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Darmstadt (dpa) - Shortly before the change in management at the Darmstadt-based pharmaceutical and chemical company Merck, CEO Stefan Oschmann appeared before the shareholders for the last time.
With his successor Belén Garijo, who will head the Dax Group from May 1, Merck is “in very good hands,” Oschmann said at the virtual general meeting on Friday.
Garijo will then be the first woman to head a Dax company alone.
Oschmann's successor, who studied medicine and is the deputy head of Merck, was born in Almansa, Spain, in 1960.
Garijo joined Merck in 2011 and became head of the pharmaceuticals division in 2015.
Under her leadership, the group realigned its pharmaceutical portfolio with around 58,000 employees worldwide.
Oschmann is leaving Merck as planned after ten years on the executive board, five of them as CEO.
When he started at Merck, the market value of the family company was around 13 billion euros, said Oschmann.
Now it is over 60 billion.
Most recently, the takeover of the US semiconductor supplier Versum, with which Merck entered the business with the chip and electronics industry, gave a boost.
The shareholders are to receive a dividend of EUR 1.40 per share for 2020.
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The Deutsche Bank fund subsidiary DWS said that Merck is robustly positioned.
Oschmann has positioned the oldest pharmaceutical company in the world in a future-oriented manner.
However, there is a lack of independence in the supervisory board.
For example, Wolfgang Büchele, head of the supervisory board, has been a member of the supervisory body for more than ten years, which means that he no longer meets the independence standard from DWS's point of view.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210423-99-324474 / 2
Speech by Oschmann
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Merck at the 2021 Annual General Meeting
Merck press