ONE ROOF

Dr. rer. pol. h. c. Martin
Kohlhaussen, Chairman of the
Supervisory Board
10 Annual Report 2009
Report of the Supervisory Board
Dear Shareholders,
Throughout the fiscal year, the Supervisory Board closely
supervised and advised the Executive Board’s management
of the Company, and performed the tasks and
responsibilities incumbent upon it by law, under the
Company’s Articles of Association and under the Supervisory
Board’s Code of Procedure. The Supervisory
Board was involved in all decisions of fundamental importance
to the Company. The Executive Board provided
the Supervisory Board on a regular basis with
timely and comprehensive written and verbal reports
on the financial position and development of the Company
and the Group, planned business policies, corporate
planning, the risk position, risk management
and key transactions.
The Supervisory Board held four meetings in fiscal year
2009. All members of the Supervisory Board attended
at least half of these meetings. The Supervisory Board
passed the resolutions required by law and the Articles
of Association, with decisions taken on the basis of the
Executive Board’s reports. Outside of its meetings, the
Supervisory Board was kept fully abreast of particularly
significant or urgent projects and events and, where
necessary, asked to approve actions by way of a circular
resolution. The Chairman of the Supervisory Board
also maintained regular contact with the Executive
Board outside of meetings and kept himself informed
of the current status of the business and key transactions.
The global economic crisis and the situation on the finan-
cial markets continued to be core topics of discussion.
Particular attention was paid in this connection to the
differing trends in the Americas, the Asia/Pacific region—
where moves toward recovery are already visible in
some parts—and in Europe, with their varied impacts
on the operating business at a time when Group order
books were very strong indeed. A major point of focus
was therefore on planning certainty and on safeguarding
liquidity, which was successfully achieved despite
the fraught economic environment. Closely related to
this, the Supervisory Board addressed exchange rate
trends and specifically the persistent weakness of the
Australian dollar despite a marked recovery of the exchange
rate in the third quarter.
As part of a competition analysis, the Supervisory Board
reviewed Group strategy and financial planning with a
view to enhancing financial strength, further integrating
products and services along the value chain, differentiating
through technology leadership and expanding service
activities. A key focus of attention was the situation
concerning margins. On a closely related subject area,
the Supervisory Board discussed in detail the Group’s
medium-term corporate planning as an integrated strategy
and financial planning process based on valuebased
management parameters (the RONA approach),
value created by individual divisions, and sustained
increases in margins.
A prime topic in the second half of the year was the
planned public offering of the HOCHTIEF Concessions
division with its consequences for the funding of capital
spending and the transparency gain regarding the
worth of the Group’s business portfolio by virtue of
ongoing valuation by the stock market.
The Supervisory Board ensured that it was regularly in-
formed about business expansion in the Middle East,
about activities aimed at integrating operations across
the Group and in particular the potential for cross selling,
as well as about human resources and management
development in the Group.
Other subjects of discussion included the plans and
intentions of HOCHTIEF’s major shareholder, which increased
its holding to just under 30 percent, and the
implications of new legislation (BilMoG and VorstAG)
concerning the modernization of financial reporting law
and reasonable levels of management compensation.