Daimler AG is adding a new member to its board from the Kuwait Investment Authority.
The head of the Kuwait Investment Authority is in line to take a seat on the Daimler AG Supervisory Board for the first time.
The Kuwaitis have owned a major stake in Daimler for decades but this is the first time they have claimed a seat on the company’s board.
For the annual shareholders’ meeting to be held in Berlin on March 29, 2017, the supervisory board is nominating Bader Mohammad Al Saad, 59. Al Saad is currently managing director of the Kuwait Investment Authority.
“Kuwait has been a shareholder of Daimler AG for more than 40 years, is our biggest shareholder, and has become our most dependable partner notwithstanding all of the highs and lows in the company’s history over the past four decades,” noted Manfred Bischoff, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Daimler AG.
“We are grateful to have Kuwait as a shareholder at our side who supports the strategy of the company and, together with us, aims to secure a successful future for Daimler. Bader Mohammad Al Saad is very familiar with the capital markets and various industrial companies thanks to his long-standing experience as Managing Director of Kuwait Investment Authority.”
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The Kuwait Investment Authority currently owns 6.8% of Daimler’s shares. The Kuwait Investment Authority was established in 1953 and is the world’s oldest sovereign wealth fund.
“The Supervisory Board of Daimler AG has a responsibility to all the shareholders, especially those that have entrusted the company with part of their wealth over a long period,” Bischoff said.
“We now want to recognize this responsibility vis-à-vis our most important individual shareholder by proposing to the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting the election of the highly qualified Managing Director of the Kuwait Investment Authority to the Supervisory Board.”
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Bischoff said Bernd Bohr has agreed to step down from the Supervisory Board at the end of the 2017 Annual Shareholders’ Meeting in the interests of the company. In return, the Supervisory Board has declared its intention to propose the reelection of Bernd Bohr to the Supervisory Board within the next two years, he said.
Bader Mohammad Al Saad has previously served in various boards of directors, of both domestic and international companies, and has been a member of various professional organizations and committees, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.
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AI Saad is currently a member of the Global Advisory Council of Bank of America and a member of the Advisory Board of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF). He is a founding member of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF) and was its Chairman and Deputy Chairman from its inception in 2009 until October 2015.