Ordinary General Meeting of Zurich approves dividend of CHF 17.00 – Christoph Franz elected to the Board of Directors

At today’s Ordinary General Meeting Zurich’s shareholders approved the dividend of CHF 17.00 and newly elected Christoph Franz to the Board of Directors. The shareholders further approved the amendments to the Articles of Incorporation related to the Minder Initiative.

The General Meeting of Zurich Insurance Group Ltd (Zurich) today approved an unchanged dividend of CHF 17.00 per registered share, resulting in a payout ratio of net income of 69%. As this year’s dividend payment will again be paid from the capital contribution reserves, it will be exempt from Swiss withholding tax. The dividend will be paid starting April 9, 2014.

Further, Zurich proposed amendments to the Articles of Incorporation to the General Meeting, which are related to the Minder Initiative and implement the terms of the Ordinance against Excessive Remuneration in listed Stock Corporations (ECO). The shareholders approved the respective amendments of the Articles of Incorporation with 90.44%. Pursuant to the new Articles of Incorporation the General Meeting will pre-approve the remuneration of the Board of Directors and the Group Executive Committee as of 2015. Additionally, the remuneration report, which among other things will contain the actual remuneration paid, will be submitted to the shareholders for an advisory vote. The amended Articles of Incorporation also include provisions concerning the number of permissible activities members of the Board of Directors or Group Executive Committee may assume.

The shareholders newly elected Christoph Franz to the Board of Directors with 99.06%. They also re-elected Tom de Swaan as Chairman for a further term of office of one year. According to the ECO, the General Meeting elects the Chairman directly. All other members of the Board of Directors were also re-elected for a further term of office of one year, as required by the ECO. As previously announced, Victor L.L. Chu and Rolf Watter retire from the Board of Directors. In its constituent meeting held after the General Meeting the Board of Directors re-elected Fred Kindle as Vice-Chairman.

The Board of Directors now consists of the following members:

• Tom de Swaan, Chairman
• Fred Kindle, Vice-Chairman
• Susan Bies
• Dame Alison Carnwath
• Rafael del Pino
• Thomas K. Escher
• Christoph Franz
• Monica Maechler
• Don Nicolaisen

Under the new rules, the members of the remuneration committee are also elected directly by the General Meeting. The remuneration committee now consists of the following members:

• Dame Alison Carnwath
• Tom de Swaan
• Rafael del Pino
• Thomas K. Escher

PricewaterhouseCoopers AG, Zurich, was re-elected as auditor for the business year 2014.

Furthermore, Zurich conducted an advisory vote on its remuneration system. In the non-binding vote, shareholders voted in favor of the remuneration system with 87.42% favorable votes.

The General Meeting also approved all other agenda items. 1,855 shareholders (incl. proxies), representing 58,722,918 registered shares or 58.95% of the shares entitling to vote, attended the meeting in Zurich.

The detailed results of all votes will be published on www.zurich.com as of April 4, 2014.

Further information

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