Progress of the implementation

The Supervisory Board’s current composition fulfils the targets set out above.

The Supervisory Board is composed of people with different career paths, a wide range of experience and varying expertise, including members with considerable international experience. Through their training, professional background and experience, all members of the Supervisory Board have in-depth knowledge and expertise in the areas that are relevant to the company, in particular the core business areas of transport and logistics (specifically, port logistics), intermodal and real estate. With Kristin Berger, Dr. Andreas Dressel, Hugues Favard, Holger Heinzel, Søren Toft and Marcus Vitt, the Supervisory Board has members with expertise in auditing and accounting.

Of the participants, 33.3 % were women and thus the proportion exceeded 30 %. Of its current members, no member either exceeds the age limit or has served for more than twelve years on the Supervisory Board. Most members comply with the limits on mandates.

The Supervisory Board is of the opinion that all shareholder representatives are independent of the company and the Executive Board and that the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Marcus Vitt, as well as his predecessor, Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Grube, are also independent of the controlling shareholder. With regard to Supervisory Board members Dr. Andreas Dressel and Katharina Kriston, the Supervisory Board points out as a matter of precaution that these members primarily work for the indirect majority shareholder of HHLA, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, with which HHLA maintains significant business relationships – both directly and in the form of shareholdings and with institutions under public law that it oversees, such as the Hamburg Port Authority AöR. Regarding the Supervisory Board members Søren Toft, Hugues Favard and Kristin Berger, the Supervisory Board points out as a matter of precaution that they work full-time for the MSC Group, which holds a significant (indirect) stake in Port of Hamburg Beteiligungsgesellschaft SE; the majority of the shares in this organisation are (indirectly) held by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which in turn holds the majority of shares in HHLA. Dr. Andreas Dressel, Søren Toft and Hugues Favard also serve on the Board of Directors of Port of Hamburg Beteiligungsgesellschaft SE as non-executive directors. Finally, it should be noted as a matter of precaution that the MSC Group also competes with HHLA in certain areas. On the basis of the above information, the Supervisory Board has one fully independent member as defined by the GCGC; this corresponds to 16.66 % of the shareholder side or 8.33 % of the entire Supervisory Board. Moreover, the Supervisory Board is of the opinion that the two union representatives on the employee side are also to be seen as independent; on this basis, the proportion of independent members of the Supervisory Board amounts to 25 %.

The Supervisory Board does not include any former members of the Executive Board.

The skills of individual Supervisory Board members are presented in the following qualifications matrix.