5 questions lodged at 2025 Mystate hybrid AGM
October 23, 2025
Below is the text of the 5 written questions submitted at the 80 minute Mystate (MYS) hybrid AGM at 10.30am in Hobart on October 21, 2025 and via the excellent Computershare platform. See notice of meeting. Market cap circa $700m and stock has recovered over past two years. The proxies weren't disclosed early in these formal addresses. There was a 10.7% vote against chair Sandra Birkensleigh and 12.9% against the rem report, but neither protest vote was explained. The Finance Sector Union had a strong presence at the meeting after 80% of staff voted against a recent enterprise agreement proposal. Also, see 6 questions asked at 2024 Mystate AGM.
Q1. Thanks for offering a best practice hybrid AGM. The only tweaks next year would be to disclose the proxy position earlier with the formal addresses. Have there been any material protest votes today and was this triggered by any against recommendations by proxy advisers, such as on this remuneration report. Also, could you please include the head count data in the poll results so we can see how many shareholders voted for and against each item, just like with a scheme of arrangement. Our share registry provider Computershare does this at its AGM.
Answer: The chair Sandra Birkensleigh read out a terrible scripted response basically saying no to everything. She trotted out the old "we don't want to cruel the debate" line defending hiding the proxies and then went over the top about confidentiality with proxy adviser reports. Straight after reading this she closed the rem debate and disclosed a 10% protest vote, which went unexplained. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q2. The 6 most valuable US big tech stocks - Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and Nvidia - are together worth more than $20 trillion, largely because they have enormous pricing power and are over-charging customers the world over. Could the CEO comment on which of the big global technology companies we are most reliant on and what would we do if they suddenly put their prices up by 30%? Also, were we impacted by the global AWS outage yesterday?
Answer: The CEO provided a re-assuring response, including that Mystate wasn't impacted by the AWS outage.
Q3. After first being appointed to the Auswide board in 2015, could Sandra please comment as to whether this will be her final term on the board and that she won't be seeking another term in 2028? Also, how are the logistics working being a Queensland-based chair of a Tasmanian headquartered company?
Answer: The chair gave a good response explaining that she'll retire in 2027. She said there is a lot of video conferencing given her Queensland base but she also serves on another Tasmanian based company, Tascorp, and therefore visits regularly. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Sent a message as we got to general business that it was fine not to read out these last two questions but the question wrangler didn't see it, so on we went.
Q4. It sounds like there has been quite a tussle on board renewal and sequencing. These 1 and 2 year terms are very unusual. How much of this is driven by merger agreements and does Vaughn believe the next chair is currently on the board when Sandra retires in 2027.
Answer: The chair noted that APRA was pushing for 10 year limits on bank directors, and Vaughn said selection of the next chair would be a matter for the board. I only asked this because director Sibylle Krieger mentioned untidy board succession issues during her stump speech to be re-elected for just one more year before she exits. Her CV sounded fantastic so it seems odd that she's exiting prematurely. This question wasn't read out on Vaughn's election so it seemed a bit odd when raised in general business. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q5. Okay, we now know there was a 12% vote against the rem report. Was this to do with LTI structure?
Answer: The chair read out a largely irrelevant scripted response. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Copyright © 2025 The Mayne Report. All rights reserved
