SEB has now received approval to carry out the reduction of the share capital concerning 17.4 million repurchased own shares decided at the Annual General Meeting in 2005. The reduction is implemented through a withdrawal of 10,780,000 Class A-shares and 6,621,049 Class C-shares without repayment. Thereafter, SEB owns 18,547,061 own Class A-shares, corresponding to 2.7 per cent of the share capital and 2.9 per cent of the votes, for hedging of the bank's long-term incentive programmes.
The reduced share capital of 174,010,490 Swedish kronor shall be allocated to a fund and be used in accordance with a decision by the General Meeting.
After the cancellation the share capital amounts to 6,871,566,310 Swedish kronor and the total number of shares to 687.2 million, whereof 663.0 million Class A-shares and 24.2 Class C-shares.
The SEB Group is a North European financial group for corporate customers, institutions and private individuals with ten home markets in the Nordic and Baltic countries, Germany, Poland and the Ukraine. SEB has 680 branch offices and 5 million customers, of whom approximately 2 million use the internet for their banking transactions. On 30 June 2005, the Group's total assets amounted to SEK 1,800bn while its assets under management totalled SEK 1,012bn. The Group is represented in some 20 countries around the world and has a staff of about 20,000. Read more about SEB at www.sebgroup.com.