• At today’s shareholder meeting alstria offered its shareholders a choice: endorse investments that would accelerate decarbonisation but dilute earnings or require that the funds earmarked for these investments to be paid out as dividend 
• 95.1% of alstria shareholders voted in favour of the 1 Euro cent per share of Green Dividend to be paid out 
• The shareholder’s decision on the Green Dividend pay-out provides a clear mandate: alstria shall not weaken its return expectations solely based on better climate change expectations

Hamburg, September 29, 2020 – At today’s Annual General Meeting, alstria office REIT-AG (symbol: AOX, ISIN: DE000A0LD2U1) proposed the new Green Dividend concept to its shareholders. The shareholders of the company overwhelmingly voted to have the Green Dividend paid out.
 
For the first time, a company has asked its shareholders whether they would approve spending corporate assets on environmental projects that would create little shareholder value but would improve the company’s carbon footprint. The vote clarifies that alstria’s shareholders do not expect it to invest into projects that do not meet its financial return criteria. Hence, positive impact on climate change alone is not sufficient for pursuing an investment.
 
The voting result shows a divide between smaller (owning less than 50.000 shares) and larger shareholders (owning more than 50.000 shares). While the majority of the former voted in favour of the non-yielding investments more than 95% of the latter voted to get the funds paid out as a dividend.
 
“alstria’s business model is about refurbishing existing assets and, in doing so, substantially improving their carbon footprint. In this process, our investment decisions have always been driven by financial returns expectation. Positive climate impact was a natural additional benefit”, says Olivier Elamine, CEO of alstria. “With the Green Dividend, we have asked our shareholders whether we should reverse the order of priorities. Should we accept lower financial returns for the sake of higher climate impact? The answer is clear: We should not. Today’s vote helped us to clarify the mandate of the company”, Olivier Elamine states.
 
It is important for alstria to underline that vote’s result is not to be interpreted as a refusal by shareholders to address climate change. It could hint to the fact that for the Green Dividend, shareholders see investment opportunities elsewhere that would yield better results, both financially and from a climate change perspective.

More information on:
www.alstria.com
www.beehive.work   
 

About alstria:

alstria office REIT AG is the leading real-estate operator focusing solely on German office property in selected German markets. Our strategy is based on the ownership and an active management of our properties throughout their entire life cycle, strong added-value services to our customers and deep knowledge of the markets in which we operate. alstria strives for sustainable long-term value creation while taking advantage of short-term arbitrage of inefficiencies in the real estate markets. The portfolio comprises 116 buildings with a lettable area of 1.6 million sqm and a total portfolio value of EUR 3.4 billion.

Disclaimer:
This release constitutes neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to buy any shares. As far as this press release contains forward-looking statements with respect to the business, financial condition and results of operations of alstria office REIT-AG (alstria), these statements are based on current expectations or beliefs of alstria’s management. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or performance of the Company to differ materially from those reflected in such forward-looking statements. Apart from other factors not mentioned here, differences could occur as a result of changes in the overall economic situation and the competitive environment – especially in the core business segments and markets of alstria. Also, the development of the financial markets and changes in national as well as international provisions particularly in the field of tax legislation and financial reporting standards could have an effect. Terrorist attacks and their consequences could increase the likelihood and the extent of differences. alstria undertakes no obligation to publicly release any revisions or updates to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.