I “attended” the British Smaller Companies VCT Annual General Meeting today via Zoom. This was yet another variant on the practice of virtual AGMs. But there were apparently about 30 people connected which is more than they normally get of shareholders at their AGMs.
It was well managed with no significant technical problems, unlike others recently I have attended. Shareholders could vote for or against the resolutions on the day by using a Zoom Vote facility to give an instant poll result (rather like a “show of hands” vote which is technically what I assume it was although that was not made totally clear). The poll votes were given after each resolution was voted upon. The proxy counts were also displayed at the end. All proxy counts were in favour with the highest opposition being 11% against share buy-backs (probably by ill-informed investors as these are quite essential in my view in VCTs).
The poll figures showed only one or two people voting against a few of the resolutions. I voted against the remuneration resolutions and against the re-election of Chairperson Helen Sinclair – partly because she was first appointed in 2008, and for historic reasons.
Shareholders could submit questions previously or at the meeting by typing them in (but no follow-up possibilities). Not as good as a verbal question/answer model.
David Hall gave a short presentation on the results before questions. They achieved a total IRR of 5.4% last year, depressed by the Covid epidemic as their year end is March. The epidemic had a varied impact on their portfolio holdings, but there has been a bounce back since the year end.
There was a question on dividend policy and the answer was that the current policy will remain in the short term.
The meeting was relatively short with most of it taken up by the voting procedure. But it was certainly better than not allowing any shareholder attendance as other companies have been doing.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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