Right, those were the commercials. Then it is my great pleasure to welcome you all to this general meeting of Orkla, and I hereby declare it to be open. And the Annual General Meeting is scheduled by the Board of Directors pursuant to Article 11 in the Articles of Association. The notice dated twenty-second of March 2020 was sent to all shareholders with a known address, and it was also announced in the stock exchange bulletin and on our website the same day. And the Board of Directors decided, in line with Article 12, second subsection, that the documents to be dealt with at this general meeting would not be sent out along with a convening letter, but instead be made available to the shareholders on the corporate website.
On the company's website, we can also find the financial statements along with the annual report and the auditor's report, appendices to agenda Items 3, 4, and 5, as well as the Nomination Committee's recommendations. The Nomination Committee's recommendations were announced on the sixteenth of March. The financial statements were announced on the nineteenth of March, whereas other appendices were announced with the AGM notice on the twenty-second of March. The shareholders who would nevertheless prefer hard copies of the documents have been able to get them at no charge by requesting them from the company. Printed copies of the annual report, the AGM notice, and the appendices have also been available to those shareholders who wanted to have them handed out today. Should any of you be missing the documents, please contact our staff in the room. Are there any objections to the notice?
There appears not to be, and with that, the AGM is hereby declared to have been legally convened. Now we will introduce the attendees. It's myself, Stein Erik Hagen. I'm the Chairman of the Board, and then we have President and CEO Peter Ruzicka, and then we have the Secretariat, Karl Otto Tveter. And present is also Anders Stray Ryssdal, who hopefully will come up here, if you can, elect him as the chair of the meeting soon. And present is also the auditor, Erik Mamelund. And then we will present the Group Executive Board. I will not read what it says on each slide. You can clearly see for yourself.
Yeah.
Yes.
That was the Board of Directors, and we also have some of us available today, and also some Group Management and business area representatives present here today. Now, I have received the list of attending shareholders, proxies, and absentee ballots. Altogether, 128 persons with the right to vote are present here. And those who have they represent altogether 511,794,007 shares and votes. The represented they constitute 50.23% of the issued shares, and the issued shares list fifty point twenty-four of the voting eligible shares. Shares owned by the company itself. That may agree with the number of shares represented here at the AGM. Does anyone have any objection to this list?
There appears not to be, and with that, we can accept those figures. Then we need to elect a meeting chair. The Annual General Meeting needs to elect a meeting chair, and the board proposes for Anders Ryssdal to be elected the chair. He is a member of the Nomination Committee, and he does not hold any shares in Orkla himself. Are there any other proposals? No, then Anders is considered to have been elected chair of the meeting. And we also need to appoint a shareholder to co-sign the minutes with the meeting chair, and we propose Ann Kristin Brautaset from the Folketrygdfondet, the Government Pension Fund of Norway. Any other proposals? No. Then the proposal is considered to be approved, and I will now give the floor to meeting chair Anders Ryssdal. Thank you, Chairman.
Welcome to the AGM. We will follow the agenda that was issued with the notice, and it's my pleasure then to go to there we are. Item 2, approval of the annual financial statements for 2017 for Orkla ASA and the Orkla Group, and the annual reports of the Board of Directors, including approval of a share dividend for 2017 of N OK 2.16 per share, except for shares owned by the group. The annual report and the proposed annual accounts and balance sheet for 2017 for Orkla ASA and for the group, as well as the auditor's report, have been available on the company website and sent to all shareholders who have requested them. The documents have been available for viewing at the company's premises since the twenty-second of March, 2018.
I assume that those present have familiarized themselves with the content so that it's not necessary for me to read all the documents aloud. On the contrary, we will keep a focus on what's most important by doing it in this way that has been successful in recent years, that, the President and CEO, Peter Ruzicka, will first give a presentation on development and strategic position of the group, and he will then pass the floor to the group's CFO, Jens Bjørn Staff, who will review the highlights of the annual accounts of twenty seventeen. Once that has been covered, when both of these have spoken, we'll open up for questions and comments from the floor before, then, hearing the proposed, changes to the board. And then I will give you the floor, Mr. Ruzicka.
Yes, good afternoon, everyone.
My name is, as you know, Peter Ruzicka. I am CEO of Orkla, and I've been so since 2014. First of all, I would like to thank all of you present here for your great engagement, involvement with Orkla by attending. I will now briefly summarize the operations of 2017 and some of the main things, and then our CFO, Jens Bjørn Staff, will take us through the highlights of the accounts. But before that, I will give you a fairly brief information of the group. 2017 was yet another good year for Orkla, and we continued to strengthen as a brand consumer goods company.
The overall turnover was NOK 39.6 billion , up 5% since last year, and that was due to increased sales and acquisitions. The EBITDA ended up at NOK 4.6 billion , an increase of 8% from 2016. This improved result is due to increased sales. It is due to, in some sense, by acquisitions and the effect of our extensive cost enhancement programs and synergies from the acquisitions we've made. Altogether, this gave an earning of NOK 3.46 per share, up 4% compared to 2016. And then I need to remind you that it's also for the business that was continued, not for the business that was sold through the year. And in total, the Orkla share, or the, it gave a yield of 22.5% to the shareholders.
In 2017, we then still have continued to deliver in our strategy as One Orkla. I talked about this last year, and perhaps also two years ago, that we need to work more as One Orkla to be able to take advantage of synergies across businesses, business areas, and geographical areas, both in the top line to increase the sales and also to run more efficiently by taking out the costs. So last year, we also carried out the sales of the last 50% ownership share in Sapa, and we paid an extraordinary dividend in the fall of 2017 as a consequence of that sale. We continue to grow stronger as a brand company with the consumers' favorite, with the acquisitions that we've done of Riemann, which is a company that does.
And also the sales of K-Salat and Dania in Denmark, so that we make sure that our portfolio is as optimized as possible at all times. In the fall of twenty fifteen, we had a Capital Market Day in London, where we presented our targets for the next three years, that is twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen. And those were the four targets that we presented then, and I'm very pleased to be able to say that this is a very strong close to twenty seventeen. We have been even able to deliver on all these four targets. These were targets set for the period from 2016 to 2018, and now, not very long, we'll be through with that period.
That means that we're now working on new plans and new targets, and we will present the goals for the period 2019 to 2021 in the course of the fall of 2018. We'll revert to our new targets for the new period then. We have continued to reallocate capital into what we consider non-core activities and with the sales, and then we've concentrated that also through investments in existing business, and Sapa was the last big sale of what we designed as non-core that was done in the fall of 2017.
We also said that we will deliver an organic growth in line with the growth in the markets where we operate, and that perhaps does not sound too ambitious, but it is a demanding task to create growth when you have very high market shares, as we have in a lot of our categories. And therefore, I'm also very pleased to be able to say that we have delivered on pretty much, along with the market growth, which has been lower than what we thought when we entered into this three-year period, but with organic growth of 1.6% last year. And then we saw that we will also grow our EBIT, the operational results within the, interval 6-9% in that period. And I mentioned there was a strong close to the year.
We had a strong fourth quarter, and we delivered within that interval with an EBIT growth of 6.1%. And that was quite demanding to reach that target, because, as I said, the growth in the market was lower than what we had anticipated when we published these targets. When we published the targets, we expected growth of about 2.5-3% in the market, whereas what we saw in 2017 was merely 1.6%. And so that to be able to deliver with our target, we had to do more on the cost side, and we were able to do that through the year.
The last target was that we said that through the transformation period, when we're a conglomerate to a more pure branding company, we would maintain a stable dividend of at least NOK 2.6 per year, NOK 2.5 per share. So we paid NOK 2.6 per year last year, and plus an extraordinary dividend of NOK 5 at the end of last year after the sale of Sapa.
