We don’t provide refreshments (other than a water machine)beforehand, despite being some way away from the nearest facility that might. Some of our shareholders moan about this occasionally but we ignore it!
After the AGM (which lasts about an hour) we provide a free bar (including beer, wine and soft drinks) and a sandwich/snack lunch which also includes a cheese board, vegetarian and coeliac friendly options. We are a pub company/brewer so the hospitality is expected! We get about 250-300 shareholders attending so I guess we are quite unusual. It’s a fairly large planning exercise and requires help from our events team so I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.
FTSE 250said
Our AGM starts at 11.45am. We provide tea and coffee and biscuits prior to the meeting, and a buffet lunch (sandwiches, hot and cold canapes) including wine afterwards (we also put on display company pens/pencils/pads etc for shareholders to help themselves). We have a reasonable turnout (although a lot less then when we use to provide a hot sit down lunch!)and we tend to leave about 2.00 although in many cases we leave a lot of the die-hard shareholders still drinking and talking ablout the glory days!
FTSE 250said
Our shareholders arrive at the AGM venue (usually a West End hotel) from 10.30 and are served tea/coffee/soft drinks/biscuits. The business of the meeting starts at 11.30 and runs for about one hour due to the Chairman entertaining a variety of questions. By way of background, we feel that our AGM is a bit out of the ordinary as we have a loyal “core” shareholder base who attend each year. About 3 months before the AGM, we personally invite our top 20 shareholders and the analysts as well as a number of our subsidiary MDs. That way the investment community gets wider exposure to management below the usual CEO/CFO meetings. This has worked well and many “City” people have said that our AGM is distinctive. After the AGM business is complete, the Chairman invites all shareholders to join the Board/MDs in a reception area at which time alcholic drinks are served. This lasts about 30 minutes and we then cease serving alcohol – we have a sit down lunch that follows for the invited guests, and a buffet lunch for all others. It sounds divisive but we didn’t used to serve the buffet lunch at all, so it was a welcome introduction when started 5 or so years ago.
FTSE 100said
We start the meeting at 2.30 p.m. following Board and Committee meetings in the morning. Historically we provided tea coffee and biscuits before and after the meeting. This year, we will provide sandwiches following the meeting, following the chairman’s promise at last year’s AGM.
FTSE 100said
Well, plenty of comment to choose from! i think the important thing is to realise that the audience for the day are retail shareholders who have time on their hands. the company then needs to decide how much of an “event” it wants to make for them, this might well depend on the sector and company culture and how the company has come to listing.
i would echo others sentiments that having set a pattern, try not to change it.
FTSE SMALL CAPsaid
We used to have the AGM at noon followed by full buffet lunch. The turnout was consequently quite high, and they brought their carrier bags! We once spotted a shareholder leaving with a whole pineapple in her bag ( part of the display)! Last year we started at 10 with tea and biscuits before and after, but because several shareholders found this too early, will be starting at 11 in 2012.
FTSE 250said
We have our AGM at 11.30am this and provide tea, coffee and buscuits
FTSE 250said
11am start this year with tea/coffee/biscuits before and after. We had several years of 10am start but our chairman wanted the later start so OAPs could use travel passes! We only have a handful of shareholders attending.
FTSE 250said
10 am start. Coffee and biscuits beforehand. Meeting is in the City.
FTSE 250said
Our AGM is normally held at 2/3pm (after holding audit committee and board meetings in the morning).
These generally take place at a hotel (in the past they have also been held at lawyers offices using their meeting rooms).
We provide tea / coffee and biscuits before and after.
Our shareholder turnout is very low and the same faces attend each year. The whole process is usually complete within an hour.
FTSE 250said
We hold ours at our Head Office. We start at 12.30 pm and offer tea, biscuits and soft drinks before and after. The whole process is usually complete in well under an hour. We stopped holding our AGMs at hotels and serving hot lunches and alcohol over five years ago and have found that the meeting is now far more effective and efficient. And much cheaper !
FTSE 250said
Our AGM starts at 11am. We provide tea and coffee and biscuits prior to the meeting, and a buffet lunch (sandwiches, hot and cold canapes) including wine afterwards. Have to say, our shareholders think it’s marvelous and more often than not we have to gently push the last of them towards the door at 2pm (removing their wine glasses from their hands on the way out). Agree with other comments that once you start something you should continue with it – shareholders do not embrace change when it comes to their day out!
FTSE 250said
We hold our AGM in a hotel in the North East near our HQ. We start at 1145, with tea/coffee cakes and biscuits beforehand. We provide a lunch of sandwiches, savoury bakes, and cakes, and we serve wine. We are a retail baker and would find it difficult not to provide food!
