Vonovia SE Shareholders approve €1.69 dividend at Annual General Meeting

• Vonovia holds virtual Annual General Meeting
• Vonovia once again offers a scrip dividend
• Jürgen Fitschen: “We are all longing for normality”
• Rolf Buch: „We keep our promises“

Bochum, Germany, April 16, 2021 – At today’s Annual General Meeting, the shareholders of Vonovia SE (“Vonovia”) approved all resolutions proposed by the Supervisory Board and the Management Board with the required majority. This includes the modified remuneration system with embedded sustainability targets. In particular, they formally approved the actions of both bodies for the 2020 financial year with a large majority of the votes (Supervisory Board: 97.79 %; Management Board: 99.88 %).

The dividend proposed by the Supervisory Board and the Management Board for the 2020 financial year met with broad approval among the shareholders. So Vonovia is now paying out €1.69 per share, amounting to an increase of about 8% compared with last year. As before, shareholders can opt for receiving a scrip dividend instead of a conventional cash dividend.

“We are all longing for normality. However, this time also shows us clearly how much we have been taking things in our lives for granted that cannot be taken for granted,” said Chairman of the Supervisory Board Jürgen Fitschen.

He subsequently emphasized: “To make its contribution to social harmony, a housing company needs to address a variety of issues: It has to create additional, new and affordable housing. There needs to be diversity within each neighbourhood, and the existing diversity must be improved. Climate protection requires resolute action. The supply of housing for the elderly and disabled has to be expanded and developed. And to do all this, we will need to move along new paths.”

Keeping promises

“Defeating COVID-19 is a high priority,” said Rolf Buch, CEO of Vonovia, in his speech. “But it’s equally important to protect our climate and to keep an eye on other major concerns of our society. None of those things can wait, and at Vonovia we are certainly not going to sit back and wait. We are part of the solution.” Turning to the shareholders, Buch emphasized: “We keep our promises – year after year. And it’s important. We need you for everything we do and everything we plan.“

Mutual Trust

„Everyone can rely on Vonovia: our tenants, our workforce, people in our society – and, of course, our shareholders,” said Rolf Buch. “You can all rely on us to act sustainably and with an eye to the future.” And the CEO addressed another dimension of trust: „Vonovia can also rely on you – on our tenants, on our workforce, in fact on all of you. So I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you very much indeed.”

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic Vonovia organized a virtual Annual General Meeting, as in 2020. Once again, the Bochum real estate company used a creative format. Representatives of the Supervisory Board and the Management Board spoke to the shareholders from the studio set up at the corporate headquarters in Bochum. The entire Annual General Meeting was also translated by sign language interpreters. As at the previous Annual General Meeting, several key stakeholders expressed their views in video statements.

The shareholders followed the Annual General Meeting in a live stream. Shareholders had submitted their questions electronically in the period leading up to April 14. They were able to exercise their voting rights both in advance and during the Annual General Meeting, either per postal vote or by authorizing the company’s proxies. In total, this corresponded to 76.73 % of the share capital.


The Supervisory Board of Vonovia SE has the following members: Jürgen Fitschen (Chairman), Prof. Dr. Edgar Ernst (Deputy Chairman), Burkhard Ulrich Drescher, Vitus Eckert, Dr. Florian Funck, Dr. Ute Geipel-Faber, Daniel Just, Hildegard Müller, Prof. Dr. Klaus Rauscher, Dr. Ariane Reinhart, Clara-Christina Streit and Christian Ulbrich.

The Management Board of Vonovia SE has the following members: Rolf Buch (CEO), Arnd Fittkau (CRO), Mag. Daniel Riedl (Development and Austria) and Helene von Roeder (CFO).

The detailed voting results of the Annual General Meeting will be published at https://investoren.vonovia.de/agm.

2021 Financial Calendar
May 4, 2021: Interim Statement for the first quarter of 2021
August 6, 2021: Interim Financial Report for 2021
November 4, 2021: Interim Statement for the first nine months of 2021