Shareholder information

A lot happened in NORDEN’s shareholder area in 2007. The share price more than doubled, the share’s liquidity rose significantly as a result of a larger free float, NORDEN was included in the OMX C20 index, and Danish as well as international investors’ interest in the Company soared.

 

It is the Company’s goal that the share price reflects the Company’s actual and expected ability to create value for its shareholders. The Company is promoting this goal by consistently providing timely, precise and relevant information on the Company’s strategy, operation, results and expectations. Through detailed reporting, the Company aims to provide easy access to information and maintain an open dialogue with its stakeholders within the framework of the stock exchange rules of ethics.

 

In 2007, the Company launched a new website and continuously seeks to improve its reporting and general level of information. In addition, the Management regularly holds meetings with analysts, investors and the media. A list of the analysts following the NORDEN share can be found on the website.

 

Through an active information policy, the Company seeks to ensure open dialogue with its shareholders. All shareholders are therefore advised to have their shares registered in the register of shareholders. At the end of the year, the Company had a total of 7,741 shareholders registered by name, which is about four times as many as the previous year.

 

The share price opened at DKK 240 and closed on 28 December 2007 at DKK 564. This constitutes a price increase of 135%, making NORDEN one of the three highest performing shares on the OMX Nordic Exchange, Copenhagen. Including the dividend distributed in May of DKK 5 per share, the return for the year reached 138%. By comparison, the OMXC20 index rose by 5% and the Bloomberg DRYSHIP Index by 141%.

 

The liquidity of the share markedly improved in April 2007 after the Company’s major shareholder, A/S Dampskibsselskabet TORM, decided to sell its shareholding through book building. In connection with this, NORDEN bought back 1,457,940 treasury shares, equalling 3% of the share capital. The NORDEN share’s free float was thus increased from some 15% to approximately 50%, following which the average daily turnover of the share rose sharply. In the second to fourth quarters, the average daily turnover was approximately DKK 160 million.

 

The positive development in the share’s liquidity and price meant that NORDEN at 27 December was included as a component of the OMXC20 Index on the OMX Nordic Exchange, Copenhagen. The index comprises the 20 most traded shares. At the time, the Company was the eighth most traded share in the OMXC20 index with a market cap of DKK 25 billion. The Company is included in the OMXC20 index with an index weighting of 2.53%.

 

At the end of 2007, two shareholders, A/S Motortramp and Kristiansands Tankrederi AS (a wholly owned subsidiary of Rasmussengruppen AS), announced that they own 5% or more of the shares in the Company. The two shareholders own a total of 21,443,940 shares equal to 51.2% of the Company’s share capital, excluding treasury shares.

 

As announced in a notice to the Copenhagen Stock Exchange on 11 October 2004, Rasmussengruppen AS and A/S Motortramp had the same day entered into an agreement whereby the parties, except for transfers of shares (i) to their respective shareholders and (ii) to their respective wholly owned subsidiaries, have undertaken not to make any transfer of shares in NORDEN without first offering these to the other party, and if the other party does not accept such offer to ensure that the transferee offers to acquire all of the other party’s shares in the Company on identical or better terms and conditions. These rules do, however, not apply to the part of the parties’ respective shareholdings that exceed 20% of the share capital in the Company.

 

At the Company’s annual general meeting on 25 April 2007, it was resolved to change the denomination of the shares from DKK 20 to DKK 1. Subsequently, at the Company’s extraordinary general meeting on 20 June 2007, it was resolved to reduce the share capital by a nominal amount of DKK 1,475,000 by cancelling 1,475,000 treasury shares. The cancellation was finalised after the end of a three-month statutory claims filing period. The Company’s total share capital now amounts to DKK 44,600,000, comprising 44.6 million shares of DKK 1 each.