The Annual General Meeting 2022 of Instone Real Estate Group SE ("Instone") was held today for the third time virtually due to the corona virus pandemic. Despite the ongoing pandemic, the 2021 business year was an overall success. Hence, the Annual General Meeting resolved to pay a dividend of EUR 0.62 per share. The AGM also endorsed all other resolutions proposed by the Management Board and the Supervisory Board with overwhelming majorities.
The Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Stefan Brendgen, announced that the contract of Dr Foruhar Madjlessi, CFO and Management Board Member, had been prematurely extended for a further four and a half years until 31 December 2026. Madjlessi has been the company's Chief Financial Officer since January 2019 and was previously appointed until 31 December 2022. Last year the Supervisory Board had already prematurely renewed the contracts of Kruno Crepulja, CEO and Chairman of the Management Board and Andreas Gräf, COO and Management Board Member for a second term in office until 31 December 2025. Both have been on the Board of the residential developer since 2017. "We are pleased that Instone's management is well-positioned for the coming years with this strong Management Board team," affirmed the Chairman of the Supervisory Board.
Chairman Crepulja said during the AGM, "I firmly believe in Instone's success. Our business model is intact and stands for continuity. We are strongly positioned with leading profitability and a sound balance sheet. This is what sets us apart from many of our competitors. Dear shareholders, I would like to extend my thanks to you for your loyalty to our company." Instone exceeded its own earnings targets with significant profit growth and maintained its industry-leading profitability in the second year of the corona pandemic.
In his speech, CEO Crepulja also reiterated that the slowdown resulting from the war in Ukraine, such as material bottlenecks and rising interest rates could not be ignored, but that Instone would structurally remain a core beneficiary of the surplus demand for residential real estate in Germany. "Interesting additional medium-term growth potential may well arise from the current market situation. We can continue to invest and will continue to do so," added Crepulja. According to his statement, an important contribution to strengthening medium-term growth, especially in an environment with increased interest rates, is the new subsidiary nyoo with a clear focus on affordable housing. "This way, we are making building and living in medium-sized cities and metropolitan suburbs much more affordable again for the broad core of society. We are opening up new markets and target groups. We see enormous potential in this in terms of future prospects." The CEO also stressed that Instone would stick to its goal of operating in a climate-neutral manner along the entire value chain by 2045. He also pointed out that the rating agency Sustainalytics, which specialises in ESG and sustainability, ranked the company among the top 2 per cent of global real estate developers last year.
At the Annual General Meeting, the five-member Supervisory Board was re-elected for four additional years. In addition to the Chairman Stefan Brendgen, the members of the Board are Dr Jochen Scharpe, Christiane Jansen, Thomas Hegel and Dietmar P. Binkowska.
