Leonteq AG (SIX: LEON) today published the agenda and the proposals of the Board of Directors for its Annual General Meeting on 31 March 2021.
At Leonteq’s forthcoming Annual General Meeting, six members of the Board of Directors will stand for re-election for a further term of office of one year, and the Board of Directors proposes the re-election of Christopher Chambers as Chairman. Jörg Behrens and Patrick de Figueiredo will not stand for re-election.
Jörg Behrens has served as a member of the Board of Directors, as the Chairman of the Risk Committee and as a member of the Audit Committee since 2012, the year in which Leonteq went public, and has been the Chairman of the combined Audit and Risk Committee since 2020. Patrick de Figueiredo was elected to Leonteq’s Board of Directors in 2010 and has been a founding partner representative since 2013. He has served as a member of the Audit Committee from 2010 to 2017, the Risk Committee from 2015 to 2019 and of the combined Audit and Risk Committee since 2020.
Christopher M. Chambers, Chairman of Leonteq, stated: “On behalf of the Board of Directors and the company, I would like to express my gratitude to Jörg and Patrick for their valuable contributions to Leonteq over many years. With their expertise in the financial industry and their strategic foresight, they have been instrumental in the development of Leonteq into a leading service and technology platform that is recognised in the financial community as a reliable and innovative partner.”
With a view to further increase the independence of the Board of Directors, Leonteq’s founding partners, Lukas Ruflin and Sandro Dorigo, have decided to no longer be represented with a dedicated seat on the Board of Directors following the Annual General Meeting on 31 March 2021.
As new independent members, the Board of Directors proposes the election of Sylvie Davidson and Philippe Le Baquer.
Based in Hong Kong, Sylvie Davidson (1967) served as Chief Risk Officer UBS APAC for the Group and the Wealth Management business from 2017 to 2019. Prior to that, she was Chief Operating Officer APAC Equities at Barclays Capital Asia from 2015 to 2016. From 2009 to 2015, she worked at Standard Chartered Bank, Hong Kong, where she was the Managing Director in charge of Equity Financing and Business Development, and also Head of Platform & Investor Product Structuring. Sylvie Davidson started her career as a derivatives trader at Merrill Lynch in 1989 in Zurich and moved to the Hong Kong office in 1994 where she progressed to the position of Head of Structured Products Development for Equities and Equity Derivatives from 2001 to 2008. Sylvie Davidson is a Swiss national and a Hong Kong permanent resident and is a recent graduate of the Financial Times Non-Executive Director Diploma.
Philippe Le Baquer (1966) has been a Senior Adviser of Rothschild & Co, London since 2017, following a successful career at the same firm from 2008 to 2017 as a Managing Director advising a wide range of financial institutions, governments and regulators on strategic matters, mergers & acquisitions and capital market transactions. Before his time at Rothschild & Co, he worked as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers in London from 1999 to 2008. He started his career at Morgan Grenfell / Deutsche Bank in 1992 as an M&A banker in Paris and London. Philippe Le Baquer is a French national and holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Université de Rennes, France and a post-graduate degree in Finance and Capital Markets from Sciences Po Paris.
Richard A. Laxer, Chairman of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, stated: “Over the past four years, Leonteq has measurably strengthened the independence as well as the diversity and skills of the Board of Directors. With the nomination of Sylvie Davidson and Philippe Le Baquer, two high profile candidates, we are taking an additional important step in this direction.”
As communicated with its full-year 2020 results, the Board of Directors proposes that a distribution of CH 0.75 per share be paid for the financial year 2020, in equal amounts out of retained earnings and reserves from capital contributions. Shareholders will also vote on the approval of the management report, the financial statements and the consolidated financial statements for the financial year 2020. As a general principle of company practice, the Board of Directors also proposes to re-new the authorisation to increase share capital until 31 March 2023 up to a maximum amount of CHF 4 million fully paid in registered shares. There are no plans by the Board of Directors to make use of this option at this point in time. Furthermore, the Board of Directors proposes the approval of the compensation of the Board of Directors and of the Executive Committee, in separate votes, and the re-election of Leonteq’s statutory auditor as well as of the independent proxy.
The Board of Directors of Leonteq has decided to hold the Annual General Meeting 2021 without shareholders being physically present and that shareholders should exercise their shareholder rights via the independent proxy. The Board of Directors regrets having to make this decision, but in view of the current situation sees no possibility of holding the General Meeting in the usual framework.
The invitation to the Annual General Meeting on 31 March 2021 is available at www.leonteq.com/agm