6 questions lodged at 2025 ASX Group hybrid AGM

November 2, 2025

Below is the text of the 6 written questions submitted at the two hour and 25 minute ASX Group hybrid AGM in Sydney on October 23, 2025. See notice of meeting and voting results. Market cap was $11.3b on AGM day. The proxies were not disclosed early in these formal addresses.

Q1. Retail shareholder participation rates keep falling, particularly after COVID expedited the shift from paper to online. What is ASX doing to ensure retail holders are even aware when, for instance, there is a contested board election at a public company AGM? Is it acceptable that at the 2024 Qantas AGM, only 1566 of the 150,699 shareholders voted on the election of new chair John Mullen. That's only 1.04%. In Federal elections, voter participation is above 90%. How do we fix the crisis of retail shareholder non-participation?

Answer: CEO Helen Lofthouse acknowledged the problem with low voting rates and voluntary voting and said ASX were open to suggestions on how to fix this. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.

Q2. If even governance-challenged Super Retail can release the proxy votes on your platform 3 hours before its AGM today, why doesn't ASX do this as well to allow for a more fully informed market and AGM debate. If the proxies suggest there has been a second strike on this remuneration report item, surely the market should have been informed about this before trading commenced today? Did any of the proxy advisers recommend against any of today's resolutions and have there been any material proxy protest votes?

Answer: Very disappointing response from chair David Clarke who cited confidentiality in not commenting about proxy adviser recommendation and offered up the "voting is not over" argument as a reason for keeping the proxies hidden from shareholders during the AGM. This is hopeless. Everyone knows that more than 98% of votes cast are by proxy at least 48 hours before the meeting and the situation in Q6 below highlights why early disclosure in important. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.

Q3. So far in calendar 2025, there have been more than 40 institutional placements above $10m with no accompanying SPP for retail shareholders. PAITREOs are the fairest way to raise capital but we haven't had one of those since TWE's offer in September 2023. 25 months is the longest PAITREO drought since the structure was pioneered by Origin and Merrill Lynch in 2011. ASX itself did a best practice PAITREO in 2013 and there were 8 in 2015 alone. Are you worried about the apparent death of the PAITREO and why is this happening?

Answer: The chair David Clarke was disappointingly disinterested in this issue and doesn't sound like someone who champions the interests of retail shareholders. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.

Q4. David Curran is our longest serving director, but only joined the board in March 2022. This is a very unusual situation, caused by the mass wipe-out of directors after the various governance snafus in recent years. How are we managing the situation of a lack of institutional memory on the board and have we considered appointing someone with long institutional memory of ASX onto the board to address this corporate memory gap. Does chair David Clarke contact former directors much to check on historical issues?

Answer: The chair acknowledged that this was an issue and said he does speak to former directors from time to time. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.

Q5. Thank you for allowing live online written questions today although it has been an unusual hybrid format. It is a bit clunky having to juggle two platforms - MUFG to lodge written questions and Viostream to watch the high quality video webcast. You also haven't allowed for live online voting today so I'm not able to vote from home for Anne Loveridge, who is one of my favourite directors. Could Anne comment if she'll lobby her board colleagues to bring back live online voting next year, if only to try and lift the horrendously low retail shareholder voting rate at all public company AGMs, including this one.

Answer: The chair said they removed online voting due to the low take-up rate when offered previously. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.

Q6. I only just noticed the 18% (sic) against vote on Anne Loveridge's election in the proxy disclosure. By delaying this disclosure, it reduced the chances of material protest votes being analysed & explained. Could David Clarke explain what the issue was with Anne's election. Corporate voting is not a secret ballot in Australia so you should know who voted against and investigated the reasons why? Please share what you know with us uninformed retail shareholders who are often left in the dark on what proxy advisers & big investors do.

Answer: The chair explained that the 16.84% against vote was driven by offshore investors concerned about Anne's long run as an audit partner at PwC, which is the ASX auditor. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.

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6 questions lodged at 2025 ASX Group hybrid AGM

November 2, 2025

Below is the text of the 6 written questions submitted at the two hour and 25 minute ASX Group hybrid AGM in Sydney on October 23, 2025. See notice of meeting and voting results. Market cap was $11.3b on AGM day. The proxies were not disclosed early in these formal addresses.