Well, ladies and gentlemen I'd like to open the 131st annual general meeting of HeidelbergCement AG at 10:00 A.M. today, on time as always. This year, for the first time as a so-called virtual AGM. I'm the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Fritz-Jürgen Heckmann, and I'm your chairman. I'd like to welcome the shareholders who are connected to us online today, and I'm very happy that so many people are interested in our proceedings. We have received such feedback. I'm happy that many business partners, customers, suppliers, and employees, and former employees are also with us today. I'd like to welcome the guests who will watch the first part of the AGM via the live stream, which is publicly accessible. Now, before I start with the AGM and the agenda, I'd like to talk about three aspects that we looked at when we prepared this AGM.
The first aspect was this new format. We want to ensure to give you reliable information in an understandable way, as you are used to from our usual AGMs with people in attendance. Both the board and myself will speak extemporaneously in order to make sure that we are easier to follow. For those people who are watching us on the Internet, there are some formal parts concerning myself. As in earlier years, I'll try to go through these difficult bits, so that we can talk about the contents. The second item that we dealt with was how about the future, about the future of HeidelbergCement and the industry. This is very much driven by environmental concerns.
As you know from the other years from our reports, we are very committed and we want to be a trailblazer in the industry, and we want to remain so in order to make sure that our products are ready for the future and protect the environment, and we're doing so day to day, and Dr. von Achten will also speak to this matter. The question about the future is very much characterized by or impacted by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The cause of this is outside of anything that can be captured with our normal forecasting instruments. In Gütersloh, as we've heard, schools are being closed. In Sweden, they're discussing whether their approach to coronavirus was correct or not. There's a great deal of uncertainty, and this is true for us, too.
The managing board oriented the company together with the supervisory board in such a way that we provide for our employees, in such a way that we protect their health, and we want to make sure that throughout the world, in all of these complicated international markets, the company can respond and adapt to a situation that is very hard to plan for. We believe that with this orientation, we will make it through the crisis, and we will continue to be ready for the future in spite of all of the uncertainties that will be with us for the unforeseeable future. This also goes for our dividend proposal. We had many intensive discussions and finally, the outcome was that this year, as a one-off, hopefully in the history of the company, we want to reduce the dividend. This has to do with preparing for the future.
We want to master all of these uncertainties in a stable situation. We want to make sure that you, as the investor, will continue to favor our company. We want to remain able to shape the future in spite of everything happening in our industry. Our goal, of course, is to make you share in the result with 35%-40%. We want to have you share in a rising dividend policy. Dr. von Achten will speak about this subject matter in his explanations. I will do so too, in part. Upfront, I wanted to tell you, or we wanted to tell you which topics are particularly important to us today and in the next few months. Our AGM will consist of four parts.
The first one will deal with the information about the formalities, and part two will deal with the individual items on the agenda. This will include the statement of Dr. von Achten, our new CEO, about the ongoing business last year and the outlook. The third part will be dedicated to answering your questions that were handed in on time by June 2nd 2020, 4:00 P.M. The last block will deal with the voting. Now, the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis are the reason for postponing the AGM that was planned for the 7th of May originally. In order to comply with the need for an AGM, we used a new law to have a virtual AGM. We try to answer your questions. A real dialogue, of course, is not possible as in an AGM where everybody's in attendance.
The resolutions or the draft of the resolutions were drawn up in the course of the COVID-19 Act. In addition, we decided to shorten the deadlines and to ask the shareholders to hand in their questions within the defined deadline. Not all of the board members are here in order to protect the health of people, but all of the Supervisory Board members and all of the Managing Board members are present online. In this room, we have Dr. von Achten, the Chairman of the Managing Board, Dr. Näger, Deputy Chairman of the Managing Board and CFO, and the Notary Public, Anna Ihrig. Next to me, she will take the minutes of this AGM today, and I'm here, and I will guide you through today's proceedings.
In addition, we have the two company proxies. Location is the dome room of our new headquarters in Heidelberg at Berliner Strasse. Those members of the board and the supervisory board not present here in this room who are connected online are in constant contact with us because of a special line that we have set up. This AGM will be broadcast live to our shareholders on the internet. My introductory remarks and the speech of the CEO can also be followed by the public on the live stream. We also have simultaneous translation into English. We are very happy that afterwards we will be able to answer all of the submitted questions, always according to the best judgment. We want to answer those questions to the best of our judgment.
If there are questions that appear twice, we will summarize those questions. As you may have gathered from the invitation, voting today is only possible by absentee ballot or by authorizing the company's proxies. Your absentee ballot or your instructions to the company's proxies can be changed or submitted on the Internet portal until the beginning of the voting. I will inform you when you have a last chance to change or submit your votes. I'd like to point out to you that you should use these voting possibilities quickly because there may be delays due to technical reasons. If you want to vote through the Internet portal, you can also launch an objection to the decisions of this AGM. This is only possible, however, until the end of the AGM and not after the AGM.