It's actually quite simple to operate Orkla, and improve the results. You just increase the income and reduce cost. It's that simple. Well, it sounds simple. Often, it's not as simple in practice as it sounds. But when we look at how we're going to increase sales, how we're going to obtain increased market shares, how we're going to reach consumers with new products, we look at which trends are there out there, which the consumers focus on, and we have defined six trends. And I thought I would take you through these six trends and show some examples of what we do with regard to these six trends. Those trends are, of course, a bit different in different markets, but they're also different within the different categories. Some trends are important in some markets and less important in others.
All trends, in a very good way, will be important in one market and all of the categories where we operate. The first trend that we see is the demand for ecological products. We have a strong growth in that trend, especially in Denmark and Sweden, not as strong as in Norway, Finland, and the Baltics, for instance. It's a very strong trend in Denmark and Sweden. Denmark is actually the country in the world with the highest percentage of ecological products in the shops. Eight to nine percent of what you can buy in Danish grocery stores are so-called ecological products. We have launched, well, actually, we launched a few years ago, a Danish brand, Naturli'. It's like natural. It's 100% ecological, it's 100% vegan, and it's 100% plant-based.
It's better for you, and it's better for nature. That's an example of how we meet such a trend. Another trend we also have observed is that products are to be natural, and they should be free from unnecessary additives, chemicals, et cetera. And then this product here is Klar, that you saw an ad for, is a good example of one that addresses this trend, but also some other trends. The products or the brand, rather, was launched in the autumn of twenty seventeen. These are detergents, and these are cleaning products for the home. They are plant-based, and they're free from unnecessary chemicals, additives, scents, et cetera, colors. And of course, they clean as well as traditional detergents, and that's the most important thing. When you're going to buy a detergent, you want things to become clean.
The third trend is health and well-being, and people focus ever more than before on taking care of your health, and then, of course, you also focus on what you eat. One of our oldest brands is Møller's Tran. That is cod liver oil. There we have seen a growth over many years. We had 7% growth last year in Norway and 84% increase in export sales. Now, Møller's Tran, Møller's cod liver oil, can now be bought in 20 countries around the world, and the production volume at the Oslo factory has been more than doubled in the past two years. They experienced a very strong growth, also abroad for this product. So here we definitely contribute towards meeting the expectations among consumers with regard to this trend. And then we have indulgence.
Indulgence is maybe something that is perceived to be in contrast with health and well-being, but indulgence, it has to do with mental health. It's important to indulge, and that in Confectionery and Snacks, these category, one of the categories with the strongest growth in our markets, despite the focus on health among consumers. We have also launched products that contain less sugar, less saturated fat and more fiber. Kornmo is one of those products, or rather a brand, with whole grain. It gives you healthier snacks. These biscuits are a better alternative for the consumer. Of course, they have a delicious taste, and we have tripled the sales of Kornmo products in the past three years. Now, ethics and the environment.
They are also very important for an increasing number of people, especially young people, focus a lot on sustainable operations, that you don't do harm to people, animals, nature, when you produce and sell your products. Last year, Pierre Robert entered into a cooperation with Hanneli. Hanneli being a well-known person within fashion. We have revitalized the wool collection. We had reduced sales from two thousand and fourteen, and we saw that the customers went over to competitors with more emotionally charged products, so we had to strengthen the link between Pierre Robert and fashion. That's what we thought. We had a very good cooperation with Hanneli Mustaparta, and here, the products have been made from environmentally friendly products.
We had a very healthy growth, 28% last year for this collection, and 39% growth in, of, in e-commerce for this collection. It's environmentally friendly, and that's a trend. The last trend we're going to look at is convenience. Things should be convenient. People have ever less time to make food. They are always on the move, and they need to have simple solution to be able to eat good, healthy meals in their busy day-to-day life. What is better and healthier than Grandiosa pizza? As you saw in the video, we had a sales record in 2017, 26 million units sold. That is 4.9 Grandiosa pizzas per Norwegian in 2017. That's a new record. There have been new launches that create attention.
We have Nybakt, and we have communication that creates loyalty to all of Norway's favorite pizza. Then people ask me, especially foreign investors who do not understand the Norwegian market and how they eat so much pizza. We are the people in the world that eat most pizzas, but then they tell us, "You can't have even more growth within pizza." They said the same thing in nineteen ninety-eight, and we sold 50 million Grandiosas. Then a lot of people said, "Now we can't grow more within that segment," but it was actually possible. Our goal is to sell at least 10 pizzas per year per Norwegian in the future.
These are six trends that we look at when we develop new products, but also when we improve and innovate our existing products in order to meet the needs among consumers. This is very demanding, because many of these trends kind of contradict each other and conflict results. Consumers want to have something that is ecological. It should be completely natural without additives at all. It should be very good for your health. It should be healthy. It should have a fantastic taste. It should be produced in an ethical and sustainable way, and then it should be really simple and fast to make, and then it shouldn't cost anything at all. Those are the requirements we are met with. Now, I have mentioned One Orkla, that we should work more across, both as regards creating cost and taking out synergies, cost synergies.
I want to show some examples of working across markets as One Orkla. We have worked with taking successful products from one market into another market. Møller's Tran is one of those examples. It was originally a 100% Norwegian product, only for the Norwegian market, but now it's being sold in 20 other countries. Last year, we launched Laban in India. That's a rather bold move. Our Indian colleagues, they scanned our entire product portfolio, and then they looked at trying to identify products they could launch there, and they thought Laban was unique with unique characteristics. It could be good for India. We just had to make some minor adaptations based on consumer preferences that they know. And most Indians are vegetarians, so we had to make a product without gelatin, which is...
It must be based on a different kind of substance. We did so, and then we had to give these flavors that would fit Indian taste. We did so, so we launched Laban in India in August 2017. We established a separate factory, separate production line, and it is sold in more than 100,000 outlets in India, and it has a 5% market share. And this is how we share innovations and products across markets. We have another example, which is a bit more close to home. It's Smash. Smash is a product. It's salty, it's crunchy, it's really good. It was launched in Norway in 1988 as a niche product, but it has become a major success, and in 2017, we had record sales of Smash in Norway. 4.9 million units were sold.
That is bags. Then somebody said that maybe this is a product for Sweden as well. Last year, last autumn, in September, we launched this product in Sweden. Same product, produced at the same factory, but sold under a local brand, OLW, which is our snacks brand, because Nidar is unknown to the Swedes. In the course of a few months, three and a half months, we sold a million bags in Sweden. It became the most sold chocolate bag of all brands in Sweden in 2017. These are just a couple of examples showing how we work across both geography and business areas in order to create growth, and of course, we have many more examples. We also need to work as One Orkla to realize cost synergies within the entire company and our entire value chain.
Since twenty fourteen, we have closed down thirty factories within Orkla, which means that we get fewer, larger, and more competitive factories. This also means that larger factories makes it possible for us to invest in more automation, new technology, to become ever more competitive with a view to the future. We have made a number of acquisitions. In the past four years, we have acquired thirty-six new factories, so we have more factories now than in twenty fourteen when we initiated the program. This also makes it possible to take out more synergies and optimize our factory structure. Orkla is the result of a lot of acquisitions over an extended period of time. We have had the multi-local model. That's what we have applied, where each individual company was to be an autonomous unit with rather little cooperation across companies and geography.
Now, this led to us today having 27 different ERP systems, that is computer systems within Orkla, and it goes without saying that that is not something that facilitates synergies across companies and geographical areas. So we have decided, and we have initiated now, an effort to launch one shared ERP system throughout Orkla. We are now developing this system. We're doing this this year, and then we will have the successive rollout starting in 2019, one company after the other, and this is a program that will be completed sometime by 2022, 2023. We also do a lot with regard to synergies for shared functions. For instance, the customer service, when they call and have questions about our countries, it's within finance, within HR. And we have also merged smaller businesses or businesses in smaller geographical areas to become more competitive.
