By Brian Murphy and Scott Phillips King & Wood Mallesons’ Sydney Office
Declining value of the annual general meeting
In the words of former Macquarie Group chairman Kevin McCann “the AGM’s broken but no one’s come up with a better alternative’’.
The growth in the availability of company information and commentary on the internet has coincided with a staggering decline in attendance at the AGMs of ASX listed companies. In 2014, the average AGM attendance rate for ASX 50 constituents was less than 1/10th of 1%.For a company with 100,000 shareholders that’s the equivalent of 90 shareholders.
Coupling this low attendance rate with the cost of holding an AGM (both in terms of dollars and management and director time) we think something needs to be done to reinvigorate the much maligned AGM.
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