Improving online AGMs in the age of Zoom

We have now had a year of online shareholder annual general meetings (AGMs). This is not likely to change any time soon, and we have to live with that. This month, I have been attended some, and after teething pains last year, companies and registrars now seem to have got the basics right, from registration of shareholders, giving them access to the portal with financial documents and a video stream of the AGM, as well as a chance for participants to ask questions and vote on resolutions.  

Some companies also list all shareholder questions submitted and the responses of the board and management. After the meeting, the vote results on resolutions passed are shared with attendees and published.

But are there areas that can be improved? Yes. The first is timekeeping. 

A 2021 Trend Report released by Nendo, a strategy and storytelling consultancy, shows that the finite currencies for Kenyans are time, attention span and data bundles. Additionally, people prioritise their data bundles for search, sex, sports, social and stories. 

Meetings should take a maximum of one-hour and AGM's should be versatile with the time. Voting takes 5 minutes, and as much as money is important, devoting an hour to listen to speeches read verbatim, which were shared ahead in the annual report, is not going to work. The Board chairman can highlight a few salient points throughout the meeting from the different shareholder documents. 

Another is presentation documents by speakers, which should not contain many slides or tiny graphs. Shareholders should be able to follow the meeting without having to look at their phone screens. 

Companies also use special meeting chat platforms to ensure only true shareholders can register and attend and so their registrars can audit the vote, especially on items that might be contentious like mergers and buyout offers. One problem with these dedicated platforms, as opposed to Zoom or Teams, is that some can not multi-task, and once you switch to answer a WhatsApp message or make a payment, such as to buy a data bundle, the connection is lost. You have to log in to the stream again. 

For companies, these online platforms enable many more shareholders to participate at AGM’s than before and companies don’t have to deal with hundreds of shareholders who physically came for AGM’s t get gift bags, lunch, and umbrellas, with some even leaving before the meeting starts. 

But can companies extend vouchers to attendees and participants? Before one meeting started, I got an SMS that I would get reimbursed for the data bundles I used to access the AGM. I am waiting for that to happen.

Meanwhile, Mark Kaigwa of Nendo says a chat app like Zoom uses between 540MB-1.62GB of data for an hour-long call. This is because 4G devices are designed to offer the highest quality level of throughput of Megabytes. He wishes services like "veedo.live" from Nvidia would be made available in  Kenya. It is a reverse-billing videoconferencing platform and its technology could slash the bandwidth for calls dramatically. 

Courts and Parliament could also use this to extend reach and access to justice.

What are your views on improving virtual shareholder AGMs?