Good morning.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I herewith open the Annual General Meeting 2023 of Munich Reinsurance Company, and welcome you very warmly.
My name is Nikolaus von Bomhard, and as Chairman of the Supervisory Board, I will chair the meeting in accordance with the articles of association. Here in the attendance area, I would like to welcome next to me the members of the Board of Management, the notary public, Jens B. Plettner , who will record the minutes of today's AGM, and also the company's proxies. I would also like to welcome the other members of the Supervisory Board. They are present here in a separate room that is also part of the attendance area. There will also be a video and audio transmission into that room.
Today's Annual General Meeting was convened in due form and time by publication in the Federal Gazette on the 23rd of March, 2023. Ladies and gentlemen, today's Annual General Meeting will be held as a virtual meeting in keeping with the provisions of the German Stock Corporation Act. Now, the entire meeting will be broadcast in picture and sound on the shareholder portal. Shareholders and their proxies will be able to follow it there using their respective access data.
Until the start of the general debate, the Annual General Meeting will also be broadcast in public on our website. Shareholders and their proxies have today all the rights they are accustomed to at an Annual General Meeting, in particular, the right to speak, propose motions, and obtain information. This requires, next to a proper registration, logging into the shareholder portal with your respective access data.
Should you have any questions in this regard, please do not hesitate to contact our shareholder service. Shareholders and their proxies who wish to exercise their right to speak today make motions or request information, including the right to information under Article 131, Paragraph 4 of the German Stock Corporation Act can do so by speaking via video communication. To this end, please proceed as follows.
The first step is to register your speech in the shareholder portal using the Request to Speak tab, or if applicable, the Point of Order tab. I would like to ask you to register your contribution as early as possible. The second step entails that you move from the shareholder portal to a virtual waiting room. For those selected to speak next, a button will appear in the shareholder portal entitled Enter Studio.
This will allow you to switch to the virtual waiting room. For technical reasons, the Annual General Meeting will pause for a few minutes for the switch to the virtual waiting area. Once you're in the virtual waiting room, a technician will first briefly check the functionality of the video communication with you. If this is the case, you remain in said virtual area. There, you will be able to follow the proceedings of the Annual General Meeting in sound and vision.
Once I give you the floor, which is then the third step, you will then be connected live in real time with video and audio and can address the Annual General Meeting. I would like to draw your attention to our website, where you will find technical information and recommendations for live video communication.
In the notice of meeting on the shareholder portal and on our website, you will find all the necessary information on the right to speak, to propose motions or receive information, and also on other rights in connection with today's Annual General Meeting. In the required brevity, I'm pleased to summarize these for you. In the run-up to the Annual General Meeting, registered shareholders and their proxies were able to submit comments in text form on the items of the agenda via the shareholder portal.
All comments were published on the shareholder portal in due and good time, and they can also be viewed there today. In this connection, I would also like to point out that on the 27th of April, the speeches given by Mr. Wenning and myself and their main content were published in advance on the company's website.
Now, voting rights can be exercised today by issuing powers of attorney and instructions to the company's proxies or by postal vote. These options are available to you, in particular, via the shareholder portal. Now, I will explain in details of the voting procedure to you later. Shareholders and their proxies can also submit countermotions and nominations for election today as part of their speeches.
Furthermore, shareholders and their proxies who have registered due form and are connected electronically can use the shareholder portal to object to resolutions and request that their questions not answered or not answered sufficiently be recorded accordingly in the notarized minutes.
A list in keeping with Section 129, Clause 1 of the German Stock Corporation Act that lists the shareholders and the proxies who have been connected and represented can be viewed in the shareholder portal going onto the Documents section, that can be done before the first round of discuss. The end of the general debate, that is the time until which a voting right can be exercised or changed at the end of the Annual General Meeting will be announced by me in good time.
Please do wait until you exercise your voting rights due to possible delays in the internet, but do not wait until the last moment. Last but not least, I would like to point out that speeches may also be made in English. These will be simultaneously translated into the assembly language of the meeting into German.
Authoritative for the content, though, is only the German translation.
Ladies and gentlemen, I now come to the agenda of the annual general meeting, which I hereby call to order. The full text of all agenda items and the management's proposal for resolutions can be found in the notice of the meeting published in the Federal Gazette and on the company's website. This also applies to all other documents relevant to this annual general meeting. With regard to agenda item number two, the board of management and the supervisory board are submitting, as already addressed in the invitation to the annual general meeting , an adjusted proposal for the appropriation of net income. This is available today on the company's website, and the reason for the adjustment was that the number of treasury shares has changed.
