The Company’s Articles of Association do not contain an opting-out or opting-up clause, which means that the obligation to make an offer under the Swiss Stock Exchange Act is triggered if a shareholder or a group of shareholders acting in concert acquires more than one third of the outstanding shares of the Company.
Cicor maintains the management incentive plan and the long-term incentive plans that contain change of control clauses. There are not other agreements as of 31 December 2023 under which members of the Board of Directors or the Group Management benefit in the event of a change of control.
On 12 November 2021, the Company announced that a share-based special management incentive plan (MIP) was introduced for key managers of the Cicor Group. The program is fully sponsored by One Equity Partners (OEP), the anchor shareholder of Cicor, and is administered solely by the Board of Directors of the Cicor Group. This guarantees strict compliance with the common governance and transparency guidelines. The special management incentive plan does not give rise to any obligations to OEP by Cicor or by the employees concerned and creates no additional costs or liabilities for the Company or all other shareholders. The goal of the plan is to create stronger alignment between all Company shareholders and management.
Under the MIP, the key managers have the possibility to purchase share appreciation rights (SARs). One SAR needs to be purchased for CHF 1.00. Upon the full exit of OEP, one SAR pays the difference between the average weighted exit price OEP receives per share in Cicor minus the reference share price, which is set at CHF 60.00 per share, minus costs incurred by OEP for maintaining this incentive plan. The costs incurred by OEP also include the costs incurred by the Cicor Group because OEP must reimburse these costs. The current size of the MIP is 40 000 SARs, whereby some are reserved for future key managers that join the Cicor Group. The plan provides for customary vesting and forfeiture rules. The MIP was approved in a consultative vote by the 2022 Annual General Meeting.
Members of the Group Management, the leadership team and other selected Key managers may participated in the performance share plan and/or the share option plan. These plans contain clauses for a pro-rata vesting in the event of a change of control, considering the period from the grant date to the effective date. Further information on the long-term incentive plans is disclosed in section 3.2.3 of the Remuneration Report.