We joined our footprint, Confectionery and Snacks in Finland, so they are a single unit now. There are many things we do every day to reduce cost, to become more competitive, and that's completely necessary in current markets because it's a tough world out there, but unfortunately, some try to throw a spanner in the works for us, and the sugar tax is something you've all heard about. It was increased on the first of January 2018. It was increased by 83%, this sugar fee, from 20 to almost NOK 37 per kilo, almost NOK 37 per kilo, and it's not actually a sugar fee, it's a sugared product fee.
So there are many products that contain a lot of sugar that don't carry a fee at all, and then there are lots of products that have either very little sugar or no sugar at all that are subject to this sugar fee. We see some examples here. For instance, here we have these vitamin bears for children, zero sugar, but they are subject to the sugar fee because these vitamin pills have the shape of a bear. If it had been a pill, there would be no fee. This is not logical at all. What is even more alarming is that pure sugar, 100% sugar, the fee is NOK 7.93. It increased only by 1.5%. It's less than NOK 8 per kilo, and for the sugared products, the increase was much larger.
Not easy to understand. This also makes the cross-border shopping, that is Norwegian shopping in Sweden, increase. Norwegian spent NOK 14.1 billion in Sweden last year, and the Swedes are really happy about the Norwegian fees on snacks and sugared products. You can also buy over the Internet for up to NOK 350 , and then your purchase will be free of VAT and free of customs duties. You can sit. You don't need to be even close to Sweden. You can be in Bergen or Oslo, and you can order sweets over the Internet from Sweden, free of VAT and free of fees. This is a big challenge for us, and there was a 23.4% increase in the cross-border-...
Shopping by Norwegians, and we can't just sit and watch this happen. I mentioned sustainability. We see that an ever-increasing number of people focus on this, especially young people. They are focused on what, not only what kind of products they buy and what they contain, but also what kind of company is behind the product.
What kind of people are they? What are their attitudes to the environment and to animals, to people, and to child labor, and so on? It's important for them to have sustainable consumption, throwing away, wasting less food, and recycling, and this is a trend that we see continue. In Orkla, we wish to take part in finding the future solutions, and we want to have a higher ambition than what we have had previously. There are three reasons why it's important to take sustainability seriously. Firstly, we have a responsibility. We produce eight point five million sold units every day. So what we do with the products and what we put in them, what kind of wrapping we use, and where we source our raw materials, there we hold a great responsibility.
Secondly, there is a perspective of profitability in this, because if we're able to reduce the use of wrapping and use less water and electricity, of course, that is a financial saving for us as well. And thirdly, it is important for the consumers in their choice and selection of products, and it will just keep getting more important. As many of you probably know, the United Nations launched the Sustainable Development Goals until twenty thirty that all UN countries have committed to work for. And not all of these sustainability targets are relevant to us, but some of them, we have selected eight targets that we wish to work on. And so we've organized our sustainability work around five main topics or headings.
One is nutrition and wellness, where we have a great responsibility in what we put into the products. That has a great impact on public health in the markets where we operate. Next, we have safe products. When you buy a product from Orkla, it must, of course, be safe to eat. It will not get you sick, and it should be safe to use in every possible way, so we have very high requirements for food safety, obviously. Next, there is sustainable sourcing to ensure that the raw materials that we buy are produced in a sustainable manner. Then there's an environmental engagement and commitment in all that we do, and naturally, there's also care for people in society.
In twenty fourteen, we set a target for the sustainability work until twenty twenty, and you will see in the annual report, there we report on the progress with this work. Now, we have set new and even more ambitious targets for the period running until twenty twenty-five. We want to make it easier to lead a healthy life, and with more healthy snacks and healthy food and all products for a healthy lifestyle. These targets entail a gradual transition to renewable energy, increased recycling, and products for a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. These targets will demand a lot from us, but it will be important to achieve growth and at all times to be competitive in the markets where we operate.
We are now about to make sustainability an integrated part of the way in which we, we run our business, where relevant, considerations to sustainability are integrated in and embedded in everything from purchasing and production to product development and branding. All our companies, from Finland to India and so on, will, in the course of 2018, make plans for how to contribute to reach our internal goals for sustainability. Our efforts in all these areas, in sum, will mean that in the coming years, we will be delivering products that are good for people and good for our planet. All this may be improving everyday life with sustainable and enjoyable local brands is our slogan in this.
We will take care of our planet and of the people that live there, and we will be your friend every day, also in the future. With that, I will now give the floor to Jens Bjørn Staff, who will now present the financial figures for twenty seventeen. Thank you, Peter. I will briefly review some of the key financial figures for twenty seventeen. The Orkla Group had an overall operating revenue of nearly NOK 40 billion in twenty seventeen compared to NOK 37 billion. And Orkla's turnover, mostly, or revenue mostly comes from the branded area, Branded Consumer Goods, and other smaller areas such as hydropower now constitute less than 3% of the overall revenue. The growth from last year are due, first and foremost, that the turnover in the Branded Consumer Goods increased by 6%.
As you can see from the graph to the left here. Nearly 4% of the growth was related to the acquisitions we made in 2017 to strengthen ourselves as a Branded Consumer Goods company. Orkla has a great part of its activities outside of Norway, and therefore, we need to convert foreign currency to Norwegian kroner in our accounts. And since the NOK weakened gradually in 2017 compared to the year before, the revenue from foreign activities converted into NOK increased by 0.4%. And the last part of the graph that you see. It shows the organic growth, and it was 1.6%. This shows our ability to sell more pizza, more of all what we already have, but detergents, bars of chocolates, et cetera.
As Peter mentioned, this was about at the level of the market growth. The acquisitions that we've made in the last years have mainly been outside of Norway, and this has led to Orkla becoming more international, with a significantly stronger position in the Baltic countries and in Central Europe. Norway is still our largest market, but our share of the revenue from outside of Norway now surpasses 70%. Let us now move on to the profit figures. Orkla approved an adjusted operating or EBIT of NOK 4.6 billion. That was up 80% from... It says EBIT adjusted on the table. The increased revenue and more efficient operation as a consequence of more cost-cutting measures were the main reasons for the growth in the adjusted EBIT.
The extensive work of enhancement and integration continued in 2017, and other earnings and costs were mainly related to acquisitions and integration, as well as several improvement processes that we've run in the group, especially related to shutdowns and changes in factory structure. These costs that we had in that connection were in part counteracted by gains from sales of brands and companies through the year. So in sum, the reported operating revenue increased by 13% from the year before. Then we move a little bit further down. The line below with the name profit from associates shows the contributions from the companies where we own a share.
After the sales of Sapa, this line mainly consists of our share of Jotun's and net revenue after tax. Jotun had a very good growth in its revenue in 2017, but the operating result, operating revenue was reduced with, compared to 2016, because the raw material prices increased. We had NOK 176 million in interest costs and other financial costs, and NOK 980 million in tax in 2017. The revenue from the sale of Sapa was a bit above NOK 5 billion , and that effect is presented on the line of discontinued operation. This amount includes the profits from the sale. The annual operating revenue after tax for the continued business ended about NOK 3.6 billion compared to...
So that means that the result per share in the continued activities can increase from NOK 3.34 in 2016 to NOK 3.46 in 2017. And as Peter mentioned initially, the Orkla share had a yield to the shareowners of about 22.5% in 2017. And so now I will provide some more details about the larger business areas in Orkla. Orkla Foods is our largest business area, with NOK 16 billion turnover, which constitutes 41% of Orkla's revenue. And Orkla Foods contains known Norwegian brands such as Toro, Grandiosa, and Sætre, as long as other well-known brands in other countries. Orkla Foods has activities in all Nordic and Baltic countries, and in several countries in Central Europe and in India. Orkla Foods increased the revenue by 4% due to acquisitions, among other things.
