A FTSE100 Deputy Company Secretary writes...
We are trying to assess the likely level of shareholder activism at our up-coming AGM and in particular whether we can expect ShareAction to attend. For any companies who have recently held their AGM, I would be interested to know whether ShareAction (or any other activist groups) attended. And for those whose AGM is in the near future are you expecting attendance from any shareholder activist groups?
Nothing I can add to the debate I’m afraid as our AGM is not until July. I’ve been co sec of listed company AGMs for 28 years and never heard of Share Action nor had any engagement with them, which might be a product of (a) this being mainly for small listed companies, which may be below their size of company in which they are interested; and (b) unlike Nestle, not being a B2C or strong consumer brands business.
See today’s (Friday 19th) Times for report on ShareAction at Nestle AGM. They are regular attendees at ours, and we always embrace them and allow whatever questions they want to ask.
Nothing expected this year but you never know. ShareAction is in our register but I haven’t seen them in the last 3 years. You can ask your registrar for an overview of the season so far in terms of activism and they can also give you a list of the questions asked. Some questions are specific to the company but some other are general and you can get an idea of what the likes ShareAction are asking this year.