Bonn An era came to an end in Bonn on Thursday. Ulrich Lehner, who chaired the Deutsche Telekom Supervisory Board for 14 years, welcomed the shareholders to the Annual General Meeting for the last time.
Lehner is a legend at Telekom. In a thank you video that CEO Höttges had played for him, the management and supervisory board made clear the high level of respect that Lehner enjoys in the group. Even the self-confident Höttges confessed that he was “a bit scared as a youngster” when he started. Lehner later joked with a smile that he was “not used to” so much praise.
His designated successor, Frank Appel, started rather unhappily in a justifying pose. Several shareholder representatives – for example from Deutsche Bank subsidiary DWS or Union Investment – announced at the general meeting that they would vote against his appointment. The reason: Appel wants to remain the CEO of Deutsche Post for about a year.
This accumulation of offices had already caused criticism in advance because it contradicted the recommendations of the Corporate Governance Code. According to the critics, this is a questionable signal, especially in the case of a state-owned company. After all, the set of rules was created on the initiative of the Federal Ministry of Justice. “Two top positions are one too many,” complained Henrik Pontzen from Union Investment. Even if Appel’s qualification is undisputed.
Major shareholders see no problem
It didn’t help that the Post boss promised as part of his presentation that he wanted to give up some of his duties there from July. In addition, according to Appel, he successfully managed the Post for three years and at the same time the Supervisory Board of Postbank.
Lehner emphasized the time advantage, since his successor lives near Bonn and the post office is not far away either. “Available candidates of this caliber are rare,” says Lehner.
Most shareholder representatives, such as Ingo Speich from the savings bank fund company Deka, were not convinced. Appel must run a global logistics group at the same time, Speich told the Handelsblatt. This is an extremely challenging job, especially given the war in Ukraine.
However, Appel’s appointment was not really in jeopardy, since the most important major shareholders, such as the federal government, still wanted to vote for him. He was finally elected the new chairman of the supervisory board around 7 p.m. with almost 84 percent of the votes present.
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Ambitious plans for fiber optic expansion and US business
Telekom boss Höttges used the general meeting to confirm his ambitious business goals. The group wants to grow on both sides of the Atlantic. In the USA, primarily for business customers and in rural areas, where the market share of the subsidiary T-Mobile US has so far been less than 20 percent. With fiber optic expansion in Germany, “significantly more” than ten million connections are to be laid within two years.
Höttges intends to increase adjusted earnings per share from the current EUR 1.22 to EUR 1.75 by 2024. Then Telekom, whose debt had recently risen to a record value of 132.1 billion euros, wants to meet its own limit values in terms of liabilities again. Regarding the loans, Höttges spoke of “a huge sum”, for which favorable interest rates had been secured in the long term. A remedy could be the sale of the group’s own radio towers, for which there is “extremely high demand” on the market, according to Höttges.
Project for fast Internet on the train
At the beginning of the meeting he presented the “Black Shepherd Dog” project. Telekom, together with Deutsche Bahn, finally wants to make mobile phone coverage on trains more reliable. To do this, repeaters are installed on the roofs of the wagons and the panes are lasered.
Telekom’s dividend for the past financial year rose by just four cents to 64 cents per share. This “stingy dividend policy” (Deka-Mann Speich) was criticized by several shareholders. The great successes in the USA, it was said, would not reach the German shareholders.
Telekom’s Annual General Meeting was the first of a DAX group to be held as a face-to-face event since the beginning of the corona pandemic. According to official information, a good 1,500 shareholders had come.
More: Balance sheet check – Deutsche Telekom is taking risks