, we cannot disclose any information on specific measures. Thank you, Mr. Geppert, for asking about external expertise coming in with such security questions. We are in regular contact with national and international security authorities, and additionally, we are in contact with highly specialized cybersecurity and physical security companies. Mr. Geppert, you asked for emergency communication systems. Deutsche Börse AG, for different emergencies, has devised a number of emergency policies, and apart from the classical communication path, it also includes communication channels for emergencies. Thank you for asking about safe transport for management board members. Regarding travel activities and the way board members move about, there are policies as part of the overall security policy, and adherence to it is monitored closely all the time.
Please understand that we do not disclose further details on that. Finally, I should like to answer your question, Mr. Salten. Thank you for asking about quantum technology. Quantum technology is one additional and further technological trend for our company, apart from the topics already covered, such as digitalization and artificial intelligence. Thus, Deutsche Börse identified potential applications of quantum technology in the fields of risk management and portfolio optimization for ESG-sensitive investors. We did so in cooperation with established technology leaders, universities, and German startups. In the long term, we see promising approaches for the use of quantum technology. Thank you very much, and back to the chairman. Thank you, Dr. Böhm. With that, I would like to once again give the floor to Dr. Pottmeier for the remaining six questions that fall into his responsibility.
Mr. Masser, thank you for your questions about the financial expenditure on advertising for the 2024 financial year. Financial expenditure for advertising cost was €34.5 million for the year 2024, as included in the annex to the publication. And now, Mr. Masser's question about the cost for the standard financial reporting of Deutsche Börse AG for the 2024 financial year. The cost for the standard reporting of Deutsche Börse AG, according to German GAAP and IFRS, for the 2024 financial year amounted to about €3 million and does not contain the cost for ESG reporting. Mr. Masser went on to ask about the cost for ESG reporting, and according to the European Sustainability Reporting Standards at Deutsche Börse AG for the year 2024, the cost for this ESG reporting, according to the European Sustainability Reporting Standards for the 2024 financial year, amounted to €0.6 million.
Geppert, you asked about security and safety of the board members being embedded into the overall concept. Reputation-wise, Deutsche Börse has a comprehensive policy, also including reputational risk, which includes specific requirements for physical safety and security in the entire company and all employees, including the board members. Now, as to the question of the effect of the German Equalization of Burdens Act by Mr. Martius, we are not aware of any upcoming changes to this legislation. Therefore, we cannot comment on potential effects and impacts on our company and our share. Should real estate assets be affected, this would have no substantial impact on our overall business. Thank you also for your proposal to increase the attractiveness of investing in equity and in shares, Mr. Martius. We are totally in agreement.
We are firmly convinced that investing into equity and shares and funds needs to be increased in Germany quite substantially, also for providing for old age. Our experience has shown, however, that the cost of purchasing shares is not the obstacle. Our role is to offer platforms for efficient products. The best example of that is our offer when it comes to exchange-traded funds, ETFs, as Stefan Leitner already mentioned in his speech today. That is where we are a leader across Europe. With that, back to Mr. Jetter. Thank you, Mr. Pottmeier. Last but not least, Stefan, back to you for the final round. Thank you, Martin. Mr. Martius, you asked a question that I'm very happy to answer. The one about the 25-year anniversary of Deutsche Börse. Indeed, on February 1st, 2026, we shall celebrate 25 years of Deutsche Börse at the Börse venue.
You can be assured that there's already an intense internal discussion as to what would be the most appropriate format for it. No decision has been taken yet, but we will definitely come up with an appropriate framework in order to also send a signal to the outside how successful you can be after 25 years as an exchange. With that, back to you. Thank you, Martin. Thank you, Stefan. Ladies and gentlemen, we've finished working through the list of questions, and I have no other requests to speak ahead of me. Does anybody else request to speak? I can see no show of hands here. Let me check once again whether any questions have remained unanswered or have not been answered in full. Here again, that is not the case. Thank you very much.
