The Annual General Meeting of Metso Corporation approved today the accounts for 2007 as presented by the Board of Directors and decided to discharge the members of the Board of Directors and the President and CEO of Metso Corporation from liability for the financial year 2007. In addition, the Annual General Meeting approved the proposals of the Board of Directors to authorize Board of Directors to resolve of a repurchase of the Corporation's own shares, of a share issue and to grant of special rights, and to decrease the share premium reserve and the legal reserve.
The Annual General Meeting decided to establish a Nomination Committee of the Annual General Meeting to prepare proposals for the following Annual General Meeting in respect of the composition of the Board of Directors along with the director remuneration. Nomination Committee consists of the representatives appointed by the four biggest shareholders along with the Chairman of the Board of Directors as an expert member.
Matti Kavetvuo was re-elected the Chairman of the Board and Jaakko Rauramo was re-elected the Vice Chairman of the Board. Jukka Viinanen and Arto Honkaniemi were elected as new members of the Board. Board members re-elected were Maija-Liisa Friman, Christer Gardell and Yrjö Neuvo. The term of office of Board members lasts until the end of the next Annual General Meeting.
The Annual General Meeting decided that the annual remunerations for Board members be EUR 92,000 for the Chairman, EUR 56,000 for the Vice Chairman and EUR 45,000 for the members and that the meeting fee including committee meetings be EUR 600 for meeting.
The auditing company, Authorized Public Accountant PricewaterhouseCoopers was re-elected to act as an Auditor of the Corporation until the end of the next Annual General Meeting.
The Annual General Meeting decided that a dividend of EUR 3.00 per share be paid for the financial year which ended on December 31, 2007. The dividend comprises an ordinary dividend of EUR 1.65 per share and an extra dividend of EUR 1.35 per share.The dividend will be paid to shareholders who have been entered as shareholders in the Corporation's shareholder register maintained by the Finnish Central Securities Depository Ltd. by the dividend record date, April 7, 2008. The dividend will be paid on April 15, 2008.
Metso is a global engineering and technology corporation with 2007 net sales of approximately EUR 6 billion. Its almost 27,000 employees in approximately 50 countries serve customers in the pulp and paper industry, rock and minerals processing, the energy industry and selected other industries.
www.metso.com
Further information for the press, please contact:
Aleksanteri Lebedeff, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Metso Corporation,
tel. +358 20 484 3240
Further information for investors, please contact:
Johanna Sintonen, Vice President, Investor Relations, Metso Corporation, tel. +358 20 484 3253
Metso Corporation
Olli Vaartimo
Executive Vice President and CFO
Kati Renvall
Vice President,
Corporate Communications
distribution:
OMX Nordic Exchange in Helsinki
Media
www.metso.com