GOETTINGEN, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

At today’s meeting, the Supervisory Board of Sartorius AG approved the Executive Board’s recommendation to submit a proposal to the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting on April 6, 2017, to raise dividends to 0.46 euros per preference share and to 0.45 per ordinary share. Prior-year dividends, adjusted by the stock split that was implemented in June 2016, were 0.38 euros and 0.37 euros per preference share and ordinary share, respectively. If approved, the total amount disbursed under this proposal would thus rise 20.5% to 31.1 million euros from 25.8 million euros a year earlier.

In addition, the Supervisory Board appointed Rainer Lehmann to the Executive Board of Sartorius AG, effective March 1, 2017. He succeeds Jörg Pfirrmann, who had announced in October 2016 that he would not be available for an extension of his term on the Executive Board. By mutual consent, Jörg Pfirrmann will resign effective February 28, 2017, from his position on the Board for overseeing the Finance, Human Resources Management and Information Technology functions. Rainer Lehmann will take over responsibility on the Executive Board for Finance, as well as Information Technology and Global Business Processes.

Rainer Lehmann (41), who holds a university degree in business administration, has been working at Sartorius since 1999 in various finance positions. In 2004, he switched for two years to Biesterfeld AG, where he headed Group Controlling. After returning to Sartorius, Rainer Lehmann took over at the helm of the Finance unit in the USA for Sartorius’ North American companies and coordinated the setup of several Group companies in Latin America. Rainer Lehmann has held Group-wide responsibility as Senior Vice President for the Business Processes unit since 2016.

In this connection, CEO and Executive Board Chairman Dr. Joachim Kreuzburg will assume leadership of the Human Resources Management unit and therefore also the position of Executive for Labor Relations in addition to performing his current Executive Board duties. Reinhard Vogt will remain in charge on the Board for Marketing, Sales and Services.

As the terms of the Supervisory Board members of Sartorius AG will expire at the end of this year’s Annual Shareholders’ Meeting, the Supervisory Board also decided on its proposals of candidates to be submitted to the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting for election of shareholder representatives to the Supervisory Board.

The following candidates have been proposed for first-time election to the Supervisory Board: Dr. jur. Daniela Favoccia, partner of the law firm Hengeler Mueller, and Ms. Ilke Hildegard Panzer, Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at the U.S. healthcare company Versiti Inc. The following people have been proposed for re-election to the Supervisory Board: Prof. Dr. Dres. h.c. Arnold Picot; Dr. Lothar Kappich; Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheper; and Prof. Dr. Klaus Rüdiger Trützschler.

Upcoming Financial Dates

February 23, 2017 Annual press conference

April 6, 2017 Annual Shareholders’ Meeting

April 24, 2017 Publication of first-quarter figures

(January to March 2017)

This press release contains statements about the future development of the Sartorius Group. The content of these statements cannot be guaranteed as they are based on assumptions and estimates that harbor certain risks and uncertainties. This is a translation of the original German-language press release. Sartorius shall not assume any liability for the correctness of this translation. The original German press release is the legally binding version. Furthermore, Sartorius reserves the right not to be responsible for the topicality, correctness, completeness or quality of the information provided. Liability claims regarding damage caused by the use of any information provided, including any kind of information which is incomplete or incorrect, will therefore be rejected.

A Profile of Sartorius

The Sartorius Group is a leading international pharmaceutical and laboratory equipment provider with two divisions: Bioprocess Solutions and Lab Products & Services. Bioprocess Solutions with its broad product portfolio focusing on single-use solutions helps customers produce biotech medications and vaccines safely and efficiently. Lab Products & Services, with its premium laboratory instruments, consumables and services, concentrates on serving the needs of laboratories performing research and quality assurance at pharma and biopharma companies and on those of academic research institutes. Founded in 1870, the company earned sales revenue of more than 1.3 billion euros in 2016. More than 6,900 people work at the Group's approximately 50 manufacturing and sales sites, serving customers around the globe.

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