General meeting. I would like to declare the extraordinary general meeting of Orkla ASA to be open. The reason why we are present here today is due to the sale of Orkla's shareholding in Norsk Hydro. An agreement was signed this summer on the 10th of July, and the board communicated then a proposal will be made to the general meeting to pay out an extra dividend of NOK 5 per share. The agreement was concluded on the 2nd of October this year, and the board resolved the same day to issue notice of this extraordinary general meeting. The extraordinary general meeting has been scheduled by the board, pursuant to Article 11 of the Articles of Association. The notice, dated 4th of October, 2017 , was sent to all shareholders with a known address.
It was also announced in a stock exchange bulletin and on our website that same day. Are there any objections to the notice? I have a question. Is the money in on account? Yes, it is. I have ensured that the money is there, and I've seen the bank statement. Yes. Then we can declare the extraordinary general meeting to be declared to have been convened legally. Those of us present, myself, the Chair of the Board of Directors, Stein Erik Hagen, the CEO, Peter A. Ruzicka, Proposed Moderator, Idar Kreutzer, and the annual general meetings secretariat, represented by Executive Vice President, Karl Otto Tveter. Further, Erik Mamelund, the company's auditor, is present. He is sitting there, and also members of the board and group management.
We have 80 shareholders registered, and they represent 49.55% of the total share capital. There is a list that has been drawn up of the shareholders here present, those holding proxies for shareholders and the absentee ballots, including an overview of how many shares and votes each of them represents. All proxy authorizations have been reviewed. The list is hereby presented, and I'm reading from it. The secretariat has now prepared a list over how many shareholders who have issued advanced votes or are present, either themselves or through a proxy. There are a total of 55 voting individuals. Those who have voted in advance are present or have issued proxies represented a total of 419,545 , 822 shares and votes.
The represented shares comprise 41.18% of the company's issued shares. The represented shares comprise 41.18% of the company's voting shares. That is exclusive of shares belonging to the company itself. Voting is for all of the shares represented at the general meeting. This is issued by the DNB Bank and the internal auditor. Then to item one. Election of a moderator. It is proposed that Idar Kreutzer be moved as to be elected moderator. Idar Kreutzer was at one time Chair of Orkla's Corporate Assembly, and he's also been Chair of Orkla's Nomination Committee. He himself is not a shareholder in Orkla. Is there anyone who does not vote in favor of the motion?
Motion is adopted unanimously, and the shareholders to be appointed to co-sign the minutes, along with the chair, Ann-Kristin Brautaset, from the National Insurance Scheme Fund, has been proposed. Are there any other proposals? Apparently not. Nomination is hereby approved. I will now give the floor to our moderator, Idar Kreutzer. Thank you very much. There is one item of discussion at this extraordinary general meeting, and as the board's motion to pay out an extra share dividend of NOK 5 per share, except for treasury shares. We will first have a presentation for this proposal from CEO Peter Ruzicka. Please, I give you the floor. Thank you very much. I'd now like to begin my presentation and go back to 2011 .
In 2011, Orkla was a conglomerate with operations both in brand areas and also a large number of other areas. We communicated then a new strategy for Orkla, and we said we would gradually move to focus on a brand company. That is, we would divest ourselves of anything that was not core operations, and we would invest more in our brand operations. Since 2011, since we communicated this strategy, we have freed up approximately NOK 30 billion . That is, it is determined to be non-core. That is not core operations, and we've invested NOK 15 billion in acquisitions in the BCG area. This has been positively received in the share market, which is quite clearly evident from the share price and in the asset increase.
Before our strategy change, the market value of the company was approximately NOK 43 billion . Today, the value is almost double, it's doubled, and beyond that, Orkla has paid out more than NOK 20 billion in dividends during this period, that's almost 50% of the market value in, as it was in 2011. The largest of these transactions is precisely the sale of our 50% share in Sapa, which we announced on the 10th of July this year, which was completed, concluded with money in account on the 2nd of October this year. This transaction, where we sold 50% of Sapa to Norsk Hydro, this gave Sapa on a 100% basis, and then interest-free basis or a debt-free basis, then valued the company at NOK 27 billion .
If we look at the entire Sapa transaction, we have freed up NOK 20 billion through the listing of Gränges, as we received dividends, and now also the sales sum from our 50% in Sapa. This NOK 20 billion is twice as much of the value that the analysis valued the company at. They valued it at NOK 10 billion at the point of the joint venture establishment with Hydro. You see, there's neither any agreements. This is created values and assets, and this story has really quite shown this very clearly. We will now continue to invest in our BCG area, our branding area.
