5 questions lodged at 2026 Nufarm (NUF) hybrid AGM
February 5, 2026
Below is the text of the 5 written questions submitted at the 47 minute Nufarm (NUF) 11am hybrid AGM at the company HQ in Laverton on February 4, 2026. See notice of meeting. See text of 5 written questions submitted at 2025 AGM. Market cap was $875m on AGM day. The proxies were disclosed early in the formal addresses and the biggest protest vote was 6.1% against re-election of chair John Gillam.
Q1. Chair Gillam, I've asked you on multiple occasions to voluntarily embrace head count voting disclosure in the poll results, something that our share registry provider Computershare has done at its past two AGMs and the likes of Stockland and ARB Group have embraced over the past 6 months. You're so close to reaching the likes of Myer and Suncorp at AGM best practice with good hybrid AGMs and early proxy disclosure to the ASX. Why not ditch your "we just follow the law" response from last year and get with the program today by revealing how many of our nearly 15,000 shareholders voted for and against each item in this afternoon's ASX announcement?
Answer: The question wrangler badly butchered this and chair John Gillam just stuck with his "we follow the law" approach. Here is a list of all the other companies which have embraced head count disclosure transparency. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q2. Thank you for disclosing the proxy votes early to the ASX allowing this better informed question to be asked. The largest against vote today was 6% on John Gillam's re-election. Was this caused by a proxy adviser recommendation based on workload concerns since you signed up to the next chair of SGH Group from June 1, on top of chairing Lendlease and Nufarm. Or was it caused by individual shareholder consternation, including on the disappointing share price performance since you took over as Nufarm chair in September 2020. Are you intending to serve a full 3 year term and how on earth do you intend to manage the workload challenge of leading 3 complicated and diverse major companies?
Answer: The question wrangler badly butchered this but because chair John Gillam was reading the questions directly himself, he provided a reasonable response explaining it was the poor share price performance which prompted one major shareholder to vote against him when the proxy advisers were supportive. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q3. Did the chair and CEO agree with much of what Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said at Davos last month and if so, how exposed is our global business to this "rupture" in the global rules-based order? What specific decisions have we made, or impacts have we suffered, as a result of all the chaos and disruption that has rolled out over the past 12 months since President Trump's second term commenced?
Answer: Chair John Gillam was clearly reading the questions as he referenced Davos even though it wasn't read out by the butchering wrangler. At least Gillam provided a reasonable considered response about this "volatile time" and did say that he agreed with Carney's comment that "if you're not at the table you're on the menu". All very interesting and worth a listen. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q4. A question for auditor Vicky Carlson from KPGM. If you believe the market's assessment, we have one of the most over-inflated balance sheets on the ASX. The audited accounts claim we have equity of $2.11 billion yet the market capitalisation today is only $880 million. It would not be easy telling a strong personality and long serving chair like John Gillam that he has to take over $1 billion in write-downs but this is arguably what should have happened, rather than the modest write-downs in the latest results after the seed technology review. In terms of process, how involved was the audit committee and chair Gillam in Vicky's latest audit and did the growing gap between our balance sheet claims and the market's assessment come into play?
Answer: The question wrangler continued his question butchering with this tricky one but it still generated an excellent, considered and detailed response from KPMG auditor Vicky Carlson on why she's signing off on the $2.1 billion valuation and her independence from the board and access to things like board papers and independent advice. Watch video of exchange via Twitter, plus this additional response from chair John Gillam. It's all very well for John to pledge determination to build balance sheet strength, but the question is why didn't they do a huge write down after cancelling the dividend last year effectively admitted impairment and made claims of $2.1b in equity or net assets even harder for investors to justify as they dumped the stock. You just can't ignore the score board on these things.
Q5. At last year's AGM, the chair dismissed a request for the former CEO Greg Hunt to summarise his history of share trading and incentive grants when literally dozens of other public company CEOs have happily answered this question. So, let's try again. Could Rico please provide a summary of his Nufarm equity investments and incentive grants lived experience since he first joined the Nufarm executive team a few years ago? Also, well done for coming up with an LTI grant structure which has been strongly supported by shareholders today.
Answer: Old CEO, new CEO, it doesn't matter. Nufarm chair John Gillam never lets them summarise their LTI vesting history and share trading. He promised a private response and claimed the new CEO wouldn't have had such data at his finger prints. It's this sort of attitude that makes me worry about what he says to the auditor when they start making noises about impairment. He doesn't like answering unusual or difficult questions, even when it is becoming common place elsewhere. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
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