The proposal continues to provide for distribution of EUR 11.60 on each no par value share carrying dividend rights. On the development of the capital stock and the acquisition and use of these treasury stocks, Mr. Wenning will make a brief comment on that later. Regarding agenda items three and four, I hereby order, as already announced also in invitation, I order that the actions of the members of the Board of Management and Supervisory Board, we have individual approval, that is, each one to be approved and ratified individually.
Dear shareholders, before I will give the floor to Mr. Wenning, I would like to comment on the report of the Supervisory Board and highlight some of the issues the Supervisory Board has dealt with particularly intensively in the past fiscal year 2022. One focal point was the data strategy in reinsurance.
We dealt here with the use of data and especially artificial intelligence for insurance-specific purposes. The focus here was on particular on areas of application such as underwriting and claims management, as well as the use of artificial intelligence for new business models. Another focal point was given on climate strategy. Among other things, various implementation measures were discussed. These range from phasing out business activities to concrete measures aimed at reducing CO2. Now, Mr. Wenning, in his speech, will also address Munich Re's climate dedication.
Now, even after the withdrawal from that Net-Zero Insurance Alliance, which serves solely to avoid regrets, this remains something we're fully committed to. In addition, the supervisory board also repeatedly addressed the consequences of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine and the consequences it has on Munich Re. Now, Mr. Wenning will also address this topic in his speech.
As always, the work in the various committees of the supervisory board played an important role. It is outlined in due detail in the report of the supervisory board. Now, in the past reporting year, we've once again dealt intensively with corporate governance, which means, in other words, with a good and responsible corporate management. This is ever more important than or in such challenging times.
One focal point here was the new German Corporate Governance Code in the version of the 28th of April, 2022. The amendments to the Code here were not only discussed in the plenum but also in detail by the Audit Committee as well as in the Presidium and Sustainability Committees.
Because precisely because of the great importance of good corporate governance, we were very pleased in December that Munich Re once again took here in the evaluation of the German Association for Financial Analysis and Asset Management, in short, DVFA, that Munich Re once again here took first place in that ranking. In and amongst the DAX 40 companies, we were once more able to maintain our top position. According to the DVFA scorecard, corporate governance of Munich Re is excellent. Now this rating was bestowed on no other company in the DAX 40 family. This is a wonderful recognition, but it's no reason to rest on our laurels.
The current term of office of the supervisory board members ends in less than a year, so that our succession planning has already begun. The nomination committee has already taken up this topic at an early stage.
Furthermore, Corporate Governance is subject to constant change, also due to changing investor expectations and the multitude of regulatory developments. Therefore, allow me to just make a few comments on our sustainability reporting. Reporting can be a component for the transformation towards a sustainable economy, even if it is only supportive and does not directly contribute to the solution, i.e., for example, to climate protection. What's important is a balanced, targeted, and informative regulation. Currently, we regrettably often experience the quite opposite. Reports that get out of hand, partially incomplete or incomprehensive requirements, such as those in the EU Taxonomy, and high implementation costs, very high implementation costs for the companies.
Less here would often be more in this context. Important developments on the Corporate Governance were also defined in the area of annual general meetings. Since last summer, the COVID regulations have become history.
The legislator allows for a new, a much more shareholder-friendly form of a virtual annual general meeting. This new virtual format is closely aligned with the physical annual general meeting format and not only preserves shareholder rights but actually extends them. With the approval of the supervisory board, the board of management has therefore decided to hold today's annual general meeting in that new format.
We are aware that a portion, a small portion of shareholders have reservations about virtual annual meetings, is something we are quite aware of. Nonetheless, we should maybe take the time to first gain experience with the new format and not prematurely reject it categorically.
The assumption that the board of management and supervisory board could heal themselves off by choosing the virtual format and keep critical shareholders at a distance does, at least to me, not seem to be the case for our company. The right to speak and ask questions continue to exist just as they do in a physical annual general meeting. These rights can actually be exercised much more easily as there's no need to travel to the location of the annual general meeting.
Another point of criticism is that virtual formats for annual general meetings damages the so-called shareholder democracy. Our experiences of the last three years do not support this concern, as the virtual format simplifies shareholder participation. This holds particularly true for a large public stock corporation like Munich Re, whose shareholders are predominantly not based in or around Munich here.
