Bechtle

Bechtle AG operates according to the traditional dualistic principle. The Executive Board is the statutory body that decides on the management of the company and represents it externally. The second body is the Supervisory Board. Half of its members are elected by the shareholders at the Annual General Meeting and the other half by the German employees of the Bechtle Group. The Supervisory Board serves as a controlling body, appoints the Executive Board and monitors its work.

Executive Board responsibilities:

• Dr. Thomas Olemotz, Chairman of the Executive Board. Finance, Tax and Insurance, Review of Financial Statements and Auditing, Human Resources and Personnel Development, Investor Relations, Group Controlling, Real Estate and Mobility, Mergers & Acquisitions and Corporate Development, Legal & Compliance, Corporate Communications, CISO and Bechtle Stiftung gGmbH.

• Konstantin Ebert. Responsible for national and international IT E-Commerce, system houses outside Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and International Areas (IBU, GITA).

• Michael Guschlbauer. Responsible for the IT System House & Managed Services segment, Public Sector Division, Central Project Management, CTO (disciplinary responsibility), and Quality & Environmental Management.

• Antje Leminsky. Responsible for Bechtle Logistik & Service GmbH, Financial Services and Sustainability Management.

Risk Management, Compliance, CTO and Marketing are the joint responsibility of the entire Executive Board.

From 1 January 2025, Konstantin Ebert and Michael Guschlbauer were reallocated responsibilities on the Executive Board. The aim is to have responsibility for all sales channels in the national markets in one hand. The new allocation of responsibilities is as follows:

• Konstantin Ebert: Multichannel responsibility for the national markets of Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, Spain, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the United Kingdom.

• Michael Guschlbauer: Multichannel responsibility for Germany and Austria, as well as all specialists of the Bechtle Group.

The Executive Board regularly informed the Supervisory Board about all aspects significant to the company in a prompt and comprehensive manner. These included the group's business development, the tense macroeconomic situation and its effects on the realisation of business volume, revenue and results, the further development of the Executive Board and management organisation, possible acquisitions, the financing of acquisitions and current business, future investments, the status of the roll-out of Vision 2030, the Sustainability Strategy and the Diversity Strategy, location issues, opportunity and risk management, the risk situation and fundamental issues of corporate planning and management.

The Chairman of the Executive Board, in particular, maintained close contact with individual Supervisory Board members, and maintained a regular dialogue with the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, even outside the regular meetings. Additionally, the Executive Board informed the Supervisory Board as a whole about key operational indicators, the implementation of business plans and the employment situation of the group, segments and all major subsidiaries on a monthly basis. At quarterly meetings, we also intensively elaborated on the respective past quarter and the short and medium-term perspectives.

At its meetings, the Supervisory Board regularly looked into the business performance of the group as well as the assets and financial position and the implementation of the corporate strategy. Moreover, we continually dealt with the risk situation – especially also in connection with the global crisis hotspots and the related, tense macroeconomic situation – and actively participated in the further development of the control and risk management system of Bechtle AG.

Individual profit-sharing motivates the majority of employees to pursue the agreed targets with commitment.

At the locations of the Bechtle Group, the Managing Directors alone are responsible for the success of their companies. By way of their strictly earnings-oriented variable compensation, each Managing Director directly participates in the success of the respective company. Bechtle thus promotes and supports entrepreneurial spirit and business responsibility at all locations in order to ensure successful business performance on a long-term basis.

Thanks to the timely and detailed information received from the Executive Board and its own audits, the Supervisory Board was able to comply fully with its monitoring and consulting duties. We confirm that the Executive Board has acted lawfully, correctly and economically in every respect. The Executive Board regularly consulted the legal and compliance department as well as group controlling and actively used the risk management system.

The audit committee dealt with transactions that require approval, especially acquisition plans, location-related issues and long-term contracts. Other subjects discussed included the interim financial reports, the revenue and earnings performance under the difficult framework conditions, the development of the cash flow and of the working capital as well as their further optimisation, the preliminary audits of the annual and consolidated financial statements, the non-financial group statement and the proposal for the appropriation of profits, the review of the internal control and risk management system and the materiality analysis in accordance with CSRD.

Following the commissioning by the Supervisory Board, the auditor audited the annual financial statements of Bechtle AG, the consolidated financial statements and the combined management reports of Bechtle AG and of the Bechtle Group for the 2024 fiscal year, including the accounts as well as the risk management and early risk detection system, with unqualified auditor's opinions. The audit also included the implemented monitoring system for early identification of risks and the internal control and risk management system with respect to the accounting process. The auditor has confirmed that the installed systems are suitable for identifying developments endangering the company's going concern at an early stage.

Business Model - One-stop shop: With more than 120 locations in 14 European countries, Bechtle enjoys close proximity to its customers, making it one of the leading IT companies in Europe. We also have a worldwide network of partners that fulfils the requirements of customers who operate globally. Even after more than 40 years of company history, the Neckarsulm-based IT company combines the strength and solidity of a financially strong international group with the proximity, personal support and flexibility of a regional service provider. We guide more than 70,000 customers from trade and industry, the public sector and the financial market on their digital transformation journey and offer a comprehensive, cross-vendor portfolio of IT infrastructure and IT operation solutions.

Business Segments:

The IT System House & Managed Services segment covers a service spectrum ranging from the sale of hardware and software solutions, IT strategy consulting, IT infrastructure consulting, modern workplace, application solutions, project planning and implementation, system integration, maintenance and training to the provision of cloud and managed services, IT security services and artificial intelligence.