FTSE 100said
We start our meeting at 12.15pm. We offer tea, coffee and biscuits before the meeting and canapes and non-alcoholic drinks after the meeting.
FTSE 250said
We meet at 1100 in Central London and get about 120 attendees. We provide tea, coffee and biscuits beforehand, and finger food and soft drinks afterwards (the alcohol went a few years ago).
My personal preference would be to have the meeting at 1400/1430 and drop the lunch altogether, but this isn’t logistically practicable for us.
FTSE SMALL CAPsaid
We hold the AGM in a central Manchester hotel and start at 11.00. Tea, coffee and buscuits before and after the meeting.
FTSE 250said
We hold our agm at our head office in Gloucestershire, starting at noon. The meeting usually takes an hour. Tea, coffee and biscuits offered before the meeting. Hot buffet 2 course lunch provided after the meeting in our staff canteen and this is simply an extension of our normal lunch facilities. We didn’t serve wine in 2009 and when we announced the reinstatement of the wine service in 2010 this got the biggest round of applause of the meeting. Tours of our sites are provided afterwards. Only 1.9% of our shareholders are retail investors and around 100 of them come to our agm – they may bring partners and guests so total attendance can be 130 or so.
FTSE 250said
We start at 11 & offer tea coffee & biscuits before the meeting only.
FTSE 100said
We start at 11am and provide tea/coffee/juices and biscuits before and after the meeting.
FTSE 250said
Start date will depend on the location. We are based in Kings Langley, Hertfordsire and we have 40 plus hard core private individual supporters who come from all parts of the UK and Northern France, so bearing in mind the logistics and distance which our followers have to travel we make it 11.00am. When I mean location we hold our AGM at our Head Office and have an open day for shareholders, I changed to our Head Office over eight years ago and it allows shareholders to meet the Board, senior staff and to view our technology in our demo rooms. Believe me this beats having it in some hotel in Central London.
Refreshments. The usual tea/coffee before with cakes and biscuits. Our AGM normally lasts over two hours since we have such a good following and after the AGM we provide an international spread of hot and cold foods with some naughty desserts. We do provide lashings of alcohol and we (including the Board) have a drink with the shareholders, this goes on until 2.30pm with our demo rooms are open for shareholders to understand the latest technology and the products our technology run.
FTSE 100said
We start our AGM at 2pm and provide tea/coffee/biscuits both before and after the meeting. We used to hold it at 11am but moved it later to allow more time for travel to the venue and to avoid the issue of lunch. Our shareholder turnout is very low (and we don’t have many retail shareholders) so there was little resistance.
FTSE 100said
We start the meeting at 2.30 p.m. This allows for us to have a Board meeting in the morning – a continuation of the day before. We provide tea coffee and biscuits before and after the meeting.
FTSE 100said
Typically we have have approximately 300-350 attending our AGM. We commence at 11 a.m providing tea/cofee and buiscuits before and sandwiches, soft drinks and wine after the meeting.
FTSE 250said
Our AGM is generally held in a hotel each year. We start the meeting at 1100 hours and it s usually finished an hour or so later. Before the meeting commences, we provide tea/coffee/biscuits (a number of shareholders start to arrive from around 1015 hours) and, immediately following the AGM, we provide a sandwich buffet, some cakes, cold drinks (orange juice) and tea/coffee; no alcohol though! The buffet addition started three years ago and heralded the arrival of a new Chairman.
FTSE 100said
Our meeting starts at 11am in London. We have provided tea, coffee and biscuits before the meeting and tea, coffee, soft drinks, wine and sandwiches (including veggie options) after the meeting. Probably too much but rowing back from where we have been may be awkward.
FTSE 100said
We begin our meeting at a local hotel at 11.am (so retail shareholders can take advantage of cheaper travel to get to the meetings). We provide tea/coffee and biscuits before the meeting and a light buffet lunch after the meeting. We are looking to remove the buffet after this year’s meeting.
FTSE 100said
I think this varies according to sector and shareholder type.
Where a company has a large retail customer and shareholder base I’ve found that they try to be more accommodating in terms of time (starting later in the morning to allow for off peak travel for pensioners for example) and refreshments (providing a buffet lunch and even goodie bags).
If starting from scratch, start as you mean to go on. Retail shareholders don’t like change and if you withdraw refreshments or change the time or location of the meeting it’s likely that this will take up question time at the AGM and not prove popular with the Chairman!
FTSE 250said
Our AGM’s start at 11.00am usually and we offer tea, coffee, juices and biscuits prior to the meeting only.
FTSE 100said
We start at 11am. We provide tea/coffee and biscuits.
FTSE 250said
We hold our AGM at our head office and start at 12 noon. We provide tea and coffee before the meeting and tea and coffe and light snacks after the meeting.
