A day when the focus is on our shareholders. At Iberdrola , we continue to innovate at all levels. We have decided to hold our AGM as part of an event featuring various activities, with the goal of involving our shareholders in the company’s future.
The Palacio Euskalduna conference centre in Bilbao is the chosen venue for Iberdrola’s Shareholder Day, scheduled for 27 March next. A number of presentations and activities have been planned with a view to giving our shareholders an insight into our business, corporate and institutional dimensions.
As part of our Shareholder Engagement Policy, we have organised a schedule of forums and meetings where we will be listening to the opinions of all our shareholders about the past, present and future of the group.
From 9:00 a.m. onwards the doors of the area known as “Plaza Iberdrola” will be opened and the programme of events scheduled for the “Plató Iberdrola” (Iberdrola Stage) will be announced. We will be looking back on the most important milestones achieved by Iberdrola in 2014, which helped us end the year with good economic results. They are also the reason why we continue to drive innovation and implement best practices in the area of corporate governance.
At Plaza Iberdrola, which will also feature musical performances, we want to show our shareholders a more social dimension of the company and have planned a broad-ranging schedule of interviews with relevant speakers. The first of these will focus on the Electricity for All programme, which was set up to ensure access to electricity in emerging and developing countries. A group of volunteers and managers working on this initiative will brief listeners on the work they do to extend universal access to energy in countries like Ethiopia.
We will then go on to look at training and sport. Our colleagues from the Fundación Iberdrola will give a presentation on the Scholarship Programme, which offers grants for studies in Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.. As regards sport, we will have the pleasure of welcoming a member of the Paralympic sailing team, which is sponsored by Iberdrola.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Innovation will also be taking the stage. We will be interviewing experts and scientists about their experiences in this field. Iberdrola has once again been acknowledged as the most innovative Spanish utility and the fifth most innovative in Europe, according to the ranking drawn up by the European Commission, thanks to our €170 million investment in groundbreaking initiatives in 2014.
The last item on the agenda will be Culture. The event will end on a high note, with a talk featuring experts from the Prado Museum, whose restoration work we support via the Fundación Iberdrola. This backing has enabled the restoration of works by artists such as Titian, Velázquez and Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Click here to view the embedded video.
We will also be talking about our sustainable patronage work, which has enabled us to build up our art collection. Although it has grown gradually over time, it was given a major boost in the last seven years, when it was reorganised and extended.
Parallel to this schedule of activities, the company has also planned various forums on social action and sustainability and on Iberdrola’s economic and industrial activities. Shareholders will have an opportunity to engage in dialogue with representatives from the company.
We will brief listeners on the company’s offshore wind power projects, reminding those in attendance that we were the first Spanish company to commission a complex of this kind, the West of Duddon Sands facility in the United Kingdom. This offshore wind farm consists of 108 turbines, each with a capacity of 3.6 megawatts. With a total capacity of 389 megawatts, it will meet the annual needs of some 280,000 households.
Click here to view the embedded video.
This will be followed by a forum focusing on the social and cultural dimensions of Iberdrola, with talks by those in charge of social programmes and art & culture at the Fundación Iberdrola. There will also be a forum for investors, with information on the trend followed by the company’s shares.
We will then go on to look at the situation of the company’s distribution networks, with a special focus on the progress made in the Star smart grids project. By the end of 2014, some 4.2 million smart meters had been installed in Spain.
The event will end with an exhibition on Iberdrola’s main investor relations channels and its Shareholder Engagement Policy.
Any questions or comments that are made during these events, as well as any other issues that the shareholders raise via the other channels for participation, may be brought before the AGM, to be addressed along with the questions that are asked by those in attendance during the speeches.
The forums will end at 11:00 a.m.. Half an hour later, the Annual General Meeting for 2015 will begin with a speech by the Group’s Chairman Ignacio Galán on the current situation, the results achieved last year and the outlook for the company.
You may follow our Shareholder Day on our Unience profile, our Twitter channel @Iberdrola_En or our website.