2023-06-29 10:06:51
Many general meetings were virtual this year. You’ve been to quite a few. How has it gone so far?
Bulky. Technical glitches often occurred. Sometimes the technology failed, there were endless breaks. Sometimes the shareholders at home in front of their laptops didn’t even know whether the meeting was still going on. We’ve documented a whole list of glitches, including Covestro, TUI, and Siemens Energy. Covestro’s virtual Annual General Meeting lasted more than nine hours, three and a half hours of which were spent on breakdowns.
Aren’t these normal teething problems of a new format?
This is how the industry is now talking its way out: All isolated cases are said to take some time. In fact, the AGM season has been going on for more than four months now, we are in the second half. Nothing has improved.
And beyond the glitches? You said the virtual format would damage the relationship between owners and managers. How come?
My impression is that many companies are fleeing from their owners with the virtual general meeting. It will take revenge at some point if the shareholders seek dialogue but the board members isolate themselves. The virtual general meeting is a German special way. The shareholders in France and Holland, for example, have long been meeting again in person. We are the only country where the virtual format is still so cultivated after the pandemic.
Marc Tüngler is General Manager of the German Association for the Protection of Securities Ownership. : Image: Wolfgang Eilmes
You yourself speak at around 35 shareholders’ meetings a year, making you one of the best-known speakers at general meetings in Germany. During the pandemic, they were only allowed to send in short videos, which were then shown. How was it?
Terrible. I was sometimes the only one who sent in a video snippet. I can understand that too, it’s just not worth it. I shot about 50 to 60 short videos in total during the three years of the pandemic. But it has been shown that hardly anyone watches the videos, the online viewing figures are really low. Sometimes the video was hard to find.
Of the 40 DAX companies, 28 invited to purely virtual meetings this year, only twelve invited their shareholders to a face-to-face meeting. How was it with smaller companies?
It’s mainly the big companies hiding in the virtual format. The smaller the company, the more likely they are to choose the face-to-face format. According to previous announcements, there are already 24 in the M-Dax and 20 virtual; in the S-Dax so far 39 presence and 25 virtual.
What do grown-ups like about the virtual world?
You have more control over the course of the meetings. Many managers and their lawyers are afraid of not being able to control the mood.
That’s the way it is…
Most general meetings are completely unspectacular. When things get turbulent, it’s usually for good reason. Think of the Bayer Annual General Meeting 2019, where the shareholders refused to discharge the then Bayer boss Werner Baumann after the Monsanto disaster, which cost the shareholders many billions. A general meeting can be a valuable indicator for the supervisory board, a kind of fever thermometer, how the mood among the investors is. You have to feel the hall for that. A good board of directors absorbs what the shareholders say like a dry sponge.
Do the supervisory boards actually listen to the shareholders?
Yes they should and they do. It’s more the board members who worry that the mood will change and are therefore happy when they got through this day. In the face-to-face format, shareholders can see much better whether they are really being listened to.
However, the virtual format also has advantages for shareholders: they can join from all over the world without having to travel long distances.
#feel #hall