Allow me now to just take a brief look at the remuneration report, our agenda item number six today. The remuneration report was prepared by the board of management and the supervisory board in accordance with the requirements of the Act Implementing the Second Shareholder Rights Directive. It contains all essential information on the remuneration systems and the remuneration of the board of management and supervisory board. In addition to the information required by Section 162 of the German Stock Corporation Act, the remuneration report also contains additional voluntary information for reasons of completeness and transparency, as well as to meet the expectations of our investors. They're also marked as such.
From the company's perspective, the remuneration report for the 2022 fiscal year that is submitted by the board of management and the supervisory board is clear, comprehensive, and complies with legal requirements. The current remuneration system for the board of management was approved by the annual general meeting in 2021. It shall be reviewed, probably revised next year. In 2025, it will then be submitted again to the annual general meeting for approval. The comments of shareholders and proxy advisors on the current system will be, of course, comprehensively analyzed as part of the planned review. Allow me to say a few words also about the election of the auditor that is on agenda item 5 of today.
Now, based on the recommendation of the audit committee and following a thorough examination and discussion, the supervisory board submitted to the annual general meeting the proposal for the election of Ernst & Young GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft in Stuttgart, in short, EY, to be the auditor.
The quality of the audits performed by EY was, as was the case for the years 2020 and 2021, also assessed for 2022 based on a structure catalog to have been very positive. Key criteria for the selection of the auditor, for the supervisory board, boards the qualifications and integrity of the members of the audit team. Now, in the view and opinion of the supervisory board, those auditors responsible for Munich Re have very good knowledge of Munich Re's business activities. Furthermore, the wealth of experience and competence of the audit team ensure a high-quality audit.
In view of the press release published on the 3rd of April, 2023 by the Auditor Supervisory Authority, or in short, the APAS, regarding the financial supervisor proceedings in the Wirecard matter, there are currently no implications for Munich Re with regard to the upcoming audit by EY. Last year, I had already informed you that Mrs. Höpke will be leaving the board of management effective as of the 30th of April, 2022. Now, with Mr. Jeworrek, another greatly appreciated member departed from the board of management at the end of 2022. Mr. Jeworrek had acted for a total of 2 decades as a member of the board of company, working for our company.
During that time, he really played a decisive role in shaping the business field of reinsurance, especially as the chairman of the reinsurance committee. The supervisory board therefore thanks
Mr. Jeworrek for his great dedication and many years of a very successful work at Munich Re. Brings me to the new three members of the board of management. Clarisse Kopff from France has been responsible since the first of December 2022 for the Europe and Latin America division, or in short, EULA. Miss Kopff previously worked for many years for Euler Hermes, most recently as Chief Executive Officer of the entire Euler Hermes Group, which now operates under the brand Allianz Trade. Mari-Lizette Malherbe from South Africa has been, since the start of this year, responsible for the life and health division.
Miss Malherbe has already, well, since she started her career, been working for Munich Re group companies. Most recently, she was Head of Life and Health Reinsurance, Europe and Latin America.
Since the beginning of 2023, U.S. American Michael Kerner has signed responsible for the newly created Board Division, Global Specialty Insurance, which Mr. Wenning will discuss in his speech. After positions in other insurance companies, Mr. Kerner had already worked prior to his appointment to the Board of Management for numerous years in the Munich Re Group. There, among other things, he headed the divisional unit, Munich Re Specialty Insurance. I am delighted that we not only have been able to recruit three outstanding personalities for Munich Re's Board of Management, but with that selection also have strengthened the important success factors in the Board of Management and in the company, namely diversity and internationality. Mr.
Wenning, I would now like to ask you to report to us on fiscal year 2022, and to provide us with an outlook for the current fiscal year. Over to you, Mr. Wenning.
Dear shareholders, dear colleagues, both current and former colleagues, welcome to Munich Re's annual general meeting. It's easy to lose sight of encouraging developments in times of crisis. Therefore, I would like to begin with good news today. There's plenty to be happy about as regards Munich Re's financial year 2022. With a profit of EUR 3.4 billion, we surpassed our expectations last year. Our group's financial robustness and the strength of our balance sheet withstood all the challenges that 2022 brought with it.
Compared with just one year ago, more women now serve on our board of management and which has also become more international. What's more, Munich Re outshines its competition, as shown by a very pleasing total shareholder return, which consists of both the share price performance and the dividend payments.
When viewed over a period of several years, total shareholder return is a valid indicator of a company's success compared with that of the rest of the industry. In terms of total shareholder return, we rose to first place amongst the world's eight leading reinsurers and European primary insurers between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty-two. Capital markets have confidence in Munich Re, and they appreciate our reliability. Dear shareholders, as in the past years, we once again plan to increase our payout to you. Subject to your approval, the dividend per share will increase to EUR 11.60. Moreover, we will launch a new share buyback with a volume of EUR one billion.
