The Annual Shareholders' Meeting of Accor was held today in Paris and chaired by Sébastien Bazin, Chairman and CEO. Holders of 73.34% of the shares were present or represented by proxy.
During the Meeting, Sébastien Bazin presented the key components of AccorHotels' new strategy and highlighted the Group's achievements in 2016.
Jean-Jacques Morin, Chief Financial Officer, reviewed the Group's record financial performance in 2016, which included EBIT of €696 million, and commented on first-quarter 2017 activity.
The Shareholders' Meeting approved the payment of a €1.05 dividend per share, with each shareholder given the option of reinvesting all of the dividend in shares with a 5% discount.
The shares will trade ex-dividend from May 12, 2017 and the dividend will be paid on June 6, 2017. The dividend reinvestment option will be exercisable from May 12 to the close of business on May 26, 2017. If the option is not exercised during this period, the dividend will be paid in cash.
The shares awarded in payment of dividends will be issued at a price of €37.16, corresponding to 95% of the average of the opening prices quoted for Accor shares over the twenty trading days preceding the Shareholders' Meeting, less the amount of the dividend. The shares awarded in payment of dividends will carry dividend rights from January 1, 2017.
Also during the Meeting, shareholders re-elected Iris Knobloch and Sébastien Bazin as directors for a three-year term, and ratified the cooptation as directors of Sheikh Nawaf Bin Jassim Bin Jabor Al-Thani, Vivek Badrinath and Nicolas Sarkozy.
In addition, the directorship of employee representative director Iliane Dumas was renewed for a three-year period by the trade union that obtained the most votes in the trade union elections, in accordance with Article 12 of the Company's bylaws.
All of the resolutions supported by the Board of Directors were adopted. Resolution A, which was submitted by a group of shareholders, obtained 52.36% of the votes cast and was therefore rejected.