Organic growth constituted 1.4%, run by price increases and volume increases. As Peter mentioned, we sold more pizza Grandiosa than ever last year. We sold altogether 26 million Grandiosa pizzas Grandiosa, something which is equivalent of five pizzas per inhabitant in Norway. The revenue ended up above NOK 2 billion, which is equivalent to a growth of 4% from the year before. We saw that the progress and the growth was widely based and related mostly to the growth in revenue, in addition to positive effects from the cost-cutting measures. The increase in raw materials, however, influenced both the revenue and the margin somewhat negatively for that year.
Let's go on and look at Confectionery and Snacks. Confectionery and snacks contains many well-known brands within sweet snacks and biscuits, such as Nidar, Polly and KiMs. This area had a sales growth of 3.4%, and the organic growth in revenue ended up at 3.1%, mainly run by a volume growth. Especially, we saw very favorable sales development in Finland and Sweden and Estonia. And as Peter mentioned, we sold a lot of Smash bags in Sweden, and there was a sales record in Norway with 4.9 million bags sold. That contributes to good growth in this area. We delivered good progress in results. This was run by growth in sales and effects from cost cut measures in factories and other value chain. And then let's go to Orkla Care.
Care, the care area is our most differentiated and diverse area. It spans from toothpaste, detergents, and shampoo to textiles, cod liver oil, and paint brushes. And some of the well-known labels are Zalo, Define, Møller's, Pierre Robert, and Jordan. The growth in revenue for Orkla Care in 2017 was 11%, among other things, as a consequence of the acquisition of the sun cream producer Riemann in the summer of 2017, and Harris, paint producer in the fall of 2016. The organic growth ended up at 2.9%, and organic growth for the businesses within personal care and detergents, health, professional cleaning, and Band-Aids, were in fact counteracted by a setback in basic textiles and painting tools. But this led to a wide progress.
And then let's go to Food Ingredients. We saw continued progress here in 2017. The organic growth was 0.5%, especially related to the increased sales of materials to help with baking and baking mixes for breads and cakes. And the progress in sales was headed by structural growth from some smaller acquisitions within ice cream ingredients in the Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, and Sweden, and the acquisition of a trading company in Denmark within dough products. The activity of our industrial business in Italy, that gave a negative result in 2016, was divested. And in addition, positive currency conversion effects contributed positively since the NOK was weaker. On the other hand, the progress in results was somewhat negatively affected by a poor summer, which made us sell less ice cream.
There was lower profitability from the Swedish bakery market and lower temporary profitability in Romania related to some government-determined cost increases. As I mentioned previously, Orkla still has certain investments outside of our branding area. The sale of Sapa was completed in October 2017, with a booked profit of altogether NOK 5.1 billion. After the sales of Sapa, as mentioned, the largest investment of is our share in Jotun. Orkla owns 42.6% of Jotun, which is a global manufacturer of paint with more than 16 billion in revenues. As mentioned, Jotun achieved a growth in its revenues in 2017, but the operating revenue was nevertheless reduced compared to 2016, mostly due to higher raw material prices and a very challenging market, both in marine and offshore.
Our hydropower activities had saw growth in both turnover and revenue as a consequence of higher power prices and production volumes. And so the involvement in property as of the end of last year had a value of NOK 1.5 billion. So in summary, Orkla saw good progress, both in turnover and revenue, both in and outside of the branding area. And now a few words about our balance. We have a strong balance with total assets of more than NOK 53 billion at the end of the year. And the net interest-bearing debt was reduced by NOK 8 billion to, mainly due to the sales of Sapa. So that means that we have about NOK 14 billion of interest-bearing debt at the end of 2017.
The financial position that we now hold makes it possible both to further invest into the branding area according to our strategy, and it also makes it possible to have a predictable dividend policy. After the payment of the ordinary and extraordinary dividend in 2017, the equity of the group was 34.8 billion at the turn of the year, with an equity share of 65.2%, and the overall yield of the share was 22.5, including the paid dividends. At our current Capital Market Day on the first of June, 2017, we repeated that Orkla has the aim to pay an annual dividend of minimum NOK 2.5 per share.
And last year, as Peter mentioned, the dividend was increased to NOK 2.6 , and the board proposes to maintain this level for this year. And so the proposed yield for 2017 will be handled later in the agenda today. And so with this, I wish to thank you for your attention, and I will now give the floor back to Anders.
Thank you. Now we have come to an item on the agenda, where we open up to questions or comments from the public to the presentations that have been made, and we are going to discuss later. Under Item 3, we're going to discuss remuneration of management. If you want the floor, just raise your hand and you'll get a microphone, and then you just present yourself, and then you make the comment or the question that you want to make. I can't really see you, but here, Sigrid Sønnesyn my name. This is very interesting. It's been very interesting to follow Orkla on its road to becoming a consumer brands company. One Orkla is a very good expression. I have a question about ketchup. You had nine ketchup factories last time I asked you. I believe Heinz has one factory in the U.S.A.
So here, there's a potential, I believe, for building more of a One Orkla. As regards to ketchup, I have a concrete question. You have many kinds of ketchup, and let me ask you now a question on behalf of somebody else. In the Baltics, Orkla has some very good ketchup products. Could you also present them to Norwegian market later? I'm not the only one who wants that to happen. Thank you. Should we try to gather several questions, perhaps? The first question here will be for Mr. Ruzicka. Maybe there are other questions. Here we have another one. Torstein Indrebø . Thank you for good information and a very good annual report that gives good insight and gives us the possibility of keeping an eye on developments. I would like to have more information about risk. Political risk, it was briefly mentioned in the presentation about political decisions.
The sugar fee was mentioned. Now, I see tendencies globally to, political risk, trade, cross-border trade, Brexit. There's talk of a trade war. Can you see a bit about how Orkla is positioned, and how do you, assess the risks now that you operate internationally to an ever-increasing degree? That's one thing. The second is further growth. It is my impression that it was said that future growth will mainly be through further acquisitions and perhaps international efforts. In the report, you say that you have enough capital to, put forward major efforts, and I would also like you to comment on the competition situation with regard to other brands. I don't see any more hands here. I think then you, Peter, maybe answer those two questions. Okay, let me start with ketchup. It's true that we are present in nine countries in Europe, ketchup-wise.
We are the market leader in those nine countries where we are present. And we have actually seven different brands in these markets and nine different recipes. So these are ketchups adapted to local tastes, so this is where we are quite different from our international competitors. Heinz was mentioned. Of course, that's our biggest competitor within this category. I believe we do have too many factories. Heinz doesn't only have one in the U.S.A. They have two, as far as we know, in Europe. They are specialized ones. They have an approach where they want to sell one product in many markets. One size fits all is the approach they apply, while our approach is different.
We have local brands filled with local content, adapted to local consumers, and I guess that's why we have become market leaders in the nine countries where we have a presence. Having said that, of course, this doesn't mean that we need nine factories, and we work continuously on the factory structure, also with regard to ketchups. As regards to Baltic ketchup, I haven't heard this question before, but we would like to sell goods from other markets in Norway and vice versa, so we'll have a look at it. But the problem, as you have seen in Norwegian press lately, is that you need space on the shelves in the stores. You may have good products, you may want to sell them, but you also need-...
The cooperation of those who actually sell these products, those who have the shops, they must want to sell the products. As regards to risk, this is an area that we dedicate a lot of attention to. Political risk was mentioned, specifically trade war, Brexit, et cetera. Our assessment is that we are less vulnerable to that risk and less prone to that risk than many of our international competitors, because we mainly have local brands and local production. That's the main picture. Where we may experience risk is where there may be dramatic changes with regard to some commodities, dramatic price changes. We experienced this last year with regard to meat and dairy products in Europe.
