Origin Energy AGM (2008)

Details

Company: Origin Energy
Type: Annual General Meeting
Date: 15 October 2008
Chairman: Kevin McCann (independent)
CEO: Grant King

Pre-AGM
This was my first (and to date only) AGM which I was paid to go to. I went while working as an auditor at KPMG, in case we needed to audit the count of the votes by shareholders at the AGM. We didn't need to in the end.

Questions and Voting
I didn't ask anything, as I was there in a professional capacity. (Crazy old) Jack Tillburn was there, and he went on a couple of his usual rants. It was entertaining, but probably because Origin had performed well and so questions were few.


Post-AGM
I went back to work at the office!

This probably doesn't count, but I wanted to document it anyway.

David Jones AGM (2006)

Details

Company: David Jones

Type: Annual General Meeting

Date: 1 December 2006

Chairman: Robert Savage (independent)

CEO: Mark McInnes

Pre-AGM

It had been a while since my last AGM. In fact, I'm not even sure of the date of this AGM (as I'm writing this in 2011 - which also means everything is highly paraphrased), it might have been in 2006 or it might have been in 2007. I think it was in 2006. That made it 12 months since my last AGM, and 18 months since my an AGM where I had asked a question.

David Jones had been performing quite well, so I really had no qualms to raise and planned to mainly give my praise to the board. Though I did have one question ready on expansion plans.

Questions and Voting

Me: Most of Australia's great companies are ones that have expanded overseas to become global companies: Newscorp, BHP, etc. Yet David Jones has remained almost entirely a domestic company. Why hasn't the company considered international expansion?

Robert Savage: The problem for David Jones in doing that is that we rely heavily on our brand. If we were to expand into another market, the local consumers would not trust our brand as much as the local ones. Perhaps it could work if done in partnership, but those sorts of opportunities are hard to come by.

Voting: I have no idea how I voted. Probably for everything, I guess.

Post-AGM

One of the David Jones Senior managers came to chat to me after the AGM about my question. He expanded on what Robert Savage had said and I was happy with both responses. It was also nice to get that extra attention.