If you want to use that possibility, please use the button, Objection, on the internet portal. If you click on that, you can enter the text of your objection, this objection will then be presented to the Notary Public directly, which is Ms. Ihrig. In order to make sure that this really works safely, don't wait until the very last minute if you want to file your objection, because there may always be technical delays in the live stream. As far as the formal subject matters are concerned, the list of participants will be made available, will be drawn up during the meeting, later I will tell you about who's in attendance. No record must be made of the AGM, and the publicly available part will be available afterwards on the website of the company.
As in earlier years, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to use this event to guard a minute's silence for those employees and former employees who died in the last year. They all deserve to be remembered. Thank you for your commemoration. Ladies and gentlemen, there were some changes in the composition of the Supervisory Board. I reported on this at the end of the AGM 2019. The new Supervisory Board cooperated very well, and because of the pandemic, it has come together in a very intensive way. The changes on the Managing Board were announced at last year's AGM. The Supervisory Board provided the way or paved the way for a change in generations. Dr. von Achten, who used to be the Deputy Chairman of the Managing Board and took over the chairmanship from Dr. Bernd Scheifele as of the 1st of February this year.
We all wish Dr. von Achten much success, and we would have liked him to have more convenient conditions at the beginning of his tenure, but this is a challenge, and so far, many things have been launched in a very good and pragmatic way. After more than 15 years on the Board, Dr. Scheifele left the Managing Board at the end of January. In 2005, he joined as the Chairman of the Board, he had a major influence and impact on the company, both on the operating side of things and also as far as the strategic guidance is concerned. This is reflected by the new dimension that HeidelbergCement has received under his leadership, especially with the big acquisition of Hanson. With this, and with other instances of rounding up the company, HeidelbergCement has become more resistant.
I believe that in the three major areas or product areas, cement, ready-mix concrete, and aggregates, we can now play a leading role all over the world. With our regional spread, we have a good mix in order to overcome this crisis, because crisis is spread out all over the world, as we can see right now, and we can respond to that. This geographic orientation and the focusing on core activities is something that Dr. Scheifele did very consistently in our company, and we will continue to follow this lead. What I liked very much about Dr. Scheifele was his pragmatism, his target orientation, and his access to employees. Every company has great licenses and great names and great quarries, but in the end, it's the company's employees who need to burn for the company and who need to be committed.
I'd like to thank you on behalf of everybody, especially so on behalf of the supervisory board and on my own behalf, for this excellent cooperation. I'm very happy that after the two-year cooling-off period, Dr. Bernd Scheifele declared that he will join the supervisory board and stand for election as the chairman of the supervisory board. The supervisory board extended the contract for Dr. Lorenz Näger, the current deputy chairman. I'm very happy that Dr. Lorenz Näger was willing to accept, with all of the changes that we have had in the managing board and supervisory board, continuity until May 2022 is very important in this important position of the CFO. Currently, Dr. Lorenz Näger, we can see how important it is to count on your experience, starting from the consequences of the Lehman crisis. You know every single face of our company.
Taking over the chairmanship of the company, Dr. von Achten has transferred to Western and Southern Europe to Jon Morrish. Jon Morrish, we have known Jon Morrish for a long time. For a long time, he was responsible for the group area of North America. Now he has taken over this position in Europe. In May, Hans Jelito succeeded Dr. Scheuer to cover the group areas Northern and Eastern Europe-Central Asia. Mr. Jelito has been with us since 1982, and he stands for what Dr. Scheuer stood for, the high technical competence. Dr. Jelito was very successful in running our HeidelbergCement Technology Center, and we benefit from this greatly. He used to be very successful as the person responsible for our activities in Poland. After his third term, Dr. Scheuer has retired now, and we owe him great thanks. He was somebody we could use for anything, really.
When we called him in the morning that we had to send to America, then he said, "Yes, I have to discuss it with my family, but I can already say yes." When we said, "Well, sorry, it has to be Central Asia," he was just as flexible. In addition to this great flexibility, he was the person who was in the lead for our concrete activities, and many aspects passed over his desks, and he moved many things forward. We are full of gratitude to him. He leaves a well-prepared field to Mr. Jelito. In September 2019, Chris Ward joined the Managing Board. As of February 2020, he took over the group area of North America, taking over from Jon Morrish, who moved on to Europe. We know Chris Ward.
He has been with the company since 1996, and he held several product and regional responsibilities successfully in North America. He was responsible for the exciting field of aggregates, and his last position was responsibility for Canada. Dr. von Achten will later present the two new colleagues personally. I'd like to come back to the formal matters. The invitation to this AGM happened by using a shortened calling period, according to the COVID-19 Act. It was published in the Federal Bulletin on the 7th of May 2020. The agenda was also published. Our notary public has a printout. This will be added to the minutes of today, so that the items on the agenda and the draft resolutions have been publicized accordingly.
