Conduct of Polls
Total Polling
As a result of the 280 virtual AGMs held for listed entities, polling was again high across all indicies - 100% in the S&P/ASX 100 & 200 and 97.92% in the S&P/ASX201+.
Polling Trends in 2021
All Link Group clients in the S&P/ASX 100 held a virtual meeting in 2021 and as a result all resolutions were put to poll at each of these meetings.
AGM Shareholder Attendance
Percentage of shareholders attending AGMs
With AGMs impacted by the pandemic again in 2021 and a large number of virtual AGMs being held, AGM attendances recorded only 0.08% of shareholders attending meetings across all indices for both physical and virtual meetings. This remained at the same level in 2020.
Meeting Attendance
The pandemic impacted the ability to hold physical AGMs again and as a result the majority of AGMs in 2021 were held virtually. This in turn impacted the number of holders in attendance.
Visitors outnumbered holders for a few reasons including a number of employees logging into their company’s AGM and a number of holders registering to view the AGM but not registering for a voting card.
Meeting Duration
The majority of AGMs lasted between 30 minutes and 1.5 hours, similar to 2020. In 2021, pre-pandemic, the majority of meetings were 1 and 2 hours. We observed virtual meetings being concluded quicker than those of physical meetings which resulted in lower duration times overall.
Months in which meetings and ballots were held
Alongside AGMs, Link Group runs Scheme Meetings, Extraordinary Meetings, Ballots, Creditor Meetings and many more. In 2021 we ran 795 meetings, up 24 from 2020. This was largely due again to a number of organisations engaging us for virtual meeting services, due to COVID-19 restrictions and new IPO clients holding their first Annual General Meeting.
November continues to be the busiest month with the majority of AGMs held at this time alongside the other projects.
| Month | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 24 | 11 | 10 | 17 | 1 |
| February | 17 | 15 | 26 | 18 | 11 |
| March | 26 | 16 | 13 | 15 | 16 |
| April | 31 | 24 | 12 | 22 | 24 |
| May | 102 | 63 | 84 | 76 | 71 |
| June | 43 | 45 | 29 | 16 | 27 |
| July | 32 | 45 | 17 | 19 | 16 |
| August | 21 | 34 | 33 | 15 | 20 |
| September | 31 | 42 | 28 | 40 | 21 |
| October | 107 | 126 | 112 | 108 | 109 |
| November | 303 | 289 | 297 | 331 | 298 |
| December | 58 | 61 | 30 | 30 | 18 |
| Totals | 795 | 711 | 691 | 707 | 632 |