The Board of Directors proposed, in item number two on the Agenda, to grant an authority to purchase shares and to reduce the share capital accordingly. Folketrygdfondet is of the opinion that repurchases of shares are beneficial; however, an authorization should be restricted in time, preferably one year. As the proposed authority to repurchase shares would expire after five years we voted against this item.
As regards item number three, Folketrygdfondet is of the opinion that an authorization to increase the share capital of Subsea 7, without any specific purpose, should be restricted to 10 % of the authorized share capital. We are of the opinion that the size of the authorization and the potential dilution of existing shareholders is not in our or other existing shareholder's interests. Furthermore, the authorization would expire after five years, which we consider as too long. An authorization to issue shares should be limited to one year – preferably from one AGM to the next AGM.