I state that all of the formalities have been complied with in due form and time, in keeping with the laws and our articles of association. We have not received any other requests for additional items on the agenda. We sent out the published agenda to all of the banks and shareholder association shareholders. Today we'll deal with the annual report, the annual financial statements, and the agenda. These documents were available. Since they have the calling of the AGM, they were available and were sent out to the shareholders on request. As far as the report of the supervisors report, the corporate governance report are concerned, you will find them in the annual report on pages eight through 13 and 34 until 97. Sorry, following page 35. We will today not have motions and requests for the floor.
Rather, we will answer the questions that you have submitted already. Because of this special form, counter proposals and nominations for election cannot be filed today. Because of this, we will not have to discuss these. We received a counter proposal that we published on the webpage of the company. No nominations for election have been sent in that we would have had to publish under Section 126 and 127. The counterproposal that I mentioned was sent to us by the Dachverband der Kritischen Aktionärinnen und Aktionäre in Cologne concerning item three on the agenda, following Section 126 of stock corporation law. Item three deals with the discharge of the managing board, and the counterproposal was published on the webpage of our company on the same day. This counterproposal is against our proposal of the administration, to grant discharge to the managing board.
Amongst other things, because of the planned building of a cement company in Central Java by our subsidiary, Indocement, and with regards to the activities of Ciments du Maroc in the area of the Western Sahara. Later, the Managing Board and the Supervisory Board report will make our statement about this counterproposal, but there will be no decision. Now we'll start with the agenda. The first item of the agenda deals with the presentation of the established annual financial statement of HeidelbergCement AG.
The approved consolidated financial statements of the group, the combined management report of HeidelbergCement AG and HeidelbergCement Group, as well as the report of the supervisory board for the 2019 financial year. These documents are also available on the website of the company. You will find the so-called remuneration report, the explanations according to the details of the corporate code and the corporate governance code on financial year 2019. On item one, we will not pass a resolution as in all the other years, because the supervisory board is responsible for approving the annual financial statements and has thus made them official. With regard to the supervisory board report, I'd like to refer you to pages eight to 13 of the annual report. On financial year 2019, you'll have more details later, from Dr. von Achten. Let me give you a summary here.
The supervisory board says that we had a positive development in 2019, even though the conditions remained challenging once more. Even then. We have slightly reduced sales volumes, which we were able to even overcompensate, thanks to increasing efficiency and thanks to price increases. On this basis, HeidelbergCement has been able to increase revenue to EUR 18.9 billion, almost EUR 19 billion, and the result was EUR 3.6 billion. Net financial debt before IFRS 16 fell by EUR 1.2 billion. Another important point, HeidelbergCement once more earned a premium on its cost of capital in 2019. Over 16, as I just mentioned, I mentioned that last year, and Dr. Näger explained it too, is a reclassification of leasing expenses. Mr. Näger will forgive me if I abbreviate the process. It means that it's not regular expenses under which we book leases.
The financial bit goes into financial liabilities. This is why the figures are not really comparable unless you use a bridge to explain them. The supervisory board worked very closely with the managing board. After all, it's our job to consult and monitor the managing board. We supported the managing board in determining the general policy, the strategy, and we also looked into all critical business transactions that needed to be scrutinized. We coordinated closely with the managing board. The supervisory board has, of course, met with the board in the plenary, but also in committees. Once more, we had a strategy meeting, which took place separately. In all matters of critical importance, the supervisory board was directly involved. The supervisory board once more convinced itself that the company has a well-functioning risk management system, and the auditors have confirmed that.
Also, we confirmed the efficiency of the compliance program. The audit committee will regularly meet those persons responsible and who will meet people from risk and compliance management. All audit relevant issues were discussed within and outside meetings. We also dealt with matters, if necessary, with the auditors. Of course, being the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, I was constantly and regularly in contact with Dr. von Achten outside meetings as well. Last year, the attendance was high in the Supervisory Board, 98.8%. In the committee meetings last year, we had an attendance of 98.75%. There were no conflicts of interest of Supervisory Board members in dealing with the subjects on our table. In the last year, we did not have any consulting service or work agreements between members of the Supervisory Board and the company.
With the exception, of course, with the employee contracts of the employee representatives on the supervisory board. Last year, the supervisory board focused on the financial decisions that needed to be taken. The supervisory board agreed to the issuance of a bond under the EMTN program. The bond value is EUR 750 million, with a maturity in December 2027 under favorable conditions. After all, the purpose is to keep our maturity profile smooth. This helps. The prospectus was updated last year. This year we've already done another update of the terms and conditions. Well, there's corona. There's uncertainty. Despite that, we've been able to issue another bond with a value of EUR 650 million by the end of April 2020. That, once more, attests to the trust that the capital markets have in our company.
That means the financial basis is strong for the company, both in the short, medium, and long term. We encourage the Managing Board to refinance financial instruments at favorable terms as they come up. We appreciate very much that the Managing Board, and in particular the CFO, that the maturities profile is, as usual, very smooth, so that we will be able to earn a premium on our capital costs. Well, of course, there are the special effects created by the COVID-19, which might make it more difficult. Also, the Supervisory Board has encouraged the Managing Board to keep the dynamic debt ratio within the target corridor of investment grade and to reduce that level of debt continuously in the future. The last part of my report deals with the long-term strategy of the company, which is in constant focus.
