The desired domination agreement for the subsidiary Osram has come into force.
The control and profit transfer agreement between the Styrian sensor specialist ams and its daughter, the German lighting company Osram, came into force on Wednesday, ams announced in the evening. Initially, the entry in the commercial register was prevented by lawsuits filed by several Osram shareholders. In November, the Osram Annual General Meeting approved the domination agreement, which is also intended to give ams access to Osram's financial resources to reduce debt.
With the contract, ams wanted to gain access to Osram's financial resources, also to repay the debts for the more than four billion euro takeover.
Integration advanced
The planning process for the integration is now well advanced, said the outgoing Osram boss Olaf Berlien at the general meeting on Tuesday. This is how the management levels are named and the control model is approved. Almost the entire management level at Osram has found a comparable position in the joint company. However, Berlien leaves the company at the end of the month. He will be succeeded by ams CFO Ingo Bank, who will take on the top Osram job in addition to his duties at ams.
In response to the corona crisis, Osram had massively put the brakes on costs. The investments were not spared, said finance director Kathrin Dahnke: In the past financial year, they were well below the level of the previous year at almost 100 million euros. “This low level of investment will remain an exception,” she said. The decline was mainly due to the exceptional year 2020.
Rapid recovery
Osram is now recovering from the pandemic faster than expected. Berlien confirmed the forecast that sales should increase by 10 to 14 percent and an adjusted operating return on sales of 12 to 15 percent is expected. In the first quarter (October to December), sales of around 840 million euros were on a par with the previous year, while the adjusted Ebitda of 162 million euros was 42 percent higher than a year earlier. The financial year at Osram runs until the end of September. In connection with the takeover by ams, the fiscal year is to be changed so that it coincides with the calendar year from next year.
