PARIS — Valeo’s Combined Annual Shareholders’ Meeting was held yesterday under the chairmanship of Pascal Colombani.
At the meeting, shareholders approved 2009 financial figures, which were published on Feb. 24.
"Valeo has set as its objective for the first half 2010 to achieve sales of 4.7 billion, a 35 percent increase versus the first half 2009, and an operating margin level of close to 6 percent of sales, the highest half-yearly level for the past eight years," said Jacques Aschenbroich, Valeo’s CEO. "I am therefore very confident that we will achieve the objective for the full year 2010 that we communicated on Feb. 24, which will be fine-tuned during the presentation of the first half results on July 27."
By focusing the Group’s R&D and investment efforts on technologies that enable a reduction in vehicle CO2 emissions and on emerging markets, Valeo said it intends to return to organic growth and aims to achieve sales of 10 billion euros (roughly $12 billion) in 2013. In addition, by lowering investments in mature countries and cutting Group overheads, Valeo aims to achieve a return on capital employed, before restructuring and goodwill, of 30 percent during the same period. Strengthened by this return to profitable growth, and as part of the industrial strategy unanimously approved by the board, Valeo intends to actively work to ensure the highest possible value for the Group in this fast-evolving sector.
Also during the meeting, the terms of board members Daniel Camus and Jerome Contamine were renewed, and the cooptation of Michel de Fabiani as a board member was ratified. Noelle Lenoir was appointed as a new board member. Lenoir is a lawyer, member of the Conseil d’Etat, former member of the Conseil Constitutionnel and former deputy minister in charge of European Affairs.
All other resolutions up for review were also adopted, in particular, those involving the approval of agreements benefiting the CEO and the granting of Valeo shares to employees and corporate officers. Detailed results of the voting on each resolution are available on the Group’s website valeo.com.
