Diageo votes at AGM – more opposition

This morning Diageo announced their voting results from the poll at their AGM on the previous day. Isn’t it annoying when the poll is not declared at the meeting so shareholders cannot question the board on the results?

But that aside, they got 11.8% against the Remuneration Report, up from 7.5% last year. This rather reflects the complaints in the meeting itself about the general level of remuneration in such large FTSE-100 companies. It seems likely that last year’s figures were somewhat flattered by the goodwill to the new Chairman of the Remuneration Committee but that has obviously now evaporated.

The company also got 14.6% against the change to 14 days notice for General Meetings, up from 10.5% last year. Will the company pay attention to the rising opposition or continue to ignore shareholders on this point? ShareSoc has consistently opposed such resolutions as both unnecessary and prejudicial to shareholders’ interests. At least it’s good to see opposition growing rather than such resolutions being considered “normal”.

A full report on the Diageo AGM is present here.