4 questions lodged at 2025 Stockland hybrid AGM
November 9, 2025
Below is the text of the 4 written questions submitted at the 70 minute Stockland hybrid AGM held at 2.30pm in Sydney on October 16, 2025, and via the Lumi platform. See notice of meeting and voting results. Market cap was $15 billion on AGM day after a great year. The proxies were disclosed early in the formal addresses for the first time, after a request to do this at last year's AGM where asked these 7 questions. They also came through with headcount data in the poll results, which is great. Well done.
Q1. Could the CEO please comment on the huge $4 billion-plus price that the Living Co, backed by the Korean national pension fund, paid for Aveo's 67 retirement village land lease properties in 2024-25. What does that suggest our landlease portfolio is worth? Did we participate in the Aveo tender and does the CEO believe the ACCC would have allowed us to buy that business? Once the dust settles on LendLease's exit from its 25% stake in Keyton, Australia's largest retirement living operator, where will we sit in terms of market share in this important growing sector? Is it fair to assume that the ACCC would be unlikely to allow any of the 3 biggest players to merge?
Answer: The chair Tom Pockett didn't invite the CEO to comment on any of this and so basically the whole issue was batted away with little insight offered except they didn't bid for Aveo. This was potentially a badly researched question if Stockland does not participate in this sector, as stated. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q2. Thank you for consistently holding best practice hybrid AGMs since the pandemic and also getting with the program this year on early proxy disclosure ahead of today's AGM. Well done for achieving such strong voting support. Have you also decided to respond positively to another disclosure request from last year, that being adopting scheme-like voting disclosure which shows how many of our 45,000 shareholders voted for and against each item. I'd be very interested to see where retail shareholder sentiment is at on this remuneration report item. Such disclosure provides a better gauge of retail shareholder sentiment and insight into the chronically low retail shareholder participation rate. Others like Qantas, ASX, Myer, Dexus, Tabcorp & even our own share registry provider Computershare all did this at their latest AGM. If you do this, there will be nothing left for me to ask for at next year's Stockland AGM to reach AGM best practice.
Answer: Company secretary Katherine Grace confirmed they would provide the headcount data so Stockland is now in the AGM best practice club. Here it is. Well done. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q3. Thank you to Stephen Newton for his 9 years of service on the board. It is always helpful for investors to have access to some exit perspectives from retiring independent directors. In his final contribution as a Stockland director, could Stephen please comment on what he regards as the best 2 board decisions made during his time on the board and does he have any regrets?
Answer: The chair conveyed that Stephen Newton had nothing to offer. Disappointing that he did a Ken Henry, who took the same position when he exited the ASX board a few years back. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q4. After spending 8 years as CEO of our competitor GPT, Bob Johnson finally departed their board on March 4 last year and his exit shareholding was 2.32m ordinary shares worth $12.53 million if retained today and a further 917,768 performance rights which may vest in 2025 or 2026 if our competitor does well. I raised this issue at last year's Stockland AGM and the question was censored somewhat so I'll ask it in more placid terms this year. How has relatively recently appointed independent Stockland director Bob Johnson managed the situation of having a large legacy equity position in one of our biggest competitors? Has he sold down to avoid a perceived conflict of interest and has the chair taken an interest in this issue or is it regarded as a private matter which Mr Johnson can manage as he sees fit? This is not intended to impugn Mr Johnson. He's been a great hire for us but it is not common for CEOs to retire and quickly join the board of a competitor.
Answer: The company secretary Katherine Grace tweaked this quite a bit and the chair Tom Pockett moved to block any comment from Bob Johnson who then piped up from afar that he'd sold down. Not clear if he'd sold down or sold out, so a shame he wasn't given the call and that Tom declined to reveal if he'd nudged Bob in this direction. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Copyright © 2025 The Mayne Report. All rights reserved
