At present, no repurchase programmes are underway.

The low share prices, which were below the equity capital in the Ahlers Group’s balance sheet, have prompted us to buy back shares in our company since November 2008.

By April 1, 2009, we had repurchased own shares representing 0.7 percent of our share capital via the stock exchange.

In April 2009, the Management Board and the Supervisory Board jointly decided to terminate the share buyback programme via the stock exchange and to repurchase another 4.3 percent of the share capital in the context of a public buyback offer at fixed prices. The acceptance period ended on April 23, 2009. After the two buyback programmes, the company now held almost 5 percent of both the ordinary shares and the preferred shares.

On December 9, 2010 the Management Board and the Supervisory Board decided to redeem the own shares acquired by Ahlers AG between November 2008 and April 2009. This transaction was completed with effect from January 24, 2011 in a simplified procedure without capital reduction by adjusting the imputed pro-rata amount of the other shares in the Company's share capital.

The redemption involved 399,686 fully paid-up no-par common bearer shares and 318,794 fully paid-up non-voting no-par preferred shares. After the redemption, the share capital of Ahlers AG in an amount of EUR 43.2 million comprised 13,681,520 no-par shares, which are composed of 7,600,314 common shares (including, as before, 500 registered shares with transfer restrictions) and 6,081,206 preferred shares.