by Cliff Weight
Last week I went to 3 AGMs. Aviva on Wednesday, 10 May in London and then Lloyds in the morning of the 11th and RBS in the afternoon, both in Edinburgh.
Aviva was very well attended with about 600 people in the Queen Elizabeth Centre. There were plenty of displays of the Aviva products, lots of staff to explain them and deal with any customer issues or complaints. There were also stands explaining the business (noticeable by its absence was Aviva Investors) and how Aviva contributes to the community. For those arriving early, and many did, there was plenty to see and do and to mingle with fellow shareholders and directors who also graced this pre-AGM event.
I wanted to ask a question. I was asked to register the question with a summary and was asked when I would like to ask the question and it was agreed I would ask not as one of the first but later in the meeting. There were 2 question stations and questioners were directed by staff to station A or B in an orderly fashion.
Sir Adrian Montague, the chairman, opened the meeting by saying he regarded this as one of the most important if not the most important day of the year for the company and stressed the importance of shareholders without whose money the company could not exist. After excellent presentations from the Chairman, Chief Executive and one other director, Sir Adrian opened the meeting for questions and introduced his “three strikes and you’re out rule”. I commend this! Questioners were allowed to ask a maximum of three questions or speak for three minutes but not to exceed either. He pointed out that, if you could not make your point in three minutes, you will have probably lost the audience’s interest by that stage. He also said that this was a shareholders’ meeting and that questions about customer issues were not appropriate and could be raised upstairs with staff who were there ready and prepared to deal with such issues. The meeting appeared to me to nod with approval at this approach which he maintained with almost 100% success. This led to a good series of questions and all those who wished to ask questions appeared to be able to do so. Sir Adrian was an excellent AGM chairman.
A goody bag was provided to all shareholders including discounts for Aviva products, with coffee and biscuits beforehand and an excellent lunch afterwards. This was a very happy, informative AGM and Aviva are to be congratulated.
Lloyds was the second-best AGM of the three, with about 250 attendees, at the Exchange Centre in Edinburgh. The large auditorium was only about 20% full. There was no goody bag but there were plenty of handouts including bars of chocolate with the Lloyds motto “Helping Britain Prosper”, which were to be highly useful later in the day. There were a number of stands but the emphasis seemed to be on history and charitable foundations, together with a number of examples of businesses where Lloyds had helped them prosper. I would have like to have seen more stands explaining the different business lines, particularly Scottish Widows and how the Bank creates shareholder value.
The meeting was timed at a convenient 11 AM, which meant I could fly up from Gatwick on an early morning flight. There are, however, no plans to change the articles of association to permit the AGM to be held in London which would of course be far more convenient for the vast majority of the Lloyds shareholders and might even encourage more fund managers to attend.
I registered my question and was given a yellow form which enabled me to sit near the two microphones. Staff called questioners in turn and this process worked well.
The chairman opened the meeting by setting the scene well, stating the purpose of the company was to help Britain prosper and to be the best bank for customers and shareholders. He said this requires creating a positive culture and removing older parts of the culture that were not appropriate, including dealing fairly and openly with past problems. He referred to the HBOS Reading trial and said now the trial had finished they will try and compensate claims as quickly as possible, in weeks not months. I mention this as it was relevant to how he answered questions later.
He spoke for 24 minutes, followed by the chief executive who spoke for 20 minutes and the CR update from Sara Weller of about eight minutes.
The chairman then opened the meeting for questions saying that it was a shareholders meeting and questions about customer issues were not appropriate. Clearly there is a balance to be struck here, as some customer issues are examples of generic problems in the bank which need to be highlighted and resolved. However, the Chairman, Lord Blackwell was far too liberal in indulging questions about specific customer issues and hence the meeting rambled on.
It was not all tedious. One amusing episode was when Gavin Palmer, when asking a question, apologised that he would have to leave before the meeting ended to go to the RBS AGM and he said, “he felt like he was going from the sunny side here to a dark place over there.” Much laughter ensued.
I and others left the meeting in full swing at 1:10 PM in order to go to RBS. We were not able to partake in the lunch offered by Lloyds.
RBS’s AGM was the worst that I have attended, by a long way. It was scheduled to start at 2 PM, which meant it was impractical to attend all the Lloyds meeting and all the RBS meeting. This could have been a cock up or a conspiracy. I suspect it was the latter, as a means of reducing the number of attendees. There seemed to be lots of employees and advisers and hangers on, some of whom owned shares, but I doubt if there were more than 50 other shareholders. It is extremely disappointing that such a large company has such a poorly attended AGM and does not seem to care.
Coffee and biscuits were served before the meeting, which was rather meagre for those who had had no lunch at Lloyds!
It is clear that, unlike Sir Adrian, RBS do not regard this as the most important day of the year. After a 12 minute introductory speech from the chairmen (Sir) Howard Davies, the chief executive spoke for eight minutes and then Sandy Crombie, the remuneration committee chairman spent some time explaining the changes to be remuneration arrangements in quite some detail.
(Sir) Howard Davies opened the meeting to questions saying customer issues should not be raised and that there was a customer services desk in the room outside the meeting staffed with people ready to answer such questions (I could not locate this, but it may have been there). However, he allowed a very large number of questions which I would’ve considered to be customer service questions or customer complaints and should have been deemed as outside the scope of the meeting. I felt that most shareholders would view this is a waste of their time. It was also clear that there were very few institutional shareholders represented.
To ask a question, you did not have to pre-register it. Everyone was given a handset and when questions started we were asked to press buttons on the handset if you wanted to ask a question. So, you had no idea when you would be called or where you were in the queue. In the event, it worked OK and ShareSoc’s chairman, Mark Northway, asked the first question and I was allowed to ask two questions later in the meeting.
One questioner asked why the Chairman was badged as plain Howard Davies when he had a knighthood. (Sir) Howard meekly confirmed he had this honour. This was another sharp contrast to Sir Adrian and Lord Blackwell who proudly displayed their deserved honours.
After a mostly tedious two and half hours, the meeting closed and we returned to the pre-meeting room where I was amazed(!) to find there were no drinks and no food. Somewhat starved, I did however have my bar of chocolate emblazoned with the Lloyds bank logo which I was able to share around!
More detailed reports on these meetings are available to full members of ShareSoc on our AGM Reports page.
https://www.sharesoc.org/How_To_Run_General_Meetings.pdf is a useful guide and can be sent to companies to help them improve their AGMs.
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