I'd like to show you this slide, which describes Orkla's business model, which differs quite considerably from other of the multinational companies that we compete with. We have strong number one or number two positions in, and we have a deep insight into our consumers. We provide and produce brands adapted to local preferences of our consumers. That's a model that has functioned very well over many years. We've seen, though, over time, that we need to realize more cost synergies. Each Orkla company has been operated as autonomous companies and units without much cooperation. We'd like to move now in this direction.
As you can see, we will need to move and realize synergies by working more closely together as one Orkla, and utilize the economies of scale across, business units, but also across, geographical regions. This will also require investments in the, from the job we now do, where we will, close down a number of small factories and concentrate, manufacturing in, larger scale, units. There are also economies of scale we can have with the IT, systems. Investing in a, in a common and shared IT system for, Orkla, and we will have higher investments than we have had seen historically.
In addition, we will continue to make acquisitions where we can strengthen our core brand units, also to realize scale benefits, and also to build and to strengthen the positions we have in the markets where we are already present. That is in the Nordic countries, in the Baltic States, and the Central and Eastern Europe. We also wish to increase our exposure in channels that have a higher level of growth than we see in ordinary retail and grocery channels. That can be building, construction, online, chemists, et cetera. We also wish to build on some of the niche positions we have. Where we see we can work across Europe, we're not dependent on large units in each different country.
One of these is wound care, where we have Salvequick, which we purchased from Cederroth. This we believe to be a niche where we believe we can develop this in Europe. As regards the allocation of capital in Orkla, we have over time communicated that our main priority when we have a surplus of capital is to find attractive companies we can acquire and strengthen our brand areas to build value over time. At the same time, we wish to maintain an attractive level of dividend. The ordinary dividend policy is to have NOK 2.5 per share. That's approximately 100% of the cash flow we generate, so it is a very high level of dividend payments.
We also wish to retain our investment grade, to be an investment grade company. Our debt and liabilities in respect of EBITDA should not exceed more than two and a half to three times. This will allow us to have flexibility, and we can borrow money without any governance from banks, and of course, we do see that there are many opportunities in the world for acquisitions. There are many attractive companies we are looking at, and we wish to maintain a high level of dividends, payouts, and to maintain capacity in Orkla, so we can carry out good acquisitions in the future, and we establish a balance, but after Sapa, we have a very strong balance sheet, and so, for this reason, the board proposes a special dividend of NOK 5 per share.
And even after this dividend has been paid out, we do have a strong balance in Orkla financial position. After this payout, we are debt-free in all intents and purposes, so we have an opportunity to expand in the future. And as you can see from the slide, we do have a history of paying out special dividends when there is an opportunity to do so, and our balance and financial position is good, and we believe we are in such a strong financial position. As I say, we do have a very strong financial position. We wish to have that. We don't want to rush into things and make any acquisitions at any cost. It's not the fact that this money is burning a hole in our pockets.
We need to find time and spend time in looking for attractive options for acquisitions, and we do necessarily then need time to make these investments. And we will, of course, in the future, on an ongoing basis, consider candidates for this. If we do not find any attractive candidates for acquisitions or investment opportunities in the future, then we will consider our financial position in the future. But we need to... We'd like to spend the next years in expanding our BCG area. Thank you very much to the Group CEO for a very thorough overview. I'd like to now. Floor is now open for questions and comments to the presentation that has been given.
If anybody wishes to take the floor, and I'd ask anyone who'd like to speak, please stand up and wait for a handheld microphone to be brought to you by a staff member, and for the sake of order, I would mention that at this general meeting, also, the press is being allowed to be present here in keeping with the company's practice, but they are not entitled to speak unless they are registered as a shareholder in the company. Would anybody wish to speak? We have a light shining in your eyes, so please, make your voice known. There is a question there.
My name is Sigurd Sander. I have one thousand shares. I have two questions. One concerns coffee. But if we can eat Orkla products for breakfast to lunchtime and evening, but I believe we don't have coffee.
In my opinion, we should acquire shares in that market. I think there's a great potential there. My second question is that the world is currently being led by a crazy man in the U.S., and we know the financial market dried up for a while. Is the credit good enough in the years ahead, since you're emptying the company of NOK 5 billion? Perhaps we are in a bubble currently. There were two questions. These, it would be natural to direct these to the group CEO. One was concerning opportunities for acquisitions in categories. And secondly, more as regards financial robustness in the company. You mentioned these already, but could you say so? Yes, I'd like to speak.