In physical meetings, we have discussed critical investments, divestitures, portfolio optimization, and so on, with a focus on profitable growth for the company. Of course, we kept in mind that we'd like to keep the balance sheet structure solid wherever possible. Also, the company has a program to continue improving operational excellence. If you've been with us for a while, you'll know that this is an important pillar of our growth. HeidelbergCement has always insisted that that was the way into the future. In 2019, our focus on strategic activities was digitization. Digitization against the background of internal processes, but also with regard to customer focus, customer orientation, value chains, and so on. Another important point for us was, of course, the reduction of carbon emissions in cement production. This environmental orientation is something that Dr. von Achten will tell you more about.
It is very important for us as citizens of this Earth. It is important, but it is also important as we serve the company, HeidelbergCement.
We also dealt with the strategic challenges that our industry is faced with against the background of European emissions trading. There's also the matter of digital transformation, and we also studied the opportunities for HeidelbergCement to avail itself of venture capital activities. Also, fundamental strategies were adopted, and we also launched them on our way. In autumn this year, the managing board will address the public with these matters in mind. Here's corporate governance now, and you'll find the current statement on page 75 of the annual review board. You will also find our diversity goals. Diversity goals are important for filling positions in the managing board, in the supervisory board, and all other levels within the company. You will have noticed that we are a bit more diverse now on the supervisory board and on the managing board. We have five non-German nationals.
Of the two Germans, one is based in Baden-Württemberg, if I remember correctly. We're trying very hard to diversify membership. Also, it's one of our goals to bring a female colleague onto the managing board. This is a challenge against the background that in our industry, they are mainly meant to be found because of the training that they've undergone. The managing team will have to pave the way for women to find their way up the ladder. Also, there's the field of health and safety that we've been focusing on. In fact, health and safety is now among the goals for our management team members. Health and safety has always received a lot of attention at managing board level, as has compliance and sustainability, the conservation of the environment, and also the sparing use of resources.
The remuneration report can be found on pages 79 - 92. The new system has been in place since the 1st of January 2019. You will find the most current version printed of the remuneration report. I said under item one of the agenda that the financial statements have been approved by the Supervisory Board. That means that prior to that, the Supervisory Board and the Audit Committee have reviewed the statements carefully with the auditors present, and the Supervisory Board has then approved the results of the pre-audit. As the Supervisory Board had audited the financial statements once more, it agreed with the proposal made by the auditors. The Supervisory Board has thus formally approved the financial statements, which made them official. Also, the Supervisory Board looked into form and content of the non-financial statement in the management report.
It is very important for us to be very close and cross over the shoulder of the management team. We did not raise any objections. You will find the non-financial statements on the pages 47 following of our annual report. The major challenges for the economy and for HeidelbergCement in particular as a consequence of COVID-19, of the pandemic, is something that I already mentioned. This is something that is on everybody's minds, of course. Also explained that there was a high degree of uncertainty, which was why, after long discussions, we decided to propose a dividend of EUR 0.60 per share. Originally, it had been planned to propose a dividend of EUR 2.20. We hope that you'll understand this. We want to keep our financial structure intact and also would like to have you partake of the success in the company through the dividend.
Dr. von Achten will explain that in more detail. That much on the report of the supervisory board in the last year. With that, I'd like to hand over to our CEO, Dr. von Achten.
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Combined with the surprising market know-how that he showed when he was in a leadership position in Poland. That's his story.
I'm Ernest Jelito, board member of HeidelbergCement, responsible for Northeast Europe since July last year.
Ernest, you have a degree in chemistry from the University of Science and Technology in Kraków. What made you enter the building materials industry?
I was fascinated by the construction of two high-tech cement plants close to my hometown. It was a clear sign to me that the building material engineering will develop very fast.
You are responsible, among others, for Northern and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and R&D. What do you consider the most important competencies that are required to steer such a diverse area of responsibilities?
Firstly, deep knowledge and broad experience. I worked at different management positions from plant to country manager, and I managed the HeidelbergCement Technology Center for 11 years. As a result, I know the HeidelbergCement business in every one of my countries very well in terms of assets, staff, markets, and stakeholders. Secondly, you have to be creative in terms of business and product development. Change management skills are also important. Thirdly, people motivation, their empowerment, and respect for their diversity are crucial.
What fascinates you most about cement?
I am fascinated by the manufacturing technology, but it's always further evolving. Keywords are circular economy, automation, and digitalization. I'm also excited by our ability to further develop our products in a sustainable way. Cement is just a fascinating product that can be used with any construction system. You can build everything everywhere.