Ladies and gentlemen, contrary to what we had hoped for, the last year did not offer the world any respite.
While the COVID pandemic has become less frightening for many people, the war of attrition in Ukraine continues to drag on. Economic turbulence persists still today as a consequence. Capital markets were volatile. Energy prices reached unforeseen heights. Inflation soared to the highest levels in decades. Central banks hiked interest rates at a record pace, which then in turn hampered economic activity. Our group has felt the direct effects of the war, both in the insurance as well as in the investment business. Munich Re shouldered war-related burdens across various lines of business to the tune of EUR 475 million in 2022. We also posted write-downs on investments amounting to about EUR 850 million as a result of the war. What hit us even more were the indirect effects.
The economic disruptions caused or aggravated by the war put pressure on our investments, in particular. Falling stock markets resulted in impairment losses on equities and derivatives.
From the abrupt rise in interest rates, we will over time profit, but for the short period, it too caused impairment losses. Therefore, our investment results did not meet our expectations. In the insurance business, inflation has resulted in a higher claims expenditure. Whenever we write new business, we fully factor in the effects of inflation. We have expanded reserves in our insured portfolio by EUR 1.3 billion without impacting our results. Our prudent, cautious reserving approach, which we've had for many years, continues to pay off. Beyond war and inflation, insurers once again had to cope with high natural catastrophe losses in 2022.
For the second year in a row, insured losses exceeded EUR 100 billion. Figures like these are becoming the new normal in times of climate change. While the coronavirus pandemic appears to have transitioned to an endemic Phase, it once again left its mark on our balance sheet in 2022. With EUR 350 million, we had to pay for pandemic-related claims in life reinsurance.
Dear shareholders, all of that shows the sheer magnitude of the challenges and the substantial financial burdens shouldered by our industry and by us, the industry leader. In such a year, we still surpassed our profit target of EUR 3.3 billion by EUR 100 million. That makes us feel proud.
Our net result proves just how well we manage our portfolio. It shows how much potential there is for favorable factors to outweigh unfavorable ones. How important it is to have, in addition to traditional property casualty insurance, a strong and stable presence in primary insurance, which we want to build up. Our group is growing on a rock-hard foundation. Genuine diversification benefits are realized in practice only if every segments are fundamentally profitable and deliver results. That is the case with our company today.
Now I'd like to dive a little bit deeper into the performance of the individual business fields. ERGO has been delivering results as reliable as clockwork ever since 2016. ERGO's contribution to profits has risen year after year, sometimes substantially. In 2022, ERGO significantly surpassed its profit target with a result of around EUR 830 million.
Of which more than EUR 600 million constituted sustainable profitability. The remainder, approximately EUR 200 million, was attributable to one-off effects. The key to this kind of success was profitable growth across all segments and across all regions of about 5%. I would like to draw particular attention to the combined ratio of 90.6% in the property casualty segment in Germany, making ERGO one of the best companies, and it grew faster than the market average above that. Especially as regards business with commercial and industrial customers, ERGO sales grew considerably. More and more private customers also are deciding on to take out insurance from ERGO.
For example, there was great demand in 2022 in the season at the end of 2022 for motor insurance, as many policyholders switch around this time of the calendar year.
ERGO's new rates are truly competitive, and the claims processing is now almost entirely automated, which has both accelerated the handling of claims and boost end-to-end transparency for our policyholders, which then, in turn, has led to a continuous improvement in customer satisfaction. Other lines of business have achieved pleasing growth. Life, travel, and supplementary health insurance, for example. In international business, ERGO notched noteworthy growth in property casualty business in Poland and the Baltic States, and in its health business in Belgium and Spain.
There was also encouraging growth in the Asian growth market, with premium income rising considerably in India. ERGO acquired a majority stake in a property casualty insurer in Thailand, where we expect further growth for the future. ERGO has ambitious goals for the coming years. ERGO wants to grow faster in all key markets than the markets.
Moreover, ERGO aims to become the leading digital insurer in Germany by 2025, and to be leading in the core international markets. This will further enhance customer experience and process efficiency, which in turn will then pave the way to persistently better results and an even higher recurrent return on equity. We planted the seeds for profitable business growth in reinsurance in recent years, and now we are harvesting the fruits of this labor. We are decisively tapping into growth opportunities made possible by the ongoing hard market.
