We believe that the value of a contracting enterprise is particularly dependent on the organization and the employees. This is why the employees' ownership involvement is an important and positive aspect in the development of the company. Even though it is difficult to document, we believe that Veidekke has employees that are unusually interested in how the company fares.
Employee co-ownership in Veidekke
goes all the way back to the 1960s, and at the beginning of the 1980s 40
leading employees held the majority of the shares. In 1984 co-ownership became
part of Veidekkes long-term strategy and goals were set for significant
employee co-ownership, which in turn led to Veidekke being listed on the stock
exchange.
Following the introduction on the stock
exchange, we have twice yearly offered our employees the chance to purchase
shares in Veidekke. The major share offer takes place in the autumn and applies
to all employees. A discount is offered and the shares have a lock-in period.
In the spring the offer is for leading employees.
Currently 54% of the
employees are shareholders in their own company and in total they hold more
than 19% of the shares. This is not a homogeneous group, and there are more
than 3,350 individual shareholders who are free to sell their shares to whoever
they want once the lock-in period expires.
The share offering is voluntary and
there is thus no obligation to purchase. However, our ambition in Veidekke is
that leading employees are to own a significant proportion of shares in the
company. By this we mean that it is desirable on the part of the company that
individuals over time purchase shares that eventually constitute a significant
shareholding. What is understood by significant will of course vary from person
to person. In a decentralized organizations such as Veidekke there are many
leading employees with responsibility for results and who take decisions that
affect profitability and not least risk in projects. This is why we have a
separate offer to leading employees in the spring.
At Veidekke we believe that co-ownership creates involvement, an increased understanding and a greater sense of employee involvement in the enterprise and individual projects. Along with employee involvement, skills development, the apprentice scheme, the Veidekke school and other measures, co-ownership is a central instrument for making a good corporate culture even better.
In November 2010 the latest share programme for all employees was completed.
In May 2010 the latest share programme for leading employees was completed.