This is a risk that we handle on a continuous basis by taking out price increases whenever we are capable of doing so, to compensate for increases in raw material prices. And of course, we have a substantial currency risk. We are in many markets. We buy a lot of products in euros, some in dollars for Norway, Sweden, Denmark, et cetera. And both the Norwegian kroner and especially the Swedish kroner versus euro have weakened, and this increases substantially our procurement costs. But over time, we are able to compensate this through price increases, but very often, that happens with a certain delay.
Excellent. And I guess further growth, there was another question. Sorry.
As was pointed out also by Jens, we have a very solid balance sheet. We are in practice without any debt, so we have the potential for making substantial acquisitions. We primarily want to acquire consumer brand businesses, preferably in markets where we are already present, to be able to take out the synergies with existing businesses. We want to buy attractive companies, where we can realize synergies, and that also should fit into our strategy. That is our prime goal for the application of our capital, and that, of course, will produce good returns for shareholders. Size has been mentioned. Size may be a problem. That's definitely true. In markets where we're big, like in Sweden and Norway, of course, there are limits to what we can acquire, because we have many in many categories, we have more than a 50% market share.
The majority of the acquisitions we have done in the past four or five years have been outside of Nordic countries, especially outside of Norway. So Norway now makes up only 20% of Orkla's turnover, so more than 70% of the turnover is found abroad, and there are lots of opportunities and exciting companies to be found out there. Primarily, in recent years, we have bought what we would define as small to medium-sized acquisitions. Our competitors would define them as small, all of them. To us, they are small to medium-sized. The experience shows that making several and small acquisitions is easier than making fewer but larger acquisitions, because it's easier to carry out integration and to obtain synergies.
The smaller objects there are less subject to competition, so the prices are often lower, and so they are more attractive targets for us. Thank you.
Thank you. Then we have no further questions. Oh, there's one more over there. That's good.
Just a follow-up as regards to political risk. Thank you for the answer. The debate now with equal prices for all players in the groceries field has Orkla taken a stance in this debate? Well, you can answer that question as well. This is not a new debate, as it were. This is a debate that comes up every now and then. Actually, we have taken a very clear stance. We have said that we believe that one should introduce and act on good commercial practices, and there should be a monitoring agency to make sure that the players comply with the act. I think the Standards Committee was established back in 2011, and they discussed this matter. Then, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have both... The Conservative Party, this is like a private bill presented in parliament.
They say that there should be similar pressures from dominating players, that is, if you have more than 50% in a category, all should be offered the same price. Some people within the Conservative Party have said they, they want this, and we have said they're positive to studying the matter. We haven't taken a stance on the bill, on the proposal for now, but there's a clear need to do something. We now have three procurement chains in Norway. In reality, there are three persons who decide what Norwegians are to have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's unfortunate for the competition, the range of goods offered, and diversity. In Norway, we have high prices, substantially higher prices than what we have in our neighboring countries.
Clear answer. Any further questions? Well, then let's go on to the next exciting item, distribution of dividends.
...As you know, it's the board that proposes the dividend. The AGM can say yes or no. More often than not, it is accepted. Stein Erik, do you want to explain what you have thought?
We will do it the same way. What we want is the shareholders of Orkla to have competitive returns on their investment in terms of a combination of increase in the stock value and dividends. We want there to be predictability and stability. Now, this dividend policy has been well received in the market, and it has strengthened. Orkla has never reduced its ordinary dividends with regard to the previous year. In addition, Orkla, in some cases, has chosen to pay out an extraordinary dividend, as was done last autumn, NOK 5 per share, as a result of its sale of its share in Sapa.
Orkla has the cash flow from consumer-branded goods and dividends from other businesses outside of this, which strengthens its dividend distribution capacity, and we have strengthened our consumer brands substantially in recent years, and also through operational improvement. Generally, we believe that a consumer brand company in the Nordic countries should have a rather high dividend percentages, and Orkla has, over time, allocated substantial capital to shareholders. Direct return through dividend for Orkla shareholders in twenty seventeen was 9.7%, based on a share price of NOK 78.2 at the beginning of twenty seventeen, based on Orkla's different strategy and the group's financial position.
As just outlined by Peter Ruzicka and Jens Bjørn Staff, the board of directors proposes paying a dividend for 2017 of NOK 2.60 per share, which is on a par with the ordinary dividend of last year.
Based on the general meeting's decision on a share dividend of NOK 2.60 per share, dividends will be paid out on twenty-fifth of April to shareholders as of the date of the AGM, that is today. The shares will be listed exclusive of dividends tomorrow, the thirteenth of April, Friday the thirteenth, actually.
In addition to the dividend, Orkla also has a program to buy back treasury shares. This program has recently been used for moderate buybacks, and the shares bought under this program will be used for Orkla's share and incentive scheme for employees, which is approved by the AGM, or they will be deleted or canceled. Under agenda Item 5, the board will propose to renew this authorization. Thank you.
Before we go to the voting, I would invite state-authorized public accountant, Erik Mamelund, to present the auditor's report submitted. You can come up. Very good. We have the conclusion on the screen, and the auditor's report itself is included in the annual report on page 205-207. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I will not read the whole auditor's report, but the conclusions are that, in our opinion, the annual accounts have been submitted in line with laws and regulations, and the financial statements of the parent company, Orkla ASA, and the group give a correct image of the comprehensive income and cash flows during the year under review.
And the information disclosed in the annual report and the reports on corporate governance, CSR, the assumption of going concern and allocation of profit and loss, are all consistent with the financial statements and in compliance with legislation and regulations. So in other words, that was the summary of our conclusion. So we have given Orkla ASA a clean auditor's report, so you can remain standing while we let's hear whether anyone has any question to the board or the auditor regarding this item. No, there's not? Thank you.
Then let's go to the vote.
The board has put the following proposal before the AGM: the approval of the financial statements for 2017 for Orkla ASA and the group, and the annual report, including the approval of a share dividend for 2017 of NOK 2.60 per share, except for shares owned by the group. Does anyone vote not in favor of this? Nobody votes against. This is approved, but before that, I will point out to you that we have retrieved some advance absentee ballots, and from those who have voted, 178,000 are in favor and 19,000 are against. That does not change the conclusion that the AGM has thereby approved and will pay the dividend. We will go to Item 3 on the agenda.
Now, the group's remuneration scheme to executive management and the incentive programs need to be treated as a separate item on the AGM, and I will explain to you why we have this item on the agenda, especially specifically containing this. It's included in Section 6-16 of the Public Limited Liability Companies Act, which are to be dealt with. And then Stein Erik Hagen will review the terms and conditions policy, which as it appears in note 5 to the accounts. And lastly, we will make the votes that the general meeting is to do as required by the act. So, the board needs to publish a declaration of determination of pay and other remuneration for executive management.
And this consists of four parts: salaries and other remunerations to the CEO and other key personnel, and the guidelines for determination of pay and other remuneration for the coming accounting year, and report on the remuneration policy. This is not a case, an item where you need to make an adoption of this case, but the AGM needs to hold an advisory vote to approve of the guidelines of the board for the coming accounting year. And that's the reason why we did the same, this the same way we did last year, and I'll give the floor to you, Stein Erik.
So now I'll tell you a little bit about Orkla's compensation policy and long-term bonus program, and the scheme with shares to the employees.