I can thus state for the record that all questions have been answered and that there are no further requests for the floor. With that, I close the general debate on agenda items 1 to 11. Ladies and gentlemen, then let's proceed to the vote. We're going to collect all votes on agenda items 1 through 11 in one go. The voting result will be determined using the so-called addition procedure, meaning that we're only going to count the yes and the no votes. Any abstentions will not be counted and will be disregarded. For the record, the voting area shall be this hall, and this means that votes can only be cast in this hall, specifically in the seating area. The votes will be counted under the supervision of the notary.
Should you wish to vote yes or no on one or several agenda items, please have your AGM card ready and signal our tellers. They will then come to you so that you can cast your vote. Your yes and no votes will be recorded by our tellers using mobile tablet PCs. They are going to scan the code on your card and hence its registration number and the number of votes you have. After that, you can vote either yes or no on the resolutions before the meeting. On the display, you can check whether your votes have been recorded correctly. Your votes will then immediately be sent to and processed by our IT system. If you have more than one AGM card and wish to vote yes or no on one or several agenda items, please be sure to show our tellers each of these cards individually.
If you wish to abstain on all resolutions, you don't have to do anything. Please do remain seated, though, until the voting process is completed. Thank you. If you wish to give or modify voting instructions to the company-appointed proxies, now is the time to do so. This will allow them to release your votes in time before the voting is closed. We are now going to vote on agenda items 2 through 11. The resolutions proposed under the various agenda items were published in the Federal Gazette along with a notice of meeting. Moreover, they are also available for inspection on the company's website. Concerning the resolution proposed under agenda item 2, I had already pointed out at the beginning that it had been necessary to amend the number of shares carrying dividend rights.
Hence, the meeting is going to vote on the amended proposal as published this morning and as available on the company's website. With your permission, I will take this resolution and all other proposed resolutions as read. I confine myself therefore to calling the individual agenda items as follows. Agenda item 2 concerns the appropriation of unappropriated surplus. Under agenda item 3, the meeting is going to vote on the ratification of the acts of all the members of the executive board in one go. In this context, I'd like to remind the AGM that pursuant to Section 136 of the German Stock Corporation Act, board members are not entitled to vote on the ratification of their own acts. The members of the executive board have submitted the necessary declarations. We can thus ensure that they will not take part in the vote on this agenda item.
This brings me to the motion tabled here to withhold the ratification of the acts of the board members. This does not need to be voted on separately. Shareholders wishing to withhold their approval simply vote no under the agenda item. Under agenda item 4, the meeting is going to vote on the ratification of the acts of all the members of the supervisory board in one go. For this agenda item 2, I have received the declarations required by Section 136 of the German Stock Corporation Act. We can thus ensure that the members of the supervisory board will not take part in the vote on agenda item 4. Under agenda item 5, the meeting is going to vote on an amendment of Article 42 of the Articles of Incorporation to align with Section 106 of the German Stock Corporation Act.
Under agenda item 6, the meeting is going to vote on canceling the existing authorized Capital II and on granting a new authorized Capital 2025 with the option of excluding subscription rights and on amending the Articles of Incorporation. Under agenda item 7, the meeting is going to vote on the election of a new supervisory board member. Item 8 is the resolution on the amendment of Article 152 of the Articles of Incorporation to renew the authorization to hold virtual annual general meetings. That takes me to the motion submitted during the AGM to not grant this motion. Über diesen Antrag muss nicht gesondert abgestimmt werden. The AGM has heard a motion that the executive board's authorization to conduct virtual AGMs should not be reviewed, and there's no need to vote on the motion as such.
If you wish to second this motion, you just vote no under agenda item 8. Item 9 is the resolution on the approval of the remuneration system for the members of the executive board, and under agenda item 10, the meeting is going to vote on the approval of the remuneration report. Concerning agenda items 9 and 10, the notary will take printouts of the remuneration system and the remuneration report as available on the website and also as referenced in the notice of meeting and will attach them to the minutes as annexes.
Last but not least, agenda item 11 is a resolution on the election of the auditor and group auditor for the 2025 financial year and of the auditor for the review of the condensed financial statement and the interim management report for the first half of the 2025 financial year, as well as the auditor for the 2025 sustainability report. Dear shareholders, may I now ask you to cast your votes on agenda items 2 to 11. If you wish to vote either yes or no, please have your AGM card ready and signal our tellers. Can I ask the tellers now to collect the votes, please? Meine sehr verehrten Damen und Herren, hatten Sie gelegentlich Ihre Stimme abgegeben? Sehen wir irgendwo noch jemanden, der nicht an recorded vote? I can't see or modify voting instructions to the company-appointed proxies, and I declare the voting process closed.
