4 questions lodged at 2025 QBE Insurance hybrid AGM
May 9, 2025
Below is the text of the 4 written questions submitted at the 97 minute QBE Insurance hybrid AGM held on May 9, 2025, plus a summary of the answers and some video grabs via Twitter. See notice of meeting and voting results. Market cap was $33b on AGM day. No early proxy disclosure in the formal addresses. See 6 questions asked at 2024 AGM. Once again, they refused to follow the agenda, dealing with all items of business in one job lot.
Q1. When it comes to rejecting AGM transparency requests, my lived experience is that Mike Wilkins is the biggest "Dr No" in the ASX100 chair club. Please disclose the proxies early. No. Please follow the agenda. No. Please disclose how many of our 72,000 retail shareholders voted. No. Does Mike agree that his approach of "we follow the law and do nothing more" reflects his long career in the insurance industry where the starting position when a claim is made, is to say no. Has Mike or his board colleagues ever reflected on whether it is appropriate to be so resistant to simple transparency and governance requests when the market is clearly moving on all of these issues. You are way out of line with standard practice in refusing to follow the AGM agenda and would never do this at a board meeting. And if the ASX itself and even our own share registry provider Computershare now happily disclose scheme-like head count data in their AGM poll results, why can't we? Please get with the transparency program, Mr Wilkins, or hand over to someone who will!
Answer: Was off at the Dropsuite scheme meeting when this was dealt with so will have to wait for the webcast meeting archive to go up.
Q2. Could re-election candidate and long serving director Yasmin Allen please comment on why she continues to support a ban on online participation at the Santos AGM, where she is a long serving director. Also, given that even Santos followed the agenda at its recent physical AGM in Adelaide, why does she allow our chair to ignore the agenda and treat the debate as one big job lot, despite repeated requests not to do this because it reduces the focus on important individual items of business, such as Yasmin's proposed re-election today. Yasmin's response to this question will determine how I vote on her re-election today.
Answer: Was off at the Dropsuite scheme meeting when this was dealt with so will have to wait for the webcast meeting archive to go up. See Yasmin's earlier campaign speech.
Q3. It is disappointing that so few QBE directors turn up in person for the AGM in Sydney. Why don't you combine the AGM with an in-person board meeting, as most major companies do? At last year's AGM, our dominating chair rejected a request for two retiring directors to provide some final reflections claiming it was "unfair", so I'll try again. Thank you to Rolf Tolle for his 9 years of service on the board, including his important work as chair of the risk committee, which ends at the conclusion of today's AGM. It is always helpful for investors to have access to some exit perspectives from retiring independent directors. In his final contribution as a QBE director, could Rolf please comment on what he believes were the 2 best board decisions QBE made during his time on the board and is he prepared to honestly acknowledge any mistakes. No other ASX100 chair has blocked a retiring director from answering this question, so please don't repeat last year's effort Mr Wilkins and instead invite Rolf to respond to this perfectly reasonable question.
Answer: The chair again claimed such a question was unfair but then the tech failed. Watch video of exchange via Twitter, plus have a chortle about this spectacular technology fail when Rolf Tolle was invited to offer some exit reflections but was never heard.
Q4. Whose idea was it to try and do away with the physical component of QBE AGMs with a constitutional amendment permitting virtual only meetings? You abandoned the proposed change after just 8 days but should have known that companies such as Brambles, Bendigo Bank, Dexus, Flight Centre, Qantas, National Storage, Fleet Partners, Kogan and National Storage all tried and failed to do the same thing over the past 4 years. Can't you read the room. All the proxy advisers and major investors are united about the importance of maintaining a physical component to AGMs, so that investors can see the whites of the eyes of directors and not avoid scrutiny in the way that often happens at fully virtual AGMs. Which law firm advised you to attempt this embarrassing move and did you refuse to pay their fees for the time wasted on this proposal?
Answer: The chair Mike Wilkins didn't name the law firm and gave a reasonable explanation of what happened. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
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