I will make reference here to note five in Orkla's accounts, and I suppose there are no needs to read it. Orkla's compensation policies are some of the means to attract and enhance and keep the expertise that we need. The monetary part is divided in two elements. There are set compensations, such as set pay and earning of pension, and then there are variable elements, such as an annual bonus and long-term bonus program. The guidelines indicate that we need to be competitive in the fixed elements based on median consideration, whereas the potential in the bonus scheme should be above the median. The bonus claim is targeted at an improvement in revenue and growth on a personal part.
The system is calibrated so that if over time, a person delivers satisfactory results, then you can expect a result of about 30% of the annual pay. If you have a better result than what's expected, the bonus score will equivalently increase. If you have a poorer result than expected, then the bonus will be considered equivalently reduced. In 2012, we introduced a cash-based long-term incentive program for management and key personnel to compensate for the loss of the option scheme. The payments in May of this year, as described in the annual report, are based on the existing scheme. From 2018, Orkla has renewed the cash-based LTI scheme.
Awarding an LTI normally happens in May of each year, and the awarded amount is determined based on the assessments of individual contributions with respect to Orkla's long-term targets and objectives. The Group CEO does fix the long-term targets or criteria to be approved by the Compensation Committee of the board in connection with the annual awarding of LTIs. The new scheme, in practical terms, can imply that when the CEO, now in May 2018, will set the criteria, and then awards in 2019 will be based on each person's fulfillment or compliance with these criteria. The maximum framework for the awarding is 50% of the fixed pay at the time of the award, and the LTI amount will develop in line with the development in the share price.
The reimbursement will happen at the earliest time, by one-third after twenty-four months, one-third after thirty-six months, and one-third after forty-eight months after it's been awarded, given that the employee has not left his position at the time of payment. The person who has an LTI awarded can choose to postpone the payment, the time, until maximum sixty months after the LTI was awarded, and the awarding cannot surpass 50% of the annual salary. And the overall value of the awarding under the annual bonus scheme and the awarded LTI for one year cannot surpass one annual salary. And this means that the length of the scheme is increased from three years today to up to five years, and this also makes it a more long-term scheme and strengthens the possibility to keep the talents with us.
We also adjust the scheme so it's more focused on the long-term value creation, in that the participants are compared to long-term criteria. And by detaching the LTI from the annual bonus scheme, we will also have a better balance in our incentives, where the annual bonus scheme will reward what's short-term, and the LTI will reward what's long-term. And as we'll revert to, there are a number of advance absentee ballots against this proposal that seem to be argued with the LTI scheme not being sufficiently long-term. The board has known of this, and it is the assessment of the board that the changes now proposed in the LTI scheme will by far take into consideration these views that were expressed.
No options have been handed out since 2011, and LTI schemes have replaced the option scheme, and the last options were canceled or in 2017. We heard some comments from certain shareholders who wanted further specifications in the report of the board of the LTI schemes, and therefore, we've made changes with a larger detailed description of each element in note 5. The group has been, for a number of years, had a scheme where the employees have the opportunity to buy a limited number of shares with a discount of 30% with respect to the price on the stock exchange.
For 2017, there were several different purchase alternatives, 50,000, 40,000, et cetera, with the and the costs for 2017 was approximately NOK 24 million . The board recommends to the AGM to continue the share scheme with the employees with the three alternatives for this year, one for 28,000, one for 15,000, and one for NOK 8,000 . These are amounts after the discount. Furthermore, we suggest to reduce the discount to 25%, and that the shares may not be sold until at the earliest 24 months after the purchase has been carried out. That's new. Now, and with that, I'll give the floor back to you, Anders.
Thank you. We now have another opportunity for raising questions or making comments to this case. Nobody wishes to do so, so then. Maybe difficult to understand.
So before we go to vote, I will remind you that we need to make two decisions here. The first one is a proposal or an advisory vote that the AGM supports the board of directors' statements for the remuneration of the executive management as described in note five to the accounts for Orkla ASA. And here we have retrieved the figures, with 161.3 million in favor and 16.6 million against. And does anyone here in the room vote against this proposal? No, there is not. Then it is hereby adopted. The next item, agenda Item 3.3.
The proposed resolution is that the AGM approves the board of directors' proposal for the share scheme for employees, as described in note five, three related to, one, long-term incentives for the management of key personnel, as long as the allocated LTI amount is linked to the total yield of the Orkla share, and two, sales of shares at a 25% discount to employees with a 24-month minimum contract. Will anyone vote against this proposal? I can mention that in under the voting instructions, 17.5 million have voted in favor, and, one hundred and seven point eight million have voted against. Does anyone here vote against this proposal? Then that is also regarded to be adopted. Then we will go to, the report on the company's corporate governance.
This is agenda Item 4 at the AGM. There are the Norwegian words for the concept of corporate governance. Norwegian words are listed, among other places, in the Norwegian Code of Practice for Corporate Governance. Hereinafter, we refer to as the Code of Practice. The code entails that the board must ensure that the company implements sound corporate governance, provide a report on the company's corporate governance in the annual report, and if the company does not fully comply with this code of practice, this must be explained in a report, the so-called Comply or Explain principle. It states that the company should clarify its basic corporate values and form ethical guidelines in accordance with these values.
Listed companies are to have corporate governance that makes a clear internal allocation of responsibilities and duties between the shareholders, the board of directors, and the day-to-day management, and they must give an overall report in the annual report or in a document referred to in the annual report. Special reporting requirements will also apply pursuant to Section 3-3b of the Norwegian Accounting Act. This report shall be dealt with at the general meeting as an information item. However, we shall not. That's, that's why we shall not adopt it. This is from Section 5-6(4) subsection of Public Limited Liability Companies Act. There are two minor deviations. They are presented in a separate annex to the notice of the AGM.
This, since this is known to the shareholders in advance, I don't think I need to read the document out loud, but are there any comments or questions to that presentation? If not, I will invite the AGM to take note of the report. We have arrived at agenda Item 5, authorization to the Board of Directors to acquire treasury shares. At the Annual General Meeting of twentieth of April, 2017, the Board was authorized to acquire treasury shares up until the Annual General Meeting in 2018. Every year, the AGM has authorized the Board of Directors to acquire treasury shares, and the authorizations have been used for moderate buybacks. No shares were bought under the authorization granted by the AGM last year. Treasury shares, to date, of the notice of the AGM, were one hundred and seventy-six thousand nine hundred and thirty-three.
The Board of Directors has proposed that the authorization be renewed. A report on this item was added as an appendix to notice, and therefore will only highlight the factors in support of the proposal of the board. Firstly, acquisitions of treasury shares for amortization is one of several methods available to the company to transfer values to shareholders, in that the value of remaining shares increases, and the board wants to have this means at its disposal. In addition, the company has a certain need for own shares to cover obligations under incentive programs adopted by the general meeting.
As a consequence, in the proposal, it has been proposed, as like in previous years, that the shares that the company may acquire under authorization can only be used for one of the two following purposes: one, amortization, and the proposal amortization will then be presented to the general meeting, or it can be used to fulfill the company's obligations under incentive programs for employees, as decided by the general meeting. Any comments or questions to this agenda item? This is a rather technical item that appears every year. Okay. The Board has indicated two particular purposes, and it may not be used for other purposes. We will vote on each of the individual purposes.
The first is that the general meeting of Orkla ASA hereby authorizes the Board of Directors to permit the company to acquire shares in Orkla ASA with a nominal value of up to NOK 125 million , divided among a maximum of 100 million shares, provided that the company's holding of treasury shares does not exceed 10% of shares outstanding at any given time. The minimum maximum amount that can be paid per share shall be NOK 20 and NOK 120, respectively. The Board of Directors shall have a free hand with respect to methods of acquisition and disposal of treasury shares. This authorization shall apply from 13 April 2018, until the date of the Annual General Meeting in 2019.