From now on, it will no longer be possible either to submit or modify postal ballots either. Any postal ballots submitted in time will also be entered into the counting system and processed electronically to determine the result of the vote. The votes will now be cast under the notary's supervision. He's going to ensure that all duly submitted votes and instructions have in fact been included in the voting results, irrespective of the channel through which they were submitted. I now suspend this annual general meeting for 25 minutes until the voting results are available. I would ask you to be back at 3:20, please. That's also when the AGM and the live stream will be resumed. The annual general meeting is called back to order. I now have the results of the votes on agenda items 2 through 11.
The results will be displayed in detail on the screen behind me so that you'll see them on the large screen. I'm going to refer to these figures later on when announcing the result of the vote. When reading out the results, I'm only going to state whether or not the required majority has been achieved. The full voting results will be available on the company's website after this annual general meeting. I shall pass on a detailed version of the voting results, including the information required by Section 130, Subsection 2, Sentence 2 of the German Stock Corporation Act, to our notary, Dr. Bergfeld, for inclusion in the minutes. With that, let me announce the result of the vote. For the record, the voting results for agenda items 2 through 11 are as follows.
This AGM has just voted on the resolutions proposed by the executive and supervisory boards or under items 7, 9, and 11 by the supervisory board only, with the exception of item 2, as published in the Federal Gazette on the 31st of March 2025. Under item 2, the resolution on the appropriation of the unappropriated surplus was carried with the required majority when it comes to the amended resolution proposal presented today. I can see that the results are shown on screen. Item 3, resolution on the ratification of the acts of the members of the executive board, was carried with the required majority. Item 4, the resolution on the ratification of the acts of the members of the supervisory board was carried with the required majority.
Item 5, resolution on an amendment of Article 4, Sentence 2 of the Articles of Incorporation to align with Section 10, Paragraph 6 of the German Stock Corporation Act on electronic shares was carried with the required majority of votes and shares represented at the time of the resolution. Item 6, resolution on canceling the existing authorized Capital II and new authorized Capital 2025 with the option of excluding subscription rights and amending the articles was carried with the required majority of votes and shares represented at the time of the resolution. Item 7, the resolution on the election of a new supervisory board member was carried with the required majority of votes.
Item 8, resolution on the amendment of Article 15, Sentence 2 of the Articles of Incorporation to renew the authorization to hold virtual annual general meetings was carried with the required majority and the required majority of the share capital represented at the time of the resolution. Item 9, the resolution on the approval of the remuneration system for the members of the executive board was carried with the required majority of votes. Item 10, resolution on the approval of the remuneration report was carried with the required majority. Item 11, the resolution on the election of the auditor and group auditor for the 2025 financial year, as well as the auditor for the review of the condensed financial statements and the interim management report for the first half of the 2025 financial year and the auditor for the 2025 sustainability report was carried.
As I said, review of the condensed financial statements and the interim management report for the first half of this year and the auditor for the sustainability report were carried with the required majority. It's really quite a number of audits. Then group auditor and group auditor for fiscal 25 and again review of the condensed financial statements and the interim management report for the first half of 2025 and the auditor for the 2025 sustainability report and group sustainability report was carried with the required majority of votes. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the business of the meeting. I'm going to close the meeting in a minute. I'd like to thank all those involved in the organization and smooth running of this AGM, everybody on stage and behind the scenes and down in the basement.
Thank you for putting together the answers to your very good and multifaceted questions. In particular, I'd like to say a word of thanks to all of you, our shareholders. Thank you for your trust in Deutsche Börse and for actively attending and contributing to this AGM, taking an active part in it with your contributions and discussion. With that, today's annual general meeting is closed. Goodbye, ladies and gentlemen. Goodbye from me as well and all the best to you. Do stay well disposed towards Deutsche Börse. May we all have a peaceful future. Thank you.