It's time to start thinking about Reporting Season 2021

We are now in the lead up to one of the key dates in the corporate calendar. REPORTING SEASON! Soon the flurry of Notice of Meetings, ASX announcements, gathering proxy votes and covering off shareholders tough questions are ahead for another year.

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) is the key annual event for public listed organisations, but often it is not used or managed to its full potential. The formal role of the AGM is to comply with legal requirements such as approving the financial reports, electing the board, appointing an auditor and dealing with any general business. The latter means it can be treated as just an obligation and be rushed through when it can be a highly valuable opportunity to market your company and engage with your investors.?

When no questions or poor questions are asked at an AGM, your investors lose attention, the meeting quickly wraps up and that valuable opportunity is lost. Use those few hours as an opportunity to engage with your investors.

Below we share some tips to ponder on to make your next AGM more than just a procedural dry event;

Taking it Virtual

Done well, virtual AGM's can reinvigorate a tired meeting format.

Prior to Covid and the new guidelines set by ASIC for virtual AGM's, there were not many companies and in particular Boards who would have thought the format could work efficiently. It has been refreshing to see how well the format has been embraced and mastered.

In years past, think about the budget of what a top 20 company would have incurred which could be around a hefty $100K mark when you include venue hire, equipment, catering, flying in your Board and key executives and their accommodation, not to mention the lost time away from the organisation.??

Covid-19 has forced the move to remove geographic and physical barriers for the running and attendance of meetings.?This allows institutional investors to attend more meetings on the same day and encourage shareholders to ask more questions and allow direct voting and of course, eliminate the need for a costly physical meeting that is barely attended.

Promote your Company for FREE!

Use the opportunity to produce a video of your product or service. I have found that shareholders attending the AGM, gain a real understanding of your product or service when they have a visual. In the case of a biotech or a device company, it could be a video of the process or development of your ground breaking technology.

Annual general meetings and shareholder relations meetings are more than just a mandatory reporting exercise. They are growth opportunities, marketing and PR opportunities to innovate your organisation.

Prepare some single page product sheets - sounds very simple, yes..

An example where this has worked in the past for a technology company I was engaged with, I simply prepared a one pager update sheet on advances with their technology over the past year. This was prepared in-house and did not require any cost for printing. Shareholders were thrilled to have something to take away with them and refer back to.

Ditch that boring presentation - keep them awake

You want to engage your investors. Make your presentation stand out. Use graphics that are interesting and relevant. Don’t just present text.

Visualise your data meaningfully, rather than overwhelming your audience with boring tables and over-complicated pie-charts. Remember – you have your CEO or Board representative standing at the front reading the information out to everyone anyway. Do you really want the slides to be the same exact text as the speech? It makes either the presenter or the presentation slides redundant and it’s woefully boring.

Annual general meetings and shareholder relations meetings are more than just a mandatory reporting exercise. They are growth opportunities, marketing and PR opportunities to innovate your organisation.

The AGM period can be a hectic period, but it doesn't need to be. Make the most of opportunity.

Sage Ventures Pty Ltd assist public listed companies with the administration of Governance, Shareholder Management, Executive Support to Boards and the management and logistics of AGM's and Annual Reporting. With years of experience, Sage has emerged as a trusted and proven business partner and dynamic forward-focused leader in driving administrative outcomes for corporate organisations.Contact us at www.sageventures.com.au.