Well, dear Ernest Jelito, much success, and hopefully good cooperation between us. Now, Chris Ward. Mr. Heckmann introduced him, too. I had the pleasure of meeting Chris Ward during my time in North America. I worked with him intensively. Mr. Heckmann mentioned this before. Chris Ward ran our aggregates business in the southeastern U.S. before he started taking over the vertically integrated region of Canada. This was very important at HeidelbergCement. Vertical integration is very important for us. Chris Ward did excellent work there. Because of this, I would like to ask Chris Ward to introduce himself personally.
Good morning. I'm Chris Ward, Member of the Managing Board, responsible for North America.
Chris, you've been a member of HeidelbergCement's Managing Board since last September. What's it like being an American on the board of a company based in Germany?
I'd say very energizing to be part of this group and to see the opportunities our teams are working on across the globe. At the same time, humbling to work with such a professional and experienced leadership team.
Throughout your career in the building materials industry, you worked in many different areas within North America. What is the biggest challenge for you in managing such a diverse region and two very large countries?
First off, it's very rewarding to see the development of our leadership teams and the great progress they've made in improving their local businesses. An ongoing challenge is to encourage local entrepreneurship while still leveraging our proven business systems for execution and efficiency.
What do you like most about working in the construction materials industry, and the aggregates business in particular?
My earliest roles with this company were very hands-on in the aggregate operations. I quickly learned and experienced how rewarding it was to lead teams that were so committed, hardworking, and professional. Local businesses with local employees helping responsibly build our local communities. I can't think of a better industry to help lead.
Dear Chris, you are following us from Texas. It's now, I think, four o'clock in the morning. Great to have you on the team. I'm really looking forward to working with you very closely. All the best for you as an important part of our Managing Board. Dear shareholders, before I continue with the reporting on the past year, there's one thing that I would like to mention. As you have found in the past weeks and months, these are difficult times for everybody, and especially so for HeidelbergCement. As always, in each challenge lies an opportunity, and we want to use this opportunity together with our 55,000 employees. In order to do so, we set ourselves four guidelines that we'll take our cue from, and I'd like to tell you about them first. First of all, continue.
Mr. Heckmann pointed out that HeidelbergCement was in a very good situation when it entered the crisis. Because of this, a lot of continuity remains along the lines of operational excellence, clear cost leadership, and a very well-anchored performance.
Crisis or a change for that matter, there is an opportunity because of this change. In this regard, the way we work with our customers, we want to take our cue even more from our customers. Together with them, we want to further develop our products and services to benefit our customers. Change refers to simple processes, because during these times, we can clearly see that when it becomes simpler, it becomes better. Once processes are simpler, we will have to digitize them in order to be more precise and faster in communicating with you. The third element has become very clear, which is care. We want to take care of each other and of our customers. This regards health and safety at work, and I'll speak to that in a moment.
Sustainability, which is an item that has been important to us for a long time, but we want to focus even more on this aspect and compliance in all areas. This regards subject matters where we want to follow a zero-tolerance policy, and where we want to see our standards implemented and further developed. Lastly, this is very important to me personally, is collaborate. We want to work in teams where 55,000 employees and Dallas-Based colleagues can make their important contribution to the success of the company. This is only possible on the basis of teamwork. At the end of the day, it's about creative solutions, because today we cannot know what will happen tomorrow. COVID-19 drove this message home to us, and it is only with teamwork that we will be able to build creative solutions.
The nice thing is, and we can see this today right here, communication has been reinvented. We have huge opportunities as a big global company to move ahead, and we have made steps ahead in the past weeks and months, but a lot more is possible, and this is the very important last element. Continue, change, care, and collaborate. Now onto the look back on 2019. I want to be brief because you have already been informed in detail on the results in the annual report. We delivered. That's the summary, basically. Revenue and results have improved, and if you're honest, revenues have not improved by as much as we had envisioned. We had hoped to add a lot more. In Asia and Pacific, the Australia and the India business did not go as foreseen. Well, it doesn't always turn out the way you want it.
Sales improved, but not to the extent that we had hoped for. Cash flow was very important for us. It has reached record levels. At the time, we were not able to know that a crisis was in the making. We have nevertheless been able to reduce our net debt. This strengthens us in times of crisis. We earned a premium on the cost of capital, as Mr. Heckmann mentioned. We've been able to further reduce our CO2 emissions. I'll talk about this in greater detail later. The last important bullet point is, as Mr. Heckmann said, we made sure that we achieve a smooth management team transition. I'd like to thank Dr. Bernd Scheifele for this. For the past 12 years, I was able to cooperate with him on the basis of trust. Dr. Scheifele had moved the company into an excellent position.
We got EUR 90 billion in sales from a mid-sized Swabian company. All of us owe him great thanks, and I look forward to the future cooperation with him once he assumes this new role on the supervisory board. Let me talk about the key figures. I mentioned revenues, which were only slightly improved like for like, 2%+. The developments in Australia and India really put the brakes on us, but we've been able to add a small shovel, so to say, and the result from current operations increased nicely, 5%+ on a like-for-like basis. We are satisfied with this. The same goes for the adjusted earnings per share. The sale of the Ukraine business, which had no effect on cash, but with EUR 150 million, it's on the books.
