Buhlmann's Corner

Shareholders’ meetings from Munich to Madrid by way of Hanover

They say that that increasing attendance at shareholders’ meetings has been successful.

In all honesty, though, this is only one of the ways of seeing reality. After the cold shower of legality from the outside, things have merely reverted to how they had been beforehand. True, judgment has been passed, but who’s reading it? The bulk of dispersed votes has been recovered this year. The single unadorned facts were collected by our sponsor and can be seen on our website VIPsight.eu.

We’ve seen what happens when two players don’t work, in MTU where attendance was a meagre 19%, and Volkswagen and SIXT, where the management proposal wasn’t appreciated.  In both, the vote on increasing share capital was cancelled spontaneously. So, I spontaneously ask myself how the meeting chairperson could know how the shareholders’ vote would turn out even before the meeting started. But then again, ‘asking oneself’ has been struck from the Agenda.

They don’t even like criticism in Spain, bearing in mind that there is nothing to stop more than 100% of share capital being registered as being in attendance at a shareholders’ meeting, not to mention their getting paid for being there.

Acting on behalf of shareholders represented by VIP, I made remarks and asked questions about the position of the market and its consolidation. I didn’t speak in Spanish but in English. Reactions were highly varied. After me another shareholder asked the chair to explain how a multi-lingual communication group with an interpreter service available was not able to translate what I had said into Spanish.

Some of those present thanked me personally for my analysis and pointers. The Gran Presidente of Telefonica was laconic in his response to my comment: “Telefonica is no longer numero 1”.

Given that the contribution of one person (in his opinion) nameless and delivered in English bore no relation to his reality because “Telefonica is and always will be the world’s number one”, the other questions were unworthy of consideration. It is risky to wear blinkers when leading a major group even when things go well – see Volkswagen .The auto manufacturer had no qualms about getting itself appointed “Company of the Year 2013” by a high-profile shareholders association  …

… so I’m declaring for the British style of shareholders’ meetings; sitting on a bar stool at an airport café, conducting business within the time that it takes for the turnround of a civilian aircraft.