Sberbank : holds Annual General Meeting of shareholders for 2020

Sberbank has held its Annual General Meeting of shareholders summing up the 2020 results. The agenda of the meeting, which took the form of absentee voting, included eight items:

1. Approval of the 2020 report.
2. Distribution of profits and 2020 dividend payments.
3. Appointment of the auditing firm.
4. Election of Supervisory Board members.
5. Approval of the amended version of the Charter.
6. Approval of the related-party transaction.
7. Approval of the basic remuneration size for Supervisory Board members.
8. Approval of amendments to Regulations on Remuneration and Compensation paid to members of the Supervisory Board.

Following the agenda, the AGM resolved to approve Sberbank's 2020 annual report and the new version of the Bank Charter, distribute profits and pay 2020 dividends, clear the related-party transaction in which the liability of Sberbank governance bodies' members will be insured.

The meeting appointed AO PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit as the Sberbank auditing firm for the year 2021 and 1Q22.

The AGM voted the following members into the Supervisory Board of Sberbank:

1. Esko Tapani Aho, Senior Adviser, East Office of Finnish Industries
2. Natalie Alexandra Braginsky Mounier, Investment and Sustainable Development Expert
3. Herman Gref, CEO, Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank PJSC
4. Bella Zlatkis, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank PJSC
5. Sergey Ignatiev, Advisor to the Governor of the Bank of Russia
6. Mikhail Kovalchuk, President of Russian Research Center Kurchatov Institute
7. Vladimir Kolychev, Deputy Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation
8. Nikolay Kudryavtsev, Rector of Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (National Research University)
9. Alexander Kuleshov, President of Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology
10. Gennady Melikyan, Honored Economist of the Russian Federation
11. Maksim Oreshkin, Aide to the President of the Russian Federation
12. Anton Siluanov, Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation
13. Dmitry Chernyshenko, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation
14. Nadya Christina Wells, Independent Investment and Corporate Governance Consultant.

The AGM resolved to raise the basic remuneration to RUB 7.7 mn from RUB 5.9 mn for members of the Supervisory Board and approve the amendments made to the Regulations on Remuneration and Compensation Paid to Members of the Sberbank PJSC Supervisory Board. The amendments concerned the removal of the cap on the total size of extra remuneration. Extra remuneration for performing the duties of a Supervisory Board Committee member, Chair of a Supervisory Board Committee, senior independent director, and Supervisory Board chairman used to be summed up, but could not exceed 50% of the basic remuneration.

In a video message to the shareholders, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank Herman Gref spoke of the bank's key results in 2020, the newly adopted Strategy 2023, and highlighted the key lines for Sber's ESG transformation.

Sberbank CEO stated that Sber's FY2020 net profit reached RUB 760 bn. Globally, this is a good result - a profit this high allows Sber to rank first in Europe and tenth worldwide. The bank launched a program to streamline costs since day one of the crisis. This move enabled the bank to achieve even higher efficiency, with the 2020 cost-to-income ratio sliding to an all-time low of 34.6%. Herman Gref emphasized that the FY2020 return on equity overshot 16%, which is a decent result for the crisis.

In 2019, Sber paid RUB 422.4 bn in dividends, setting a national record for dividend payments in Russia. This brings Sber's aggregate dividend payments to RUB 1.055 tn over the three years of Strategy 2020.

This year Sber has decided to pay the same amount in dividends as last year. Shareholders will receive RUB 422.4 bn (56% of the IFRS net profit) or RUB 18.7 per share. In accordance with its Dividend Policy, Sber is set to earmark at least 50% of its net profit for dividend payments until 2023.

According to Mr. Gref, the launch of the new brand, Sber, was one of the most significant milestones in 2020. The move signaled Sberbank's transition from building an exclusively financial business to creating an ecosystem around customer needs. The Sber ecosystem turned out to be particularly popular during the lockdown when the role of online services became more prominent. As a result, the revenue of all non-financial businesses grew several times over the past year and amounted to RUB 71 bn.

Sberbank CEO highlighted that the building of an integrated ecosystem is among the key goals of Strategy 2023. Sber believes that ecosystems are the future, as they help connect consumers and producers, thus removing middlemen, reducing prices, and increasing customer satisfaction.

Closing his speech, Herman Gref said that Sber had joined the global ESG initiatives under the auspices of the UN and embarked on a systemic ESG transformation in three areas: reducing its own environmental impact, helping its customers in the ESG transformation of businesses and advising them on environmental and social risk management, and developing green finance.

In line with the new strategy, Sber is facing some major challenges, and I'm sure that we can respond to all of them. We have gone a long way from a clumsy banking dinosaur to one of the most technologically advanced companies in the world, but it's just the beginning of our journey. I thank all our shareholders, including the Government of the Russian Federation, for their faith in the Sber team and their support for our strategy.

Herman Gref

CEO, Chairman of the Executive Board, Sberbank