Rausgerechnet.
Taken out. With this, we had a nice 23%+ development via adjusted earnings per share. Another key figure that we look at is ROIC, that is return on invested capital, and Mr. Heckmann mentioned this before. What is important here is that this is above the cost of our capital, and the cost of capital is 6.6% right now, and the ROIC was at 6.9% last year. From our point of view, this is a useful result development. Now, at the beginning of the crisis, the cash flow developed well. Cash flow reached record levels of EUR 1.5 billion, 14%+. As a result, together with a good increase in earnings, we were able to reduce net debt by more than EUR 1 billion. This also led to a reduction of the leverage from 2.7 %- 2.3%.
All together, I think this is a fairly good financial position, especially prior to entering the crisis. In all of our countries and regions, dear shareholders, we are overcoming frontiers or limits every day, sometimes in our minds and sometimes quite physically, so to say. This is a picture of the Brenner Base Tunnel. This is a construction site that will go on for more than 10 years. It started in 2015, by 2028, the construction job will be done. The longest railway tunnel in the world will be created there, with 6 km of length, so that you can travel from Berlin to Palermo on rails much faster than in the past. As Heidelberg Materials, we're very proud that we are delivering products to that construction site.
These are very sophisticated products, both in terms of cement as well as with regards to the concrete that we deliver. With this, I'd like to talk about our regions and areas, the developments in Western and Southern Europe. With regards to sales, went well. We had a nice increase, the key success in Western Europe was the good increase of results, which was a combination of our intensive improvements of our margins and the reduction of our costs, both together lead to a significant increase in result of 30%+ in the Western and Southern European region. Northern and Eastern Europe, on the sales side, the business was difficult, especially due to a reduction in sales in Northern Europe, which is an important part of the region for us. As far as the result is concerned, we moved ahead.
This was mainly driven by the strong business in Eastern Europe. Ernest Jelito, together with his team in Poland, but also in other areas run by Dr. Scheuer, he did a great job. We worked hard to reduce costs, so we have been able to increase the result. Talking about North America, we have to say that on the sales side of things went well because the market in North America was strong, generally speaking. As far as the results are concerned, we're not that satisfied. Both in the field of cement and aggregates, the plants did not always produce or have not always been able to produce what we had expected them to produce. We are working hard to improve things.
We did not produce as smoothly last year, the result was not as good as we had intended it to be in North America last year. Asia Pacific. The results improved significantly, mainly driven by Indonesia, which is an extremely important market for us. Thailand also lent a hand. After a few difficult years, Thailand has moved back on the path towards success. Australia did not develop so successfully with regards to sales, but as far as the results are concerned, Australia had remained stable. This led to an almost 20% increase in results in Asia Pacific, made by Kevin Gluskie in Asia Pacific. Africa, Eastern Mediterranean, this is now run by Hakan Gurdal, with a slight increase in sales, mainly due to the difficult business environment in Egypt.
On the results side, the developments have been stable in spite of the difficulties in Egypt. The business in Morocco continues to be doing well, and also in Sub-Saharan countries where we are active in Ghana, Tanzania, Togo. Those are the strong markets for us, and we've been able to stabilize those strong markets. The step to 2020. I think we can call this a success, even though it lies far behind us. The first quarter, our performance was good in spite of the fact that as of mid-March, sales started going down in individual countries. Because of this result has been, as you can see on this slide, decline in sales.
Well, this looks more dramatic than it is from a point of view, 8%- sounds like a lot, but 6% of this are solely due to a reduction of the business at HC Trading, which was done on purpose. Without this effect of HC Trading, we would've been fairly stable. We would've had a reduction of 2%- on the sales side. The situation is not as negative as it looks. The result development is positive in spite of the decline as of mid-March. The same goes for the results from operations, of current operations, like for like 4%-. Altogether, a fairly solid start to 2020. Now, people are in the foreground for us, as Mr. Heckmann said, and in these days of COVID-19, this becomes very clear. We try to connect people, though.
For us as Europeans, the COVID-19 crisis started in Italy, too. Because of this, we're very happy that right now our Italian colleagues are working hard on a fresh Italian departure in Genoa, where the old Morandi Bridge collapsed in 2018. After one year of construction, we can see this new bridge in Genoa, and we are proud to be part of this with our subsidiary, Italcementi. We're very happy that 40% recycled materials are used in our cement products, and that the CO2 footprint of this product is much lower than on average in our company. Our Italian companies have made a clear step ahead, not just for Genoa, but also for our further product development. Thank you for this to our Italian colleagues. Now, COVID-19, of course, means health is all important.
It's not just because we are sitting one and a half meters apart here. Not just that we are holding a virtual AGM, but we are also responsible for making sure that our 55,000 employees stay healthy and happy.
