In its meeting on January 10, 2001, the Supervisory Board approved the issue of employee shares and thus complied with a request from the employee representatives.

A large number of German companies, including renowned DAX companies, have offered their workforces the possibility of buying employee shares on special conditions for many years. In the former Krupp Group such an offer was not available. In the former Thyssen Group employee shares were issued in 1976 and 1989/90.

Allowing employees to invest in their own company can help increase the level of identification with the company. In addition, it strengthens the shareholder culture in wide areas of the workforce, thereby raising awareness of the importance of an appropriate stock price. Finally, employee shares can also be used as a component of performance-oriented pay.

Against this background the Executive Board intends to offer employee shares to the company's approximately 107,000 employees in Germany. The only means available to ThyssenKrupp for this is to buy back its own shares as a capital increase requires a resolution by the Annual Stockholders' Meeting. A share buyback is not subject to the approval of the Annual Stockholders' Meeting.

Each employee is to be granted a company allowance of a maximum DM300 free of tax and social security contributions under Art. 19a of the Income Tax Law (EstG), provided the employee invests the same amount. As a result each employee would be able to purchase ThyssenKrupp shares up to a total value of DM600. Under this model the shares subsequently have to be held for six years.