FTSE SMALL CAPsaid
11am start. Tea/Coffee/Biscuits/small pastries before and after the meeting.
FTSE 250said
We are in Leeds and have the AGM at our head office. We start at 10.30 am and provide tea coffee and light refreshments before and after the meeting.
Our AGM starts at 12 noon.
We don’t provide refreshments (other than a water machine)beforehand, despite being some way away from the nearest facility that might. Some of our shareholders moan about this occasionally but we ignore it!
After the AGM (which lasts about an hour) we provide a free bar (including beer, wine and soft drinks) and a sandwich/snack lunch which also includes a cheese board, vegetarian and coeliac friendly options. We are a pub company/brewer so the hospitality is expected! We get about 250-300 shareholders attending so I guess we are quite unusual. It’s a fairly large planning exercise and requires help from our events team so I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.
Our AGM starts at 11.45am. We provide tea and coffee and biscuits prior to the meeting, and a buffet lunch (sandwiches, hot and cold canapes) including wine afterwards (we also put on display company pens/pencils/pads etc for shareholders to help themselves). We have a reasonable turnout (although a lot less then when we use to provide a hot sit down lunch!)and we tend to leave about 2.00 although in many cases we leave a lot of the die-hard shareholders still drinking and talking ablout the glory days!
Our shareholders arrive at the AGM venue (usually a West End hotel) from 10.30 and are served tea/coffee/soft drinks/biscuits.
The business of the meeting starts at 11.30 and runs for about one hour due to the Chairman entertaining a variety of questions.
By way of background, we feel that our AGM is a bit out of the ordinary as we have a loyal “core” shareholder base who attend each year. About 3 months before the AGM, we personally invite our top 20 shareholders and the analysts as well as a number of our subsidiary MDs. That way the investment community gets wider exposure to management below the usual CEO/CFO meetings. This has worked well and many “City” people have said that our AGM is distinctive.
After the AGM business is complete, the Chairman invites all shareholders to join the Board/MDs in a reception area at which time alcholic drinks are served. This lasts about 30 minutes and we then cease serving alcohol – we have a sit down lunch that follows for the invited guests, and a buffet lunch for all others. It sounds divisive but we didn’t used to serve the buffet lunch at all, so it was a welcome introduction when started 5 or so years ago.
We start the meeting at 2.30 p.m. following Board and Committee meetings in the morning. Historically we provided tea coffee and biscuits before and after the meeting. This year, we will provide sandwiches following the meeting, following the chairman’s promise at last year’s AGM.
Well, plenty of comment to choose from! i think the important thing is to realise that the audience for the day are retail shareholders who have time on their hands. the company then needs to decide how much of an “event” it wants to make for them, this might well depend on the sector and company culture and how the company has come to listing.
i would echo others sentiments that having set a pattern, try not to change it.
We used to have the AGM at noon followed by full buffet lunch. The turnout was consequently quite high, and they brought their carrier bags! We once spotted a shareholder leaving with a whole pineapple in her bag ( part of the display)! Last year we started at 10 with tea and biscuits before and after, but because several shareholders found this too early, will be starting at 11 in 2012.
We have our AGM at 11.30am this and provide tea, coffee and buscuits
11am start this year with tea/coffee/biscuits before and after. We had several years of 10am start but our chairman wanted the later start so OAPs could use travel passes! We only have a handful of shareholders attending.
10 am start. Coffee and biscuits beforehand. Meeting is in the City.
Our AGM is normally held at 2/3pm (after holding audit committee and board meetings in the morning).
These generally take place at a hotel (in the past they have also been held at lawyers offices using their meeting rooms).
We provide tea / coffee and biscuits before and after.
Our shareholder turnout is very low and the same faces attend each year. The whole process is usually complete within an hour.
We hold ours at our Head Office. We start at 12.30 pm and offer tea, biscuits and soft drinks before and after. The whole process is usually complete in well under an hour. We stopped holding our AGMs at hotels and serving hot lunches and alcohol over five years ago and have found that the meeting is now far more effective and efficient. And much cheaper !
Our AGM starts at 11am. We provide tea and coffee and biscuits prior to the meeting, and a buffet lunch (sandwiches, hot and cold canapes) including wine afterwards. Have to say, our shareholders think it’s marvelous and more often than not we have to gently push the last of them towards the door at 2pm (removing their wine glasses from their hands on the way out). Agree with other comments that once you start something you should continue with it – shareholders do not embrace change when it comes to their day out!
We hold our AGM in a hotel in the North East near our HQ. We start at 1145, with tea/coffee cakes and biscuits beforehand. We provide a lunch of sandwiches, savoury bakes, and cakes, and we serve wine. We are a retail baker and would find it difficult not to provide food!