In the IT E-Commerce segment, the focus is primarily on the retail business. In this segment, we offer our customers hardware and standard software as well as accompanying logistics services via telephone and the Internet, with a product portfolio that comprises around 35,000 products in total.

Strategy: Based on its firmly established corporate culture, Bechtle has been formulating its long-term goals at intervals of about ten years ever since it was founded. The Vision 2030 was published in 2018 under the heading "Bechtle: Integrate IT. Architect the future." It determines goals in the following areas: • customer orientation, measured on the basis of the customer's success; • our competence, professionalism and passion in handling IT, combined with the promise to the workforce that at Bechtle, everything can be achieved; • the quest for market leadership; and • the necessity to achieve profitable growth in order to be able to invest in Bechtle's future.

According to the vision, the group intends to generate revenue of €10 billion with an EBT margin of at least 5 per cent by 2030.

Value Chain: Our service and solution portfolio is subject to ongoing review and adaptation to market and customer requirements. The service employees and certified specialists, system engineers and consultants offer customers specialist knowledge, a high level of detailed expertise, many years of IT project experience and rapid implementation of individual requirements in the realisation of services.

Bechtle has pooled specialist know-how on complex IT solution topics in more than 70 nationally active competence centres and passes this knowledge on both internally and externally in training courses.

Customer Engagement: We endeavour to identify the best possible individual IT solution to address the needs of each and every customer. In this connection, we have gained a very high level of expertise in servicing different customer groups. Even though our core target group is the upper SME market, we are also increasingly successful in the large company sector. Usually, we define our customers on the basis of the number of seats. Generally, our customer group ranges from 50 to upwards of 10,000 seats.

Our nationwide network of regional system houses and their sales staff offer our customers, most of whom have regional roots, decisive added value as personal contacts in overcoming increasingly complex IT challenges. The decentralised structure of Bechtle is a key criterion that makes proximity possible, while direct, usually long-term contact with customers helps sales staff to develop a trusting customer relationship.

In the IT E-Commerce segment, there is direct personal contact between the sales staff and the customer, which is ensured through active contact by telephone or videoconferencing. The sales team plays a key role in realising business volumes by acquiring new customers and expanding business with existing customers. Customers with complex requirements in particular benefit from the personal contacts, who offer individual solutions that are tailored to customer needs.

Capital Market Engagement: We regard Bechtle's success as the result of a joint effort and trusting cooperation with our stakeholders. This cooperation takes place in accordance with the principles of openness and transparency and is shaped by the fundamental values anchored in our corporate culture. In their capacity as owners, our shareholders are among the most important stakeholders of our company.

Investor Relations: Visits to the company's headquarters and participation in numerous conferences and roadshows allow both analysts and investors as well as us to engage in intensive dialogue. This underpins our open and continuous communication with our stakeholders. At a total of 18 roadshows and investor conferences held throughout 2024, we provided information about our company's economic situation, business strategy and outlook in individual and group discussions.

Personal contact with private investors is also very important to us. In 2024, we once again welcomed around 160 shareholders to the group headquarters in Neckarsulm for the shareholder days that have been very popular for many years.

Resource outflows

Bechtle reports a negative impact on the environment due to the unsustainable use of resources. As the IT market is characterised by a high rate of technological innovation and comparatively short product cycles, the resources contained in the hardware sold by Bechtle are not consumed in the long term. Bechtle's activities have a negative impact on the use and use of resources due to the focus on economic growth, including increasing unit volumes. Higher revenue in the hardware sector means more products and therefore more outflows of resources.

Bechtle also identifies a negative impact on the environment due to lack of recyclability of raw materials. The recycling rates for digitisation products – including hardware sold by Bechtle – are low, as recycling is very complex due to the large number of elements used, which are only installed in low concentrations. Only 35 per cent of the raw materials used in digital hardware are recycled, and the demand for primary raw materials for applications is high.

Durability of IT hardware

Bechtle addresses product durability through its Circular IT business model. The company established Bechtle Remarketing GmbH in 2012, which was integrated into Bechtle Logistics in mid-2024 to create a central division called Bechtle Circular IT. This division focuses on extending product life cycles through secure data deletion and resale of old devices or environmentally friendly disposal. Information security, data protection and responsible use of resources are central to this approach.

The sustainability statement notes that product life cycles for IT products are becoming ever shorter due to innovations and further developments. In principle, every extension of the useful life conserves valuable resources.

Corporate Culture and Values: The fundamental values of Bechtle have remained unchanged for decades. They are mentioned in the corporate philosophy, which is part of every employment contract. The four defining values are: • Integrity • Perseverance • Reliability • Enthusiasm

These basic values constitute a central element of our corporate culture. Together with our internal management principles, our Code of Conduct, the Vision 2030 and the Bechtle Sustainability and Climate Protection Strategy 2030, these values support our long-term strategic objectives. They provide all employees and other stakeholders with guidance on efficient and sustainable corporate management and control. Entrepreneurial thinking and behaviour are also a fundamental part of our culture: Employees at Bechtle are given entrepreneurial responsibility at a very early stage – this is both a promise and an obligation.

These values are supported by our brand essence, i.e. what defines the Bechtle brand. Our claim "Zukunftsstark" is at the heart of this, flanked by the attributes: • connected • experienced • entrepreneurial

Management and Organization: The Executive Board regularly consulted the legal and compliance department as well as group controlling and actively used the risk management system.

Risk Management, Compliance, CTO and Marketing are the joint responsibility of the entire Executive Board.