Published on 06/06/2017

Focus on the 2017 Annual General Meeting

Each year the Annual General Meeting is an important occasion for L'Oréal shareholders. On 20 April 2017, some 1,900 shareholders participated in this event which took place at the Palais des Congrès in Paris.

Highlights

The Annual General Meeting is an opportunity for shareholders to learn more about the results and prospects of the group, as well as other topics during a question and answer session. Furthermore, Paul Bulcke, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Nestlé S.A., was appointed member of the L'Oréal Board of Directors.

The Annual General Meeting was also a great opportunity to look back on the group's performance, as mentioned by Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman and CEO, in his address:

"2016 was another good year for L'Oréal. We accelerated our growth, and once again outperformed the beauty market, with solid growth at +4%, thus strengthening our position as number 1."

During the question and answer session, shareholders raised many topics. For example, one issue raised was the absence of endocrine disrupters in L'Oréal products. Hervé Toutain, former Global Head Worldwide Product Safety, Regulatory Affairs & Claims Substantiation, who is now Senior Vice President - Product Stewardship & Public Affairs, gave the following answer:

"On this subject, we are working, of course, following the definition of the World Health Organisation, which defines endocrine disruptors as substances - whether chemical or natural, but foreign to the organism - that can interfere with the way the endocrine system functions, and thus have damaging effects on the organism or on its descendants. In the group, we do not use endocrine disruptors, as defined by the World Health Organisation, as none of our substances interferes with the hormonal system, causing damaging effects for human health. We take the question of endocrine modulation very seriously, and it has been an integral part of our safety assessment approach for more than 15 years."

Paul Bulcke, a new member of the L'Oréal Board of Directors

Since 1979, Mr Paul Bulcke had an international career, in particular in Latin America and Europe. In 2004, he was appointed as Executive Vice-President of Nestlé S.A. in charge of the Americas Zone. Between 2008 and 2016, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Nestlé S.A. On 6 April 2017, he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors, Nestlé S.A.