Switzerland based Transocean Ltd. announced that the company's shareholders approved at the 2014 Annual General Meeting a U.S. dollar-denominated dividend of $3.00 per share, or approximately $1.1 billion in the aggregate (based upon the number of currently outstanding shares), out of additional paid-in capital. The Board expects that the dividend will be payable in four quarterly installments set for June 2014, September 2014, December 2014 and March 2015.
In addition, shareholders elected all director nominees and all compensation committee nominees, and confirmed Ian C. Strachan as Chairman of the Board of Directors.
Shareholders also approved a number of other items at the meeting, including:
The Board's authority to issue shares out of authorized share capital for a new two-year period. This authority is limited to approximately six percent of the company's currently issued share capital.
- An advisory say-on-pay vote approving the compensation of the company's named executive officers.
- All amendments to the company's articles of association proposed by the Board to implement the Minder Ordinance.
- To discharge the members of the Board of Directors and executive management from liability for activities during fiscal year 2013.
- The proposals of the Board to reduce the maximum number of the members of the Board of Directors to 11; to implement a majority vote standard for uncontested board elections; and to clarify the non-authoritative English text of the company's articles of association regarding shareholder agenda item requests did not receive the prerequisite qualified majority and were therefore not approved.
About Transocean
Vernier, Switzerland headquartered Transocean (NYSE: RIG) (SIX: RIGN) is a leading international provider of offshore contract drilling services for oil and gas wells. The company specializes in technically demanding sectors of the global offshore drilling business with a particular focus on deepwater and harsh environment drilling services, and believes that it operates one of the most versatile offshore drilling fleets in the world. Transocean owns or has partial ownership interests in, and operates a fleet of, 78 mobile offshore drilling units consisting of 46 high-specification floaters (ultra-deepwater, deepwater and harsh-environment drilling rigs), 21 midwater floaters and 11 high-specification jackups. In addition, the company has nine ultra-deepwater drillships and five high-specification jackups under construction.