Two, the authorization may be utilized to fulfill existing employee incentive programs and employee incentive programs adopted by the general meeting in accordance with Item 3.3 of the agenda. Three, the authorization may be utilized to acquire shares for cancellation or amortization. Does anybody vote against the authorization indicated under Roman numeral two here? No. Let me quote some advance votes here. Absentee ballots, 159,883,673 shares have voted in favor. 80,521,635 vote against. So the motion has been carried. Next item. Does anybody vote against the proposal from the authorization and the use of same as specified in Roman numeral three?
Absentee ballots or advance votes, a hundred and seventy-four million, three hundred and eighty-four thousand and fourteen, four and four million, thirteen thousand and thirty-eight against. This has been carried. Now, for the most important Item, we have 6 to 11, which is about the choice of members of the board. We need to have the Nomination Committee. We have the recommendation of the Nomination Committee. It has been there since the sixteenth of March on the website. As the head of the Nomination Committee, I shall inform you of the work. I shall give you a presentation of the coming to agenda Item 6 to 11, and then we shall vote separately on each item. I have been the head of the Nomination Committee. There has been Leif Askvig, Nils-Henrik Pettersson, and Karin Bing Orgland as members, and we also have Vidar Dahl.
As regards the remuneration issue, Nils-Henrik Pettersson was elected for two years last year, so he's not up for election this year. Leif Askvig, Karin Ørgland, and myself, we were elected for a two-year period two years ago, so we are up for election. The composition should represent the employees, the shareholders, and it follows the guidelines. Let's go one back. We can see that Nils-Henrik Pettersson has been appointed by the employees. Leif Askvig has been chosen to cater to the especially large foreign shareholders. He has a lot of experience with international finance, and this member should represent large Norwegian shareholders. I have been elected as the head of the, because I am independent of all of the interests that have been taken into consideration. The AGM has given a separate instruction for the Nomination Committee. It's found on the website.
There are rules as regards composition and, voting and procedure. I should inform you of our work today. We have had nine meetings in connection with our recommendation. We have looked at the board evaluation. We've had meetings with the chair of the board and Orkla CEO and president. Information about how shareholders can give, proposals to the nominations committee has been available at the website of the company. We have also actively contacted the large shareholders of Orkla for contributions, comments, and we have had conversations with representatives of several shareholders. I shall now present the, proposal of the nomination for the choice of board members, substitute members, the chair and vice chair, and election of members for the Nomination Committee, the head of Nomination Committee, and proposal for the nomination for the board and the Nomination Committee.
The most important proposal now is for the members of the board in this large and important company. We have had shareholder board evaluations in the past two years in this company. We have looked at the evaluation, and there's positive feedback as regards the work of the board. It's always interesting to hear the board's opinions on this own work and how the management looks at the cooperation with the board. And although there are points of discussion, we really don't have any major problems. Things have gone very well, and it seems that the board cooperates well.
We have now seven members of the board of directors chosen by shareholders and one substitute member, and we propose that the following board members should be reelected: Stein Erik Hagen, Grace Reksten Skaugen, Ingrid Jonasson Blank, Lars Dahlgren, Nils Selte, and Liselott Kilaas, and Caroline Hagen Kjos as a personal substitute member for Stein Erik Hagen and for Nils Selte. This means that Lisbeth Valther shall leave the board after five years of service, and it is our opinion that it is logical to have a certain renewal of the composition of the board over time. So it is a great pleasure to me to present our candidate for a new director, Peter Agnefjäll. He will then be elected as a new member of the board representing shareholders. He is rather young. He is forty-seven years old, but he is a highly experienced man from the industry.
He has been the president and CEO of the IKEA Group for four years. Before that, he has a long professional career within IKEA. He has had a number of operative functions and management positions. He was promoted from deputy CEO in 2013. Before that, from 2010 to 2012, he was managing director and country manager for IKEA Retail Sweden. That's the home market where everything started for IKEA. He has been in close cooperation with Ingvar, Ingvar Kamprad. He did that in his career. He was an assistant to IKEA CEO Anders Dahlvig and Mikael Ohlsson, and for the founder, Kamprad, from 2008 to 2009. Before that, he has worked within different fields. He has been a manager of one of IKEA's big warehouses in Italy, has been responsible for different business areas in IKEA.
He started out as a young man in IKEA. His education is as an economist from Sweden, where he took his exam in nineteen ninety-five. In addition to what you find here on the screen, I would like to mention that Agnefjäll gave an important contribution when IKEA, with time, well, not as one of the first, but as one of the most solid ones, established their e-commerce activities. This is a business that perhaps you wouldn't consider to be typical for IKEA because they are known for their big warehouses, but the e-commerce has turned out to be very successful.
It's an increasingly important area of commerce or channel of commerce, so we are very happy that he has accepted the invitation to join Orkla, which is also a very exciting company, and he has expressed his enthusiasm with regard to being a member of the board in the coming years. Let me say a bit about the term of function for members and substitute members. Under the Articles of Association, Section 4, third subsection, the person can be elected for a period of up to two years. We believe that an annual assessment of the board will give larger flexibility, and we suggest that the term should be one year. Now, let's go on to the specific elections. First, the board, the vice president, and the president of the board?...
It is the board that shall elect the chair, if the AGM doesn't elect it. But we want to follow the Norwegian recommendations, and we want the general meeting to elect a chair. Stein Erik Hagen as chair, and Grace Reksten Skaugen as vice chair, were elected for a two-year period last year, and we suggest that they should be re-elected for a period of one year. We also re-propose ourselves, because if we don't propose ourselves, then the alternative would be that the board would propose the members on the Nomination Committee and vice versa. So out of those two solutions, I think that most listed companies choose the solution that the Nomination Committee propose themselves.
They were elected in 2016 for a period of two years, and they are therefore standing for election this year. And Nils Selte was elected in 2017 for a period of two years, and therefore is not running for re-election this year. And based on the instructions of the AGM, the proposal for elections of members to the Nomination Committee need to be presented by a collected Nomination Committee. And we all support the re-election of Leif Askvig, Karin Orgland, with a term for two years. And the companies also practice an annual adjustment of remuneration to the board, in line with the general development in salaries, unless specific conditions indicate otherwise, and we've used this as our general principle. And we have wanted to also have some...
To purchase shares. And so all candidates have confirmed that they will follow these guidelines. So the principle for determination of, or fixing of the, remuneration fees for the Nomination Committee were changed in 2016, from a remuneration per meeting, to a fixed annual remuneration for taking part in meetings. And as for the fees to, or the remuneration to the Board of Directors, the Nomination Committee will suggest an annual adjustment of the fees, in line with the general development in pay, unless special situations indicate otherwise. And then we have come to agenda six through eleven, and then we start with number six: election of members and deputy member to the Board of Directors.
So we then propose the re-election of Stein Erik Hagen, Grace Reksten Skaugen, Blank, Dahlgren, Selte, Kilaas, and the re-election of Caroline Hagen Kjos, as personal deputy member for Messrs. Hagen and Selte, and Peter Agnefjäll as the new board member. Under this item, we have received some advance absentee ballots. I'll just check the list here. Yes, now the situation is that we have received some. Now we know what it is. Against this proposal, we have received 86.5 million in favor, and 91.8 million against. As for each candidate, we have received 172 million in favor of Hagen, 152 million, and 25.7 million against Mr. Hagen. And for Ms.
Grace Reksten Skaugen, we have 163.4 million in favor, and 14.99 against. And for Ingrid Jonasson Blank, we have 146.8 million votes in favor, and 31.5 million votes against. As for Lars Dahlgren, we have 178.137 million in favor, and 267,528 votes against. As for Nils Selte, we have 153.7 million in favor, and 24.6 million against. For Liselott Kilaas, we have 177.039 million votes in favor and 1.34 million against. For Caroline Hagen Kjos, we have 177.12 million in favor and 1.2 million against.