In fact, we've taken steps in the company to guarantee that. This is true for our cement plants, for our ready mix plants, our aggregates plants, our asphalt plants, and the prefabricated concrete part factories. We made sure that we have hygiene action plans in place everywhere. At headquarters, we now use smart working, as we say. That is, we mainly work from home. Fortunately, we had the technology in place already, we've been able to test everything to their cores carefully now. We are pleased to see that it does work, we've been able to keep the good work up despite all the additional hygiene required. Of course, we are no longer shaking hands as we were used to. In fact, it worked out quite positively for us. There's a downside to the crisis.
We need to be careful as a company. We need to weather this storm successfully. This is why the Managing Board thought very hard about it in order to make sure that we could execute. Well, as always in a crisis, you want to guarantee liquidity. We will not forget earnings, but earnings don't take top priority at this time. The main priority was to stabilize the cash situation and to keep liquidity at the very good high level that we had before the crisis. Up to EUR 1 billion in cash was our goal to save thanks to our COPE program, which stands for COVID Contingency Plan Execution. In these days, we need a good name for everything, so we call this our COPE program that helps us cope with COVID, and it is to help us take out costs.
Well, it's not like that will be a cost reduction forever. The point is that we can reduce costs for the time being. Of course, we reviewed capital expenditure plans and decided to save our breath wherever necessary. In the course of the year, we will then take up steam where required. We will by no means jeopardize the midterm future of the company. Dr. Näger heads up tax and working capital plans, and we've done whatever we could so that we could push out tax payment where possible and reduce tax payments where that is a possibility by law, for instance, in the U.S. We've also tried to optimize working capital. However, these cash savings depend a bit on the business development.
Should the business bounce back better than expected or assumed internally, we'd have to review our plans, revise them, but we are prepared so that we can in fact reduce cash expenditure by EUR 1 billion, should that be required. Let us turn to our COVID clock. In fact, it looks like a clock, as you can see, and we've been watching this clock in the last weeks and months. It has helped us to see what the status is for our activities around the world. This is just a snapshot which we're showing to you here. Fortunately, some countries have come out green once more. They had a drastic decline in earnings or volumes. On the left, you see China, India, Bangladesh, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, U.K., Morocco. These countries are on their way up. They're recovering already. First recovery there.
There are some countries which are still hard hit, in particular Malaysia. They are only now waking up from their lockdown period. There are other companies where sales volumes are still declining. This is true of the United States, but also of Canada, Indonesia, Thailand, and to some extent, it's also true of Russia. Fortunately, there are some countries which were hardly impacted at all by the crisis, and this is why we feel we have a strong portfolio at HeidelbergCement. Germany, in fact, proved itself highly resilient, and we're at the same level as before and doing very well. Other countries are also doing well, even though the development might be different. Northern Europe going strong, Australia doing nicely. Well, their markets are declining somewhat in Australia, but that has nothing to do with COVID-19.
The world is still a colorful one, and I just wanted to show you what our colors are in the company around the world. Mr. Heckmann, you mentioned the dividend proposal made by the Managing Board, and you mentioned what the Supervisory Board felt about it. The original idea had been to pay out a dividend of EUR 2.20. We have reduced that to EUR 0.60 per share. This is our proposal to you, dear shareholders. Mr. Heckmann already said this idea came up after intensive discussions at board level, at Managing Board level, but also at the Supervisory Board level, and both boards also discussed the matter once more. You can imagine that it was a highly difficult decision. Well, our idea was to have a progressive dividend policy, which however we had to suspend due to the crisis.
We did that exclusively to preserve the excellent financial profile that we went into this crisis with. Dr. Näger and myself were on board already in 2008 and 2009, when we had a tricky situation before. This is why we were unequivocal. We wanted to tread carefully here, we wanted to preserve the EUR 317 million in liquidity that we had in the company. We wanted to keep it for the company. Shareholders, please believe us, rest assured that we will use this money prudently. It is your money, we will make sure that we will use it reasonably. Also, we decided that after the crisis is over, we'll return, as Mr. Heckmann said, to our progressive dividend policy. Well, there's the matter of the future. We want to enable future. We want to make the future possible.
This is a job site in Darmstadt, where we get to deliver a lot of concrete. We work together with Dyckerhoff, in fact. This is a particle accelerator center, which is called the FAIR. This is where when the project is completed about 2025, more than 3,000 scientists will be at work. It's a complex which has more than 20 buildings. As you can see, there is a ring tunnel with a length of 1,100 m. Particles are to be accelerated to light speed, some 300,000 km per second, which is very fast. Our product is ideally suited for that purpose. Also, the walls and ceilings are radiation-proof. Once more, an interesting application here of a high-performing product that is this combination of cement and concrete.
We do not only want to build the future, we want to also build our own future. As Mr. Heckmann said, this is why sustainability is so important for us. Well, we're well underway here. We're right on track, and we communicate our goals clearly. By 2030, our specific net carbon emissions per ton of cement are to be reduced by 30% compared to 1990, which is the comparison, the reference line. This was discussed with the Science Based Targets initiative, and the initiative has verified those goals, and we are thus in line with the Paris Agreement. That makes us the first cement company in this world to have had reviewed our carbon reduction targets by scientists. At the end of the day, we are also making progress already now.
