4 questions lodged at 2025 Aust Ag physical AGM
July 2, 2025
Below is the text of the 4 written questions submitted ahead of time via the Link/MUFG platform at the physical only Australian Agriculture Company (AAC) AGM to be held at 10am in Brisbane on July 23, 2025. You can watch but not participate through this MUFG link. See notice of meeting. Market cap was $832m on July 2. No early disclosure of proxies in the formal addresses last year.
Q1. I've voted my 51 shares against all resolutions as a protest over your continual refusal to run hybrid AGMs which allows shareholders to vote and ask questions remotely on the day, without travelling to Brisbane. Why do you do this?
Q2. Best practice is now to disclose the proxy position to the ASX along with the formal addresses to offer more timely disclosure to the market? The likes of Origin Energy, NAB, Car Group, Viva Energy, Webjet, Xero, Myer, Brambles and JB Hi Fi all do this (see full list.) You've never done this before, so will you adopt this practice at this year's AGM? Given that more than 98% of voted stock is done by proxy 48 hours before the AGM, the meeting itself is essentially an election outcome announcement event. But if you don't disclose the outcome in a timely manner, we finish up debating in the dark and having to request proxy disclosure on the day. If worried about impacting the debate in the room you can always delay putting up the proxies slide for those in attendance, but please disclose it early to the ASX, ideally in a separate announcement the day before the meeting.
Q3. The latest audited accounts claim that we have net assets worth $1.517 billion yet the market capitalisation on July 1 was only $832 million. Can you cite any other ASX300 companies which have such a disparity between book value and market value and what steps did KPMG's external audit signing partner, Scott Guse, take to understand why such a disparity exists? Precisely what value can Mr Guse see that investors can't?
Q4. Donald McGauchie was born in 1950 and has chaired our company since August 2010. Can he name a longer serving independent chair of an ASX300 company and is he intending to retire before his latest 3 year term expires at the 2027 AGM? Surely he is not going to try and notch up 17 years in the job, particularly given our lacklustre shareholder returns over the longer term? Does Donald believe his successor is currently serving on our 8 person board or is he managing things such that no viable successor is even allowed to get on the board to provide an alternative?
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