We start our meeting at 12.15pm. We offer tea, coffee and biscuits before the meeting and canapes and non-alcoholic drinks after the meeting.
We meet at 1100 in Central London and get about 120 attendees. We provide tea, coffee and biscuits beforehand, and finger food and soft drinks afterwards (the alcohol went a few years ago).
My personal preference would be to have the meeting at 1400/1430 and drop the lunch altogether, but this isn’t logistically practicable for us.
We hold the AGM in a central Manchester hotel and start at 11.00. Tea, coffee and buscuits before and after the meeting.
We hold our agm at our head office in Gloucestershire, starting at noon. The meeting usually takes an hour. Tea, coffee and biscuits offered before the meeting. Hot buffet 2 course lunch provided after the meeting in our staff canteen and this is simply an extension of our normal lunch facilities. We didn’t serve wine in 2009 and when we announced the reinstatement of the wine service in 2010 this got the biggest round of applause of the meeting. Tours of our sites are provided afterwards. Only 1.9% of our shareholders are retail investors and around 100 of them come to our agm – they may bring partners and guests so total attendance can be 130 or so.
We start at 11 & offer tea coffee & biscuits before the meeting only.
We start at 11am and provide tea/coffee/juices and biscuits before and after the meeting.
Start date will depend on the location. We are based in Kings Langley, Hertfordsire and we have 40 plus hard core private individual supporters who come from all parts of the UK and Northern France, so bearing in mind the logistics and distance which our followers have to travel we make it 11.00am. When I mean location we hold our AGM at our Head Office and have an open day for shareholders, I changed to our Head Office over eight years ago and it allows shareholders to meet the Board, senior staff and to view our technology in our demo rooms. Believe me this beats having it in some hotel in Central London.
Refreshments. The usual tea/coffee before with cakes and biscuits. Our AGM normally lasts over two hours since we have such a good following and after the AGM we provide an international spread of hot and cold foods with some naughty desserts. We do provide lashings of alcohol and we (including the Board) have a drink with the shareholders, this goes on until 2.30pm with our demo rooms are open for shareholders to understand the latest technology and the products our technology run.
We start our AGM at 2pm and provide tea/coffee/biscuits both before and after the meeting. We used to hold it at 11am but moved it later to allow more time for travel to the venue and to avoid the issue of lunch. Our shareholder turnout is very low (and we don’t have many retail shareholders) so there was little resistance.
We start the meeting at 2.30 p.m. This allows for us to have a Board meeting in the morning – a continuation of the day before. We provide tea coffee and biscuits before and after the meeting.
Typically we have have approximately 300-350 attending our AGM. We commence at 11 a.m providing tea/cofee and buiscuits before and sandwiches, soft drinks and wine after the meeting.
Our AGM is generally held in a hotel each year. We start the meeting at 1100 hours and it s usually finished an hour or so later. Before the meeting commences, we provide tea/coffee/biscuits (a number of shareholders start to arrive from around 1015 hours) and, immediately following the AGM, we provide a sandwich buffet, some cakes, cold drinks (orange juice) and tea/coffee; no alcohol though! The buffet addition started three years ago and heralded the arrival of a new Chairman.
Our meeting starts at 11am in London. We have provided tea, coffee and biscuits before the meeting and tea, coffee, soft drinks, wine and sandwiches (including veggie options) after the meeting. Probably too much but rowing back from where we have been may be awkward.
We begin our meeting at a local hotel at 11.am (so retail shareholders can take advantage of cheaper travel to get to the meetings). We provide tea/coffee and biscuits before the meeting and a light buffet lunch after the meeting.
We are looking to remove the buffet after this year’s meeting.
I think this varies according to sector and shareholder type.
Where a company has a large retail customer and shareholder base I’ve found that they try to be more accommodating in terms of time (starting later in the morning to allow for off peak travel for pensioners for example) and refreshments (providing a buffet lunch and even goodie bags).
If starting from scratch, start as you mean to go on. Retail shareholders don’t like change and if you withdraw refreshments or change the time or location of the meeting it’s likely that this will take up question time at the AGM and not prove popular with the Chairman!
Our AGM’s start at 11.00am usually and we offer tea, coffee, juices and biscuits prior to the meeting only.
We start at 11am. We provide tea/coffee and biscuits.
We hold our AGM at our head office and start at 12 noon. We provide tea and coffee before the meeting and tea and coffe and light snacks after the meeting.
11am start. Tea/Coffee/Biscuits/small pastries before and after the meeting.
We are in Leeds and have the AGM at our head office. We start at 10.30 am and provide tea coffee and light refreshments before and after the meeting.