Structure of Shareholders

The number of shares with voting rights was 180,492,172. As part of the share buyback program commenced on August 16, 2021 and completed on December 30, 2022, a total of 8,161,096 outstanding shares were repurchased with an average price of EUR 36.83 and are now held as treasury shares. Market capitalization at the end of 2022 was approximately EUR 6.9 billion (previous year: EUR 8.7 billion).

In 2022, as in previous years, GEA performed regular analyses of its shareholder structure. The latest analysis identified 99.5 percent of all 180.5 million shares. According to the analysis, institutional investors held 78.3 percent of all shares, while 14.8 percent was held by major shareholders and 2.6 percent by retail investors. At the time of the analysis, 3.9 percent was held as treasury shares.

GEA still has two investors – Kuwait Investment Office (KIA) and Oliver Capital (the principal shareholder of Groupe Bruxelles Lambert) – that are deemed to be major shareholders according to the definition applied by the German stock exchange (Deutsche Börse AG) and therefore do not count as free float as well as treasury shares. According to the latest information available to the company, KIA holds a stake of 8.4 percent (approximately 15.2 million shares) and Oliver Capital holds a stake of 6.3 percent (approximately 11.4 million shares). According to Deutsche Börse AG, GEA’s free float was due to the share buyback and the two major shareholders approximately 80.7 percent as of December 31, 2022.

Regionally, investors from the United States of America particularly increased their position compared with the previous year, while the shareholdings of investors from the United Kingdom, Germany and Norway remained virtually unchanged. Investors from France and other countries slightly reduced their positions compared with 2021.