Linde AG complies with the legal requirement to treat all shareholders equally. Transparency plays an important role in our company and we always aim to provide shareholders and the public with comprehensive, consistent and up-to-date information.
We keep our shareholders and the general public informed about key dates for the Group and about our publications in a financial calendar which appears in our annual report and in the interim reports, as well as on the Linde AG website. There are also the Articles of Association deposited. Linde AG publishes ad-hoc announcements and press releases as well as notifiable securities transactions (directors’ dealings) in the legally prescribed media and on its website. Linde provides information to the capital market and to the public through analysts’ conferences and press conferences which coincide with the publication of the quarterly, semi-annual or annual results or in the form of teleconferences. Regular events involving the CEO and the CFO and institutional investors and financial analysts also ensure a regular exchange of information with the financial markets.
In addition to considering the interests of its shareholders, Linde takes account of the concerns of other stakeholders who also contribute to the success of the company. As far as possible, we include all the stakeholders in our corporate communications. Linde’s stakeholders include all its employees, its customers and suppliers, trade associations and government institutions.
Directors’ Dealings
Linde AG publishes without delay those transactions required to be notified under § 15 a of the German Securities Trading Law (WpHG) which have been effected by the persons named therein, in particular officers of the company and related parties, in shares of the company or related financial instruments, in accordance with the provisions of the law. The notifications also appear on the Linde website.
In the financial year 2007, members of the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board informed BaFin (the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority) about one notifiable purchase transaction and a total of six notifiable sale transactions involving between 1,000 and 45,000 Linde shares, which were mostly in connection with the exercise of share options under the Linde Management Incentive Programme 2002. The price was between EUR 81.85 and EUR 91.71 per share and the size of the individual transactions between EUR 88,490 and EUR 4,126,950. In the case of sales of shares which members of the Executive Board subscribed for by exercising share options under the Linde Management Incentive Programme, the subscription rights were included at their value on the grant date in the disclosure of the remuneration of the Executive Board in the relevant financial year.
Interests in share capital
The total holdings of all the members of the Executive and Supervisory Boards in Linde AG shares or related financial instruments during the financial year 2007 do not exceed 1 percent of the issued share capital. Therefore, there were no interests required to be disclosed under section 6.6 of the German Corporate Governance Code.