Gross premium income rose to more than EUR 48 billion in 2022, after EUR 41 billion in the previous year. Nearly all lines of property casualty business contributed to this increase, as did life and health business in the United States and Asia in particular.
At EUR 2.6 billion, the contribution to profit by reinsurance almost exactly matched our original target of EUR 2.7 billion, despite, once again, natural catastrophe losses and property casualty that were above average again. Just think about Hurricane Ian. EUR 60 billion, half of the insured natural catastrophe losses worldwide, were to trace back to this hurricane. Munich Re bore responsibility for EUR 1.6 billion of the total. Market losses are on the up. Nevertheless, the natural catastrophe line of business has been one of our most profitable lines for years now. Averaged out over the past five years, the losses precisely match our expectations. In other words, we have a firm grip on the business.
The same holds true for our cyber business. Here we have remarkable business opportunities on the one hand and tremendous loss potential on the other hand.
In our position as a market leader, our approach to business growth is as prudent as it is resolute. We excel here thanks to our excellent understanding of cyber risk and our disciplined underwriting, which minimizes unwanted accumulation losses. In addition, Munich Re is eager and able when it comes to ensuring that new risk can be insured. Every single underwriting year so far has been profitable in our cyber business. That is essential because, as with natural catastrophes, cyberattack losses can be exceptionally high.
A lot of good years are needed in order to finance the occasional bad year. Now I'd like to talk about the life and health segment. 2022 we had a fantastic year. Our result was more than twice as high as our target. In spite of the expected EUR 400 million, we generated EUR 918 million.
Thanks to lower COVID-19 losses, the fundamentally high profitability of our portfolio has become more evident than ever. An important part of this encouraging picture consists of record income from capital relief treaties and ceding financing. Risk Solutions, our specialty primary insurance business, also performed very well. Gross premium income rose by 35% to EUR 9.7 billion now. That amounts to 30% of all income deriving from the popular property casualty reinsurance segment, nearly 30%. I spoke earlier about the challenging environment for our investment business. Our return on investment of 2.1% fell short of our 2022 target of 2.5%. In addition to this, we were able to generate a positive currency result of 0.3%.
Our alternative investments showed a good development, and for the future, rising interest rates give cause for optimism, as they will have a positive impact over the long term.
The yield on reinvestment amounted to 2.8%. To sum this up, Munich Re delivered on all business fields. We are outperforming our competitors in all key categories. With a solvency ratio of 260%, our capital position has become stronger once again. What's more, our return on equity is now already on the level envisaged for the year 2025, as specified in our Ambition 2025 program. That holds true for Munich Re as a group and as for both reinsurance and ERGO individually. We remain a reliable and popular partner for our customers and clients, as well as a dependable and appealing employer for our employees.
For you, dear shareholders, Munich Re continues to be a valuable investment. I'm proud of our team and of everything we've accomplished together thus far. Thanks to the past two successful financial years, we are firmly on track to achieve the five-year targets set out in our Ambition 2025.
If we keep up the great work, by 2025, Munich Re will be more resilient, efficient, and attractive to capital markets than ever before. Around 41,000 staff members in our group are doing everything they can to put this vision into reality. They all have my heartfelt gratitude. Dear shareholders, we measure ourselves with the best peers in our industry, and we fare very well in comparison. We act cautiously and modest, and that shields us. The driver that has propelled us most past competitors has been diversification.
As part of Ambition 2025, we plan to diversify even further. We therefore are continuing to expand our business that exhibits a stable earnings profile, namely ERGO life reinsurance and Risk Solutions.
The significance of this is made clear by the establishment of a new board division, Global Specialty Insurance, which is overseen by Michael Kerner. This is home to substantial parts of our Risk Solutions business in a new board division. The new structure fosters synergies and underwriting, claims management, marketing and sales. We will deliberately boost our performance once more and exploit growth opportunities, particularly in the United States and in the London market. Moreover, we expect the property casualty market to continue to harden, thus fostering sustained profitable growth in our core business of reinsurance. Renewals have been promising.
We expanded our non-proportional property business, in particular, deliberately on account of attractive rates, especially with regard to natural catastrophe covers. While some competitors struggle, our risk appetite and our capacity remain high. Our clients appreciate this and paid rates higher by 2.3% at the January renewals, after inflation and claims trends have been fully factored in. In other words, we are truly increasing margins. We have also further enhanced the quality of our portfolio, thanks to improved terms and conditions, higher retentions for our clients, and distinct pricing of covered perils. The smallest scale renewals at the 1st of April, likewise turned out to be very favorable for us.
