Statement by Schöck AG on the current situation in Ukraine.

People from more than 40 nations work together within the Schöck Group. They know the company’s values and know that we are not influenced by ethnic origin, gender, religion or other personal backgrounds. On the contrary: we deliberately rely on diversity in order to find better solutions together. In our view there are no stereotypes that describe THE Russians or, for example, THE Germans. We will continue to treat people, customers and colleagues of Russian nationality or Russian origin without prejudice.

Everything that we are currently seeing in Ukraine is not “the Russians”. We uphold the words of the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz: “This is Putin’s war”. The Russians with whom we have and have had contact over the past few days and weeks are clearly opposed to the war in Ukraine. We also, of course, condemn Putin’s actions in the strongest possible terms.

We will not carry out any business whatsoever in Russia that in any way supports or could possibly support the Putin system. At the same time however, we will keep our office in Moscow open for the time being. This is for the benefit of our colleagues in Russia and because of our duty of care to our employees and we will – for as long as we possibly can - be there for them.

We are clearly on the side of Ukraine and as a company we will provide support accordingly. In addition, our company founder Eberhard Schöck set up a foundation in 1992 with the aim, among other things, of international understanding. For decades, opportunities for vocational training for young people have been created locally in many countries, for example Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova as well as Russia. The foundation has many diverse links and a partner school in Charkiv has already been hit by a rocket. It goes without saying that the Schöck Foundations, which together are the largest shareholders of Schöck AG, are currently shocked but keeping a cool head and continually working to help in Ukraine.

We will continue to work together towards international understanding and to support Ukraine.