It’s impossible to know how many Shoprite shareholders live in the town of Brackenfell in the northern suburbs of the Western Cape. It’s not much of a destination but it is near lots of places, including the N1, as well as the R300 which gets you onto the M2 quite handily. You can see why Shoprite’s founding CEO Whitey Basson decided Brackenfell, instead of a possibly more picturesque Cape setting, would be the ideal head office location.
And so, for decades a diminishing number of shareholders have schlepped out to Brackenfell to attend the AGM and get the chance to chat and sip Ricoffy with Basson and former chair Christo Wiese once the formalities were completed.
Covid and a very fancy new board put an end to all that. This year’s AGM was an electronic-only event because, said chair Wendy Lucas-Bull, only one shareholder pitched up last year. Perhaps it is appropriate that Shoprite takes direction from time-poor shareholders who evidently get easy access to top management all year round. But it’s disappointing. And it’s one of the reasons the Shoprite AGM underperformed in the inaugural Currency AGM ratings. The other reason is requiring guests to get a link to the AGM from the company secretary. What’s that about?
Computershare and Lumi provide an easy-to-access facility for their clients. Guests of Computershare clients need only click on www.meetnow.global/za, pick their company and away they go. Lumi’s www.smartagm.com provides the same slick access.
TMS, which is the platform used by Shoprite, is still working on its access facility.
So, a disappointing start for Shoprite. It’s docked 15 points for not allowing shareholders (or rather a shareholder) to attend in person and five points for the clunky access. But everything else was excellent. The live video of proceedings was glitch-free with easy visibility of all the directors in attendance; there was even coverage of employees attending the meeting in a breakaway room.
Shareholder activist Just Share described it as a “well run AGM” – high praise indeed from those sceptics.
“Shareholders were able to submit written questions via the TMS platform, use the voice integration functionality or simply raise a hand electronically when they had a question and then speak, with no dial-in necessary. All written questions submitted were read out accurately by the company secretary,” says the NGO in its AGM round-up.
Most impressive was the way in which questions were answered. Lucas-Bull avoided the all-too-common practice of trying hard to answer questions without providing an iota of information (the old IRA trick: “Whatever you say, say nothing”) and gave shareholders useful knowledge.
And, because it publishes the minutes of its AGMs on its website, Shoprite scored a total of 55 of a possible 75 points for this year’s AGM.
A shoddy affair
Truworths’ AGM was similar in only one regard: it also banned shareholders from attending in person. But, unlike Shoprite’s, this was a shoddy affair. Three white men sitting around the end of a table was all that was visible of the board’s 13 members.
While chair Hilton Saven did almost all the talking, CEO Michael Mark spent much of the meeting checking his cellphone. Mind you, it is Mark’s 28th AGM as CEO, so he might be finding the whole process a bit tedious. In the circumstances Hans Hawinkels did a sterling job to look engaged.
Truworths did score five points for ease of access for guests, but while the quality of video was good, having it trained on just three men at the end of a table for one hour and eight minutes was not good enough. So, 10 out of a possible 20 points there.
Questions had to be written, or shareholders could dial in, which is a much inferior option to the integrated voice facility, so five out of 10 points there. Apparently, the Computershare platform, being used by Truworths, does not yet have the integrated facility.
Answers to the questions were generally evasive, earning the company 10 out of a possible 20 points. While shareholders can get the minutes if requested, they are not publicly disclosed so the group loses those five points.
For its 2024 AGM Truworths notched up just 30 of a possible 75 points.
Tech boost
Sasol also prevented shareholders, including pesky protesters, from attending its AGM in person. It did offer reasonable ease of access to guests and had a first-rate video feed, which revealed the many directors in attendance.
Shareholders could submit questions in writing (which went commendably unmoderated) or through an integrated voice facility. In addition, they were offered an opportunity to ask questions on video.
While the technical offering – apart from not having a hybrid option – was extremely good, answers to the questions were a little erratic. This may be due to the controversial nature of many of the questions (will Sasol ever reduce its world-record toxic emissions?) or because, unlike Truworths, many of the board members are in new roles.
And, because it doesn’t publish its minutes – but does make them available on request – Sasol only managed to score 45 of 75 points for its 2024 AGM.
Results so far
Shoprite: 55
Truworths: 30
Sasol: 45
Sign up to Currency’s weekly newsletters to receive your own bulletin of weekday news and weekend treats. Register here.