And for Peter Agnefjäll, we have hundred and seventy-six point seven million votes in favor and one point six votes against. Before we go to the vote, there's also access for questions from the room. I think we will do those election by election, if anyone can find a microphone for the gentleman back there.
Just a question to this Peter Agnefjäll. Is he still involved in IKEA? Because IKEA has some of the same products as Orkla. They have brand biscuits. Is he going to work for IKEA and work sell as many IKEA biscuits as possible? Or what's to make sure he doesn't have a double function if he's working for two companies at once.
I don't think he has any conflict of interest. He doesn't work for IKEA in the operative function that would make it natural for him to have anything to do with biscuits. He has left, or resigned as CEO, and that's one of the reasons why this was a natural time to retire, was that, IKEA's business was divided, so that he is out of the corporation's functions now. Any other questions or comments? Yes, there's a man there. Thank you. There was a surprising number of negative comments or votes against the proposal of the committee, many million on some of the board members. Let's rather say that in general, no arguments are stated for the reasons for votes, so everyone may have their own individual understandings.
But what we have sensed as a trend is that many foreign shareholders, and we don't agree that there are many people against. Mostly, there are far more people voting in favor of the nominations. But regarding those votes that have been against, based on the overview that I have here, mostly one tenth of those that are against, with a few exceptions. I think it's correct to say that the feedback we get is that some international companies who assist in organizing votes for international shareholders, they have some guidelines, and I'm making a reservation here because I cannot ask them. They haven't said anything, but...
One guideline, among other things, is if someone has been on the board for a long time, some people would consider that an advantage, and internationally, they may think it's time for that person to be replaced. Another consideration is if somebody, if a person has lots of board member directorships in other organizations, and we see that those are factors that are mentioned when people internationally are advised on how to vote. But I cannot ask them personally. They're not here, and they haven't really provided any comments in this case. But it pleases us to see that many of those who've given absentee ballots or that are in favor of the Nomination Committee's proposal.
So then I think before we proceed, we will avail ourselves of concluding, but then let me ask, will anyone here vote against the proposal?
No.
Then the board is legally elected.
Next item is the election of the chairman of the board and the deputy chair of the board, and here, too, there is a possibility to ask any questions. Will anyone vote against the re-election of Hagen and Skaugen? I'm sure you are relieved, Mr. Hagen. And then election of members for the nomination committee, and their proposal is the re-election. Does anyone vote against? No. Then we are also relieved. The term of election is two years. Do we need to vote on that, or can... Is that accepted? Yes. All right, that's accepted.
Then we have election of the chair of the Nomination Committee, and, immodestly, we have proposed me. Does anyone vote against that? No. Then that's adopted. We will then proceed to the remuneration to the members of the Board of Directors. And now, I have explained that Orkla plans for an annual adjustment instead of as other companies do with larger skips with a few every two or three years. This has mostly worked well for us. We are not at the absolute top, but we are well in the higher range of larger Norwegian corporations, and we've not noted any complaints, neither from the candidates nor from anyone else to the level of being either too high or too low. Does anyone not vote in favor of the proposal?
I'll just treat all of these under one, that the board and the, Compensation Committee and the, Audit Committee. Does anyone vote against this? There was a comment here. I'm Indre Blank. I would rather ask a question regarding the compensation to the board. I see that here there's a normal adjustment equivalent of the general adjustment in the pay levels. Last year, we increased the level from NOK 410,000 to NOK 510,000, and now we're increasing from NOK 520,000 to NOK 542,000. But it means that the percentage of increase here doesn't quite agree with the general increase. Yes, I will comment on that. The reason why we made the skip last year was because we introduced an obligation for the board members to purchase shares in the company.
So from last year to this year, there's no equivalent addition or markup. Regarding this, did you have a follow-up, or did you wish to express your opinion, perhaps? Well, it makes sense that the board members own shares. I don't understand how it should be necessary with such a sharp increase in remuneration so that they should be allowed to purchase shares. I understand that that was the argument why it was so sharply increased last year. Yes, you can say something. The reason is that we have explained about the share incentive scheme for the employees, and we would like that scheme also to be valid for the board members. But according to the rules, there are not where we cannot have it that way.
So then we had to try to find a way by which we could do that in another way, because as you said, it's important to us that the Board of Directors should have a common interest with the shareholders. And so the scheme was suggested, and which we have now explained recently, was that the members of the Board of Directors need to purchase shares for part of their remuneration once they have two years or the equivalent of two years of fee, of remunerations. And then this was the way of calculating how we found this. So that's the basis for that change that you saw last year. If it had been up to us, we would have chosen for the board members to have the same scheme as the employees, but that is not possible.
An important element in this is that if you require board members to purchase shares, then that also triggers tax issues. So you need to increase the remuneration for sitting on the board to compensate for the additional tax they need to pay. I now only refer to the votes that I didn't mention earlier. Under seven A, the elections of the chairman and the deputy chair, the following advance ballots. For Hagen, 171.3 million in favor and 7.049 million against. And for Skaugen, 166.7 million in favor and 11.67 million against. And the equivalent elections for the Nomination Committee as a totality is 105.2 million votes in favor and 73.1 million votes against. And for each member, it's hundred and...
for myself, it's 178.1 million votes in favor and 302,007 votes against. And for Karin, no, sorry, for Leif Askvig, it's 177.1 million votes in favor and 1.2 million votes against. And then for Karin Bing Orgland, it's 177.1 votes in favor and 1.2 million votes against. So then we can confirm the results once these have been given. And then before we get to the remuneration, we also have the election of Ryssdal as the leader, the chair. There were 178.1 million in favor and 294,471 votes against. That's good.
Before we go to the vote now, we've also received some advanced ballots for the proposal to remuneration to the 175.8 million have voted in favor, and only 2.4 million have voted against. Does anyone vote against this proposal here and now? No, there is not. Then that remuneration is adopted.
Next item is the remuneration of the members of the Nomination Committee. We said that there is an adjustment. Last year, we switched the system of an annual remuneration. We have 78,002 and 42,075 voting in favor in advance, while 53,301 voted against. Anybody voting against now? That is not the case. Then Item 12. Approval of the auditor's fee. This is, I'm going to present the issue, but first, I think we should give a big applause to those who have been elected or reelected. Could you say something about the number of meetings in the Nomination Committee? Well, we had nine meetings on the board. How many board meetings were there? Eleven or twelve, the board. I was, I participated in 11 board meetings.
We will look it up, and we'll return to this question. I'll just take you through the auditor's fee, because there I have to present the background. Eleven meetings last year, one took place over a period of two days. Those were the board meetings. Fee for the statutory audit of the account is NOK 3.17 million. The total in fees to Ernst & Young were about NOK 70 million, mainly for the audit of the group. There are also some advisory services, NOK 11 million, and there are some other fees for other auditors, NOK 2 million. This can be seen from note 5 to the accounts of Orkla. You can see a further description there. As you can see, there's a difference between the amount stated in the annual report and what has been stated in the notice.
That's because in the annual accounts, we have some items included that don't come under the audit. That has to be according to law. The amount is NOK 3,331,378... or NOK 3,431,378. Does anybody vote against this fee for the auditor? Well, we have adopted the amount of NOK 3,431,378. Then we have no further items on the agenda that require the adoption of the general meeting. Kristine Brenna Sæth should still be here to sign the minutes. We have made all the elections. We have communicated results, and now, finally, the Chair of the Board. Thank you. It only remains for me to thank you, the shareholders, for your dedication and your presence.
I would also like to thank the management and the employees for their work throughout the year. We are also happy with the results for last year, and the only thing left then is to declare the general meeting closed, and we will see each other in a year's time.