voestalpine has had an employee shareholding scheme since 2001, which has been continually expanded since then. Besides the company’s workforce in Austria, employees in Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland also have a share in “their” company.
The voting rights associated with stock issued to employees are combined in the voestalpine Mitarbeiterbeteiligung Privatstiftung (employee foundation for the Group’s employee shareholding scheme), making this entity a stable, key shareholder of voestalpine AG. As of March 31, 2023, a total of about 25,500 employees have a stake in voestalpine AG. They hold about 25.5 million shares which, due to the general bundling of voting rights, represent 14.3% of the company’s share capital (previous business year: 14.2%).
In addition, former employees of voestalpine hold approximately 0.9 million “private shares” via the foundation, i.e., 0.5% of the voting shares.
The foundation exercises the voting rights of these shares, too, as long as the given employees do not exercise their right to freely dispose of the shares. On the whole, therefore, as of March 31, 2023, the voting rights of 14.8% of the share capital of voestalpine AG are pooled in the foundation.