Outgoing Henkel CEO warns sales shortfall

DUESSELDORF, Germany — The pressure was on Henkel’s CEO-designate Hans van Bylen as shareholders gathered for their last annual meeting under his predecessor, Kaspar Rorsted. Investors presented van Bylen with a litany of demands including raises in share prices and dividend payments, Bloomberg reports, and underscored that Rorsted will be a tough act to follow. “The shoes that you have presented to your successor to fill are enormously big,” Hans-Martin Buhlmann, who chairs the Association of Institutional Shareholders, said at the meeting. “I hope, Mr. van Bylen, that they fit.” Rorsted acknowledged that the goal, set last year, of €20 million in revenue will not likely be achieved,  adversely affected by currency movements in emerging markets. Jella Benner-Heinacher, deputy head of DSW, Germany’s largest group of private investors, praised Rorsted for taking responsibility for the shortfall instead of passing the buck to van Bylen.