We are looking at a large number of opportunities and options, both companies, categories, and geographical areas. But on a general basis, I can't, of course, comment on, specifically on what we're looking at. There are many categories that are attractive, and coffee may definitely be one of those. But if we look at the opportunities for expansion, we also look at areas where we can realize synergies, either on the top line or on the basis of costs. Beyond that, I don't think I can make any comments as to what we are looking at. As regards access to credit, as I said, even after the payment of the special dividend of NOK 5 , Orkla is, in reality, debt-free. We have drawing rights, overdraw facilities, and we have an opportunity to borrow a considerable amount of money.
We have a solid and sound financial position, and we have the muscle power, which we feel after our payment of dividend, we do have the opportunity to make investments. Are they satisfactory questions? Any other questions or comments from the floor? Please go ahead. My name is Petri Hola. It says here that the board meeting on the 2nd of October, the board adopted that payment of a special dividend of NOK 5 would be paid out. Since things went so well with Sapa, is there no more money left? The CEO, you could respond to this. As we've said, we are most concerned in looking for new investment options, and in that way, we can create long-term creation of assets and wealth.
One, of course, can, of course, vote against this. In my opinion, I am an investment- investor in, many companies, but, five kroner is a quite, a sound, dividend payment. We also have maintenance costs, investments. We are involved in a, a major IT investment, and I do feel then that five Norwegian kroner is absolutely a good dividend payment. In fact, rather high, rather than in the, the lower region, as it were. Was that a satisfactory response? At least, the, an expression has been given of the, of, of... What I was concerned with was that, there was a higher dividend payment, when you sold Sapa, and when you had the money left. How much money is there left?
We have given you an account of this in our quarterly presentation that was presented earlier today. The board feels that NOK 5 is a good special dividend, and we don't feel there's any room for any more. The figures have been presented, and in formal terms, what the general meeting can do is to either adopt it or to reduce it. In formal terms, there's no access to increase it. At a general meeting, if that is what you are getting at. Not to reduce it, at least, though. I thought perhaps you were that was what you were hinting at. Thank you. Okay, then your question has been answered. Of course, it is natural that the board considers this.
There are a number of interests that need to be taken into account, and of course, the shareholders and interests need to be taken and accommodated. We are concerned with the long-term plans for the company and the opportunities for acquiring other companies. That's what the board has considered and presented to the general meeting. That is a relevant question, though. Any other questions or comments from the floor? Then I think we should vote. Just to make this clear, the board has presented the following proposal: general meeting approves an extra share dividend of NOK 5 per share, except for treasury shares.
Is there anyone who does not vote in favor of the motion to approve an extra share dividend of NOK 5 per share, except for treasury shares? We must then show, just to be quite sure, nobody is voting. No votes against. Then the motion to pay out an extra share dividend of NOK 5 per share, except for treasury shares, has been approved, and I should then inform you of the advance votes and the voting instructions. In this case, there were votes in advance for 1,956,492 voting shares, and there have been an against.
There have been 5,401 voting shares, and then the voting instructions and proxies, a total of 78,860,127 voting shares in favor, and zero voting instructions against the proposal. So then we can ascertain that the motion to pay out an extra share dividend of NOK 5 per share, except for treasury shares, has been approved by the general meeting. As stated in the notice of meeting, the dividend will be paid out on the 3rd of November, 2017 to shareholders registered on the date of the general meeting. The share will be traded ex-dividend as of tomorrow, the 26th of October, 2017 . Now, at this time, there are no more items on the agenda that require decisions by the general meeting.
I would ask Ann-Kristin Brautaset to remain in the venue to co-sign the minutes. All votes have been counted. There weren't that many, and the result has been announced, so we've been through the formal aspects of this meeting. In conclusion, though, I would give the floor to Chair of the Board, Stein Erik Hagen, to round off today's annual general meeting or general meeting. I'd like to thank you for being present here and for the meeting itself. I'd like to thank the administration, who have handled the sale of Sapa with patience and have contributed strongly to improving the results. As you've seen, the result in Sapa has improved considerably in recent years after our entry into the market.
So if we should, if nothing untoward should occur, then we'll meet in the spring at some time for the annual general meeting. As you leave the room, there is a bag of goodies, Orkla goodies, including our new eco-friendly disinfectant cloth. I can recommend it. I've tested it for some months. It's a very good product, so please, you're welcome to take one as you leave. Thank you.