Many companies are working for closing the financial statements, several already announced 2022 results and other announced the proposed dividend - soon they are ready for annual shareholders meeting.
Effective, and transparent shareholder engagement should not be limited to an annual event (annual general meeting of shareholders). Opportunities to update shareholders on company matters should be offered throughout the year, with an emphasis on ensuring all shareholders have access to similar information.
In practice we observe that some of the listed companies are ‘afraid’ of interacting with shareholders. In Romania and Poland many general meetings are set in same day and some of them in different cities - is this a way maybe to have only few retail investors joining the meeting in person?
The main concern is that during the year the management of listed companies might engage only some shareholders, and this may trigger a market abuse risk because not all shareholders have access to same information in timely mater.
Below are few actions to be considered inspired from experience of more developed markets.
Events dedicated to shareholders
All shareholders (without discrimination between type of shareholder and its holdings) may be offered the opportunity to attend shareholders events as Investor Relations Days and Capital Markets Days. In this way the management of companies share the same information on company performance or engagement as other investors.
Recordings of, or slides or summaries from, such events could be made available on the company’s website, and shareholders should be encouraged to submit questions before the event takes place.
Members of the board should attend engagement days with shareholders and should have an active interaction with investors.
Summaries of previous events may be made available to shareholders prior to the general meetings on the company website.
Events preparing annual general meetings
In the period prior to the annual general meetings of shareholders, after the notice of the meeting has been published, companies
may wish to offer a separate shareholder event to discuss matters pertinent to making decisions on voting, to enable shareholders to discuss matters related to the company and
receive up-to-date information about the business prior to formal voting.
To avoid shareholders repeating questions already raised at the pre-meeting, it is recommended that any key issues previously raised at a pre-meeting, separate communications or via any published Q&A are summarised for the annual event.
And yet, why are listed companies afraid to meet minority shareholders?