We will go into detail on this in mid-May when we communicate our figures of the Q1. Our outlook for this year is very positive.
We intend to generate a net result of EUR 4.0 billion in 2023. Dear shareholders, as you know, our Ambition 2025 also defines non-financial targets. I'm pleased to say that we have made encouraging progress on these as well. By 2025, we aim to increase the percentage of women in management positions to 40% throughout the whole Munich Re Group. At the end of 2022, we were at 38.5%. One year before that, we had been at close to 35%. We're also pursuing ambitious climate targets. In all lines of business, we are striving for net-zero carbon emissions no later than 2050. For the path towards that, we have defined clear interim targets in accordance with which we will gradually and verifiably reduce our emissions over the course of five-year cycles.
The decarbonization of our investment and insurance portfolios proceeded briskly in 2022.
As for our investment activities, our greenhouse gas emissions were lowered by 46% compared to our base year, 2019. In our primary insurance and reinsurance business, we have reduced emissions compared to baseline values by as much as 40% in, for example, property business regarding oil and natural gas production. In order to avoid antitrust risks, and for this reason only, we recently withdrew from the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance. Naturally, we nevertheless remain fully committed to meeting our environmental targets. I would also like to take this opportunity to more closely examine our overall picture. The world can make decisive progress in tackling climate change only if it invests much more in the transition away from fossil energy consumption towards a largely renewable energy supply.
Spending here needs to be tripled at a minimum between now and 2030. Each and every country has to decide which net-zero energy infrastructures it will set up and how quickly.
That is a task for governments. All governments must action here. Establishing such infrastructures will undoubtedly be extremely challenging, nobody else can accomplish this. Beyond creating energy infrastructures, governments might also need to lead the way by financing alternative forms of energy production. This is particularly important given that the private sector would be overwhelmed by the immense investment sums and the very long payback periods. There are many declarations of intent, there are hardly any complete, let alone binding roadmaps for specific countries. Meanwhile, the blame game, finding who's guilty for all of this, continues unabated. Finger-pointing can only create losers.
No one will benefit as long as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise worldwide. When I talk about government leadership, I mean that governments must take charge and be responsible for their country's energy supplies going forward.
They must also assume responsibility for the pace, the cost, and specific steps in the transition to sustainable energy. I'm convinced that private commitments alone without government leadership will not be enough to meet the net-zero target by 2050. Government leadership can transform this vision into reality while ensuring that the private sector and individuals will quickly modify their behavior. If that happens, I ask myself, what is the purpose of increasingly substantial sustainability reporting necessitated by the continual development of increasingly extensive standards? Sustainability reporting now incurs dozens of millions of EUR for companies of our size. Why am I emphasizing this?
Fighting global warming will, even in the best case, cost a tremendous amount of money so that no resources should be wasted on excessive reporting. The large effort should not be spent on reporting about a problem that we're familiar with, but on solving it. I would like to thank you for listening to me and listening to those thoughts. Above all, I want to thank you for your trust and your support as our shareholders. Please continue your loyalty to us. Thank you very much for your kind attention.
Thank you very much, Mr. Wenning, for your clear and concise overview on the fiscal year 2022 and the current situation of Munich Re. On behalf of the Supervisory Board, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, as you did as well, and thank all the members of the Board of Management and, of course, all staff members worldwide for their great personal commitment and so successful work, which have led to this very gratifying business result in the preceding fiscal year. I would also like to kindly ask Mr. Wenning for his explanation on the development of the capital stock and the acquisition and use of treasury shares. Over to you, Mr. Wenning.
Thank you very much. On the basis of the authorization granted by the annual general meeting, the Board of Management, with the approval of the Supervisory Board, resolved to acquire treasury shares on the stock exchange in the period from April 29, 2021 to no later than the next annual general meeting on May 5, 2023, that is today, at a total purchase price excluding incidental cost of no more than EUR 1 billion. Between June 16, 2022 and March 16, 2023, a total of 3,630,781 shares in the company were purchased with the pro rata amount of capital stock attributable to them of EUR 15,231,395.33.
This corresponds to 2.59% of the share capital and a total purchase price of EUR 999,999,776.19. The repurchased shares will be canceled.
Thank you, Mr. Wenning. Now, to the viewers who've been following the AGM via the Internet, to them, I would like to point out that at this moment, the public part of the live transmission ends. From now on, the further continuation of the AGM is only available to those shareholders or proxies who are duly logged into the shareholder portal.