The carbon emissions were reduced by 2% in one single year, that is between 2018 and 2019, from 20%-22%. That is a reduction from 20%-22%. We're making headway there, and it remains our intended and published goal to rather try harder and reduce more carbon than slower efforts down. At the end of the day, what we want to do is to be carbon neutral with our products. Our vision is that by 2050, we want to able to offer carbon neutral concrete. That requires a few steps that we are already working on. One step is that we will reduce the carbon content in all our products. That's a general strategy. The pre-product, clinker, also comes to mind. In clinker, we will also reduce carbon, which is not a trivial thing to do, but we're working hard on that.
There's also the matter of recycling of concrete, because concrete recycling can help to reduce the carbon footprint massively. There's also carbon capturing. That is the carbon that arises during the production processes to be captured, so that the carbon can then be reused for something else. This is where we focus on the capturing technology, so that, as I said, the carbon can be captured, so that it then can be stored or be reused. Well, we find it important to be as transparent as possible in our efforts, both internally as externally. This is why we work very closely with rating agencies, such as CDP and others. Let's just take the example of CDP, the rating agency, and we are in a good rank in the Climate Change A List from 2019. Well that, I suspect, shows that we're well underway.
We do not only do that to prove that we're doing something. It's also important for us ourselves, because we want to be able to show ourselves clearly that whatever we've started will produce some positive results. That already takes me to the subject of digitization. In our industry, it is not that obvious, really, or didn't used to be originally. Now in the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, things have changed a bit. We've all grown aware, and that is also something borne out by our customers, that digitization, in fact, offers many an opportunity, an opportunity even for us as a relatively traditional industry. For this reason, our activities will definitely continue in this field. I have four elements here for you that shows you what our efforts are focused on. First of all, we need to become digitally fit in our plants.
The plants that we have can now be reached remotely. We can remotely control and maintain a production site. Kilns, mills, and other units, plant and equipment, can be remotely controlled. We've made headway here, and we continue working on that. On the concrete side, we want to be more customer-oriented. The concrete mixes, the recipes, are to be improved to make things much more efficient. There are many opportunities there. As we enable our plants, that is really just one opportunity to be closer to our customer and to communicate much more efficiently with our customers. This is why one point in our digitization initiative is about the digital exchange and contact with customers and suppliers. Last but not least, we're also improving our own processes, and the internal workflows are simplified so that they can be faster, that they can be automated and digitized.
Here we go. In conclusion, the outlook. We need to be honest, as Mr. Heckmann said. It is difficult to foretell what 2020 will bring. Well, we have already six months under our belt, but still, development remains unpredictable. There are considerable fluctuations. There's a lot of volatility. Sales fluctuate very much so that we cannot give you any figures for 2020. It must be clear that the pandemic will have an impact on the results of 2020. We cannot tell you otherwise. The mid and long-term prospects, however, remain positive, if not very positive. You will have been reading the newspapers, you will have learned that in Europe, with the Green Deals, with the business development programs, funds are beginning to flow. There are other discussions in other countries. The U.S. will have elections in November.
The question is whether there will be any development programs by then, and the U.K. is also discussing these opportunities. In the mid and long term, we remain positive. We expect a favorable development. As we have communicated, despite the pandemic, despite COVID-19, the board of management has decided that by mid of December, after discussions with the supervisory board, we will review and revise our strategy and then present it to the public. The crisis will not keep us from doing that. As I said, a crisis usually also offers many opportunities. Last but not least, I'd like to talk about our focus areas once more that we have identified for 2020. First and foremost, to protect our good financial and balance sheet position. This is the reason for the COPE action plan, with savings of up to EUR 1 billion of our cash reserves.
Let me mention that the managing team of Heidelberg Materials and the supervisory board of Heidelberg Materials have decided to make a contribution by foregoing the fixed component of remuneration. That is, by reducing the fixed component of our pay by 20%. My thanks to my colleagues on the managing team and to the supervisory board members. Business continuity is also important for us. Well, we need to work hand-in-hand with our customers. We must use the opportunities offered in the local markets, or we will not be successful. We need to stay nimble and fast on our feet and on our toes, and this is why business continuity is top priority. Well, the plan is to focus on sustainable business. Sustainability is very important and that will remain so, and I described the factors that flow into it.
All of that will then end for the time being with a new strategy that we'll publish in December. I'm sure this is a very solid foundation for us to continue the good development of HeidelbergCement in the future. I'd like to close with this picture showing that concrete is the most versatile construction material. Mr. Heckmann, that means back over to you.
Thank you Dr. von Achten for this report, and for the results of 2019 and the current financial year. Thank you for the information on the agenda. That means that we will now end the live stream. This ends the public part of the meeting. Only our shareholders will be able to remain with us. Those who have come in through the internet portal, and you would have needed your shareholder number and a password.
Those shareholders who are still on the general live stream, will you please switch over to the non-public meeting? To all others, I'll say thank you and goodbye, and you have a good rest of 2019.