The Group Board has prepared principles and guidelines for handling any takeover bids.
Refer also to the description of the restrictions on ownership and voting rights in the Articles of Association in item 4 of this report.
As stated in item 3 of this report, the Group Board was authorised by the Annual General Meeting in 2010 to repurchase the Group’s own shares in accordance with the Norwegian Public Limited Companies Act. This authorisation stipulates that the Group Board is free to determine the method of acquisition and any later sale of the shares and that the authorisation may also be used to buy and sell shares in acquisition situations.
Section 6-17, second subsection of the Securities Trading Act, allows the General Meeting to grant the Board such authorisations. According to item 14 of the Code of Practice, however, the Board’s use of such an authorisation is restricted. The Group Board must specifically assess the use of such authorisations in the acquisition situation in question. As previously mentioned, the Group Board has prepared guidelines for handling any take-over bids and the issue of using authorisations in acquisition situations has been particularly emphasised as one of the Group Board’s most important tasks if an acquisition situation should arise.