Auditors and independent real estate appraisers

1. Duration of the mandate and term of office of the lead auditor

1.1 Date of assumption of the existing mandate

Ernst & Young AG (EY), Zurich, has audit­ed the Züblin Group and Züblin Immo­bilien Hold­ing AG since 1998.

1.2 Date on which the lead auditor responsible for the existing auditing mandate took up office

Chris­t­ian Krämer has been the lead audi­tor since the finan­cial year 2014/15. The audi­tors are appoint­ed by the AGM for a peri­od of one year.

2. Audit fees

The fees paid to EY in finan­cial year 2017/18 were CHF 151’620.

3. Additional fees

In finan­cial year 2017/18 EY pro­vid­ed no addi­tion­al services.

4. Informational instruments pertaining to the external audit

The Board of Direc­tors per­forms its mon­i­tor­ing and con­trol func­tion with respect to the exter­nal audi­tors through the Audit Com­mit­tee, which meets at least twice a year. 

The Audit Com­mit­tee (AC) main­tains direct con­tact with the audi­tors and exchanges infor­ma­tion with them on all mat­ters with­in the ambit of the AC. The AC is also respon­si­ble for mon­i­tor­ing the per­for­mance of the exter­nal audi­tors and reviews their inde­pen­dence on an ongo­ing basis. In addi­tion, the AC mon­i­tors whether, and how, Exec­u­tive Man­age­ment imple­ments mea­sures that have been adopt­ed on the basis of find­ings by the exter­nal audi­tors. The AC can also task the statu­to­ry audi­tors with addi­tion­al audit duties, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to spec­i­fied key risks. 

The exter­nal audi­tors noti­fy the AuC of their find­ings with regard to the annu­al reports in the form of a man­age­ment pre­sen­ta­tion and a respec­tive report. The audit results are exam­ined and dis­cussed in detail with the exter­nal audi­tors. These results form the basis for improve­ments to inter­nal pro­ce­dures and audit­ing processes. 

The AC reports to the Board of Direc­tors on the dis­cus­sions that the Com­mit­tee has held with the exter­nal audi­tors and informs it of the most impor­tant find­ings and action taken. 

Dur­ing finan­cial year 2017/18, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the exter­nal audi­tors par­tic­i­pat­ed in the AC meet­ing at its invi­ta­tion. This meet­ing was held togeth­er with the Exec­u­tive Man­age­ment. There were no indi­ca­tions that the inde­pen­dence of the exter­nal audi­tors is in any way compromised. 

Based on a pro­pos­al by the exter­nal audi­tors, the lev­el of the audit fee for finan­cial year 2017/18 was reviewed by the AC and a pro­pos­al was sub­mit­ted to the full Board of Direc­tors that it be accepted. 

The Board of Direc­tors and the AC are cur­rent­ly review­ing the selec­tion of the exter­nal audi­tors. This was last done in finan­cial year 2004/05. Five glob­al­ly oper­at­ing audit com­pa­nies are asked to sub­mit a tender. 

5. Independent real estate appraisers

The open mar­ket val­ue of each prop­er­ty in the Züblin port­fo­lio is cal­cu­lat­ed by exter­nal, inde­pen­dent spe­cial­ists on 30 Sep­tem­ber (semi-annu­al report) and 31 March (annu­al report). This pro­ce­dure com­plies with the reg­u­la­tions laid down in IAS 40 (Invest­ment Prop­er­ty) and IFRS 13, which are applied by the Züblin Group. Since Octo­ber 2014 JLL apprais­es the entire port­fo­lio. JLL val­ued all of the prop­er­ties as at 31 March 2018 and the results of these val­u­a­tions were used in the finan­cial state­ments. JLL uses the dis­count­ed cash flow method for its prop­er­ty val­u­a­tions. In this method the cur­rent mar­ket val­ue of each prop­er­ty is deter­mined by cal­cu­lat­ing or esti­mat­ing its future rev­enues and expens­es and dis­count­ing these over the fore­cast hori­zon. In finan­cial year 2017/18 the fees for the real estate apprais­ers amount­ed to CHF 32’000.