January 12, 2010
December will be a big month for contested election with three major Australian companies facing board challenges after treating their retail shareholders disgracefully in capital raisings.
National Australia Bank chairman Michael Chaney should be facing a big protest at the AGM on December 17 in Brisbane after completely shafting retail investors in this year's capital raising.
I've nominated for the board campaigning for greater representation for retail investors and at least the board published the platform in full in the notice of meeting.
Ten Network Holdings is also facing a contest at its AGM on December 10 after doing a selective placement with no share purchase plan at all. Check out the platform in Ten's notice of meeting because they come back quite strongly with their own arguments.
An AWB board tilt has also been lodged for their AGM on December 23 with the arguments laid out in this column for Fairfax Media. Surprisingly, the board has declined to engage at all on the issue of grain grower shareholders being shafted in the notice of meeting.
For more background on this question of how retail shareholders have been diluted by many billions of dollars in 2009, check out the full Fairfax series on capital raising shaftings here.
Our flights are booked for the NAB AGM in Brisbane and the Ten Network AGM in Sydney and we'd love your proxies. Just appoint Stephen Mayne and send the form back to the company or do it online through the Computershare website. If you want to reach us beforehand, email stephen@maynereport.com. Finally, check out the latest bumper email edition of The Mayne Report which has more information on these tilts and numerous other issues.
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