We welcomed roughly 5,000 of our shareholders to our Annual General Meeting (AGM) on June 1, 2006, in the Frankfurt Festhalle. A total of 40.7% of voting capital participated in the voting rounds, 16 percentage points more than in 2005. Like almost all DAX companies, we benefited from the fact that in 2006, institutional investors in Germany exercised their voting rights more readily at annual general meetings. For most German stock corporations, the previous stipulation that shares must be blocked for seven days was replaced by a much more straightforward requirement of share ownership on a single day of record, and this significantly allayed concerns which foreign shareholders had previously felt. Visitors to our AGM also showed great interest in Deutsche Bank‘s “Land of Ideas“ initiative.

The customary review of the development of our business was followed by an intensive question-and-answer session between shareholders and management, which again lasted into the evening. The AGM concluded with shareholders approving all resolutions on the Agenda by large majorities.