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Speaker 1: Welcome to Ask Fear and Greed, where we take your

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Speaker 1: questions and do our very very best to answer them.

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Speaker 1: I'm Michael Thompson, and good afternoon.

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Speaker 2: Sean Aylmer. Good afternoon, Michael, Sean.

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Speaker 1: Today's question comes from Phil on LinkedIn. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: be honest. Phil is sounding a little bit bitter, Phil says.

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Speaker 1: Phil says, there's a bit of attitude coming through this one.

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Speaker 1: No offense, no judgment. What's the point any email it starts?

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Speaker 1: What's the point? It's a good one. What's the point

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Speaker 1: of agms anymore? Previously they seem to be for the

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Speaker 1: retail investors, the mums and dads to go along and

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Speaker 1: have their say. Now the big investors like super funds

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Speaker 1: seem to have so much sway that they don't even

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Speaker 1: need an AGM to get their point across. Is there's

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Speaker 1: still value in an annual general meeting the SCons?

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Speaker 2: It's fairly simple, the SCons.

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Speaker 1: Very expensive and very kind of detailed process to go

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Speaker 1: through just to get a SCON.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, true, true, Well, it's I kind of don't totally

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Speaker 3: agree with the premise of the question. So agms are

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Speaker 3: yielding meetings of company shareholders all of company shareholders. The

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Speaker 3: purpose is to review like a company's performance, ask senior

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Speaker 3: management questions, vote on important decisions. I suppose upfront, under

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Speaker 3: the Corperations Act, of public company has to have an AGM.

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Speaker 3: It's got to be once a year. It's got to

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Speaker 3: be within five years of the end of its financial year.

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Speaker 3: That normally occurs about now, and the financially year being

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Speaker 3: June thirty, so October November full of AGM season, and

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Speaker 3: we've been talking about it a fair bit, so I suppose.

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Speaker 2: They have to have it. The point about big shareholders

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Speaker 2: holding sway nowadays, I think big shareholders always have held sway.

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Speaker 2: What's different now is that they're much more vocal about

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Speaker 2: how they vote. So when I first covered agms, you

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Speaker 2: wouldn't know how the big institutional shareholders have voted. That's

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Speaker 2: changed a lot in the last ten years, and people

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Speaker 2: like this Stralian Shareholders Association, and that we've got to

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Speaker 2: give credit to some of those people because they're now

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Speaker 2: ahead of the meeting saying this is what we recommend

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Speaker 2: people vote. These these proxy institutions that do exactly the

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Speaker 2: same and they're helping people kind of work out the

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Speaker 2: detail in all these notice of meetings about who's trying

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Speaker 2: to be re elected, how much people are getting paid,

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Speaker 2: all that sort of stuff.

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Speaker 3: And I actually think it's a really good thing that

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Speaker 3: these big instants are actually talking about it now, because

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Speaker 3: if they come out and argue against something like what's

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Speaker 3: happened with quantits recent years, then a lot of other

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Speaker 3: people will jump on board.

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Speaker 2: You get to know more about it. So I'm gabbling

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Speaker 2: on a bit, but the big shareholders have always held sway,

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Speaker 2: it's just they're more vocal about it now.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 2: The other thing I think is really important. It actually

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Speaker 2: is about the only opportunity for many retail investors to

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Speaker 2: actually ask the CEO or the chair a question. And

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Speaker 2: I've been to CEOs and might be come off Banks

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Speaker 2: CEO many years ago and someone stuff and said, my

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Speaker 2: branch at so and so. I can't quite remember the question,

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Speaker 2: but it's about a specific branch in a suburb in Melbourne,

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Speaker 2: and the CEO said, okay, we'll get your name a

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Speaker 2: number and we'll chase that up. That doesn't happen very

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Speaker 2: often in big business now. It's so to actually have

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Speaker 2: retail investors being able to ask questions, I think is

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Speaker 2: really really important.

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Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that, because it

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Speaker 1: seems to me that it then becomes more an exercise

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Speaker 1: in transparency than really in about kind of exerting influence

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Speaker 1: or about the voting processes that happened in there. It's

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Speaker 1: more about an exposure of everything, the opportunity to ask

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Speaker 1: these questions, because I mean, there does seem to be

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Speaker 1: a lot of influence exerted by some of these big investors,

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Speaker 1: and we have the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, for instance,

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Speaker 1: who are quite open about the fact that they have

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Speaker 1: ongoing meetings with a lot of these companies talking about

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Speaker 1: the issues that matter to them. So really it does

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Speaker 1: feel as though the AGM isn't so much for that

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Speaker 1: kind of side of it anymore, that maybe it is

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Speaker 1: just an exercise in transparency for a lot for a

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Speaker 1: lot of hosts.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think it's always been. There's a story

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Speaker 3: around the last twenty four hours so that the corporate

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Speaker 3: regulator is suing National Australia being about I mean it

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Speaker 3: alleges that failed to respond to please from a bunch

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Speaker 3: of customers over a five year period. Some of them

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Speaker 3: were definitely hardship categories, domestic violence victims. It's all alleged, right,

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Speaker 3: so I'm not saying yay or n on that. But

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Speaker 3: what an AGM does actually do is, if you're a shareholder,

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Speaker 3: at least gives you an opportunity to talk about those

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Speaker 3: sorts of things, and I just think the AGM does so.

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Speaker 2: It is transparency. But it also allows this small investor

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Speaker 2: to actually talk to the CEO, and that doesn't happen

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Speaker 2: very often.

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Speaker 1: So Phil, relax your crack.

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Speaker 2: You don't relax your crack. Can we leave that in

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Speaker 2: or not?

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Speaker 1: Well, I think we've.

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Speaker 2: Done it now.

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Speaker 1: An alternative would be, Phil, calm your farm. Calm the farm,

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Speaker 1: your a gms have a purpose. We appreciate your question.

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Speaker 1: It's a good question. It's worthy of discussion, and I

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Speaker 1: think you've I think you've answered it to answered it well.

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Speaker 1: So thank you Phil for the question, Thank you Sean

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Speaker 1: for answering it.

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Speaker 2: Thank you Phil, Thank you Michael.

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Speaker 1: And if you would like us to answer one of

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Speaker 1: your questions, I almost said answer it almost had inverted

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Speaker 1: commas over it. Just then discuss your question and potentially

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Speaker 1: quit a size you for that question, if you put

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Speaker 1: enough attitude into it, then please send it on through.

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Speaker 1: You can do it via LinkedIn as Fiel did, or

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Speaker 1: Instagram or Facebook, or head along with Fearangreed dot com

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Speaker 1: dot au and just send it through the website. I'm

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Speaker 1: Michael Thompson and this is ask Fear and Greed