4 questions lodged at 2026 Vista Group (VGL) hybrid AGM
May 22, 2026
Below is the text of the 4 written questions submitted at the 57 minute Vista Group (VGL) 4pm hybrid AGM held in Auckland and via the Link/MUFG platform on May 21, 2026. Lodged this nomination letter by email on April 9 and offered to withdraw it if they committed to having a rem vote in 2027. They declined and requested a pile of documents so sent the usual rejection email. The notice of meeting was released on April 20 but sadly they fully censored the platform about wanting them to offer a remuneration report vote. See notice of meeting. Good to see they offered a clean and fair online ballot paper. See Business Desk coverage out of NZ. Plus this longer Business Desk story. See voting results where received 2.36% support. Market cap was $445m on AGM day after a recent surge. The proxies were disclosed early in the formal addresses.
Q1. How long has PwC been the external auditor, when was the audit last competitively tendered and when it is next likely to be tendered?
Answer: It sounds like PwC is auditor for life at Vista Group. They've had the gig since 2016 and are now onto their 4th audit partner. Why do some chairs talk about audit partner rotation when asked about past and future competitive tenders for the external audit FIRM. Chair Susan Peterson should have said we've not tendered it for the decade since PwC was first appointed and have no plans to. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q2. Congratulations to our founder Murray Holdaway for receiving support from 99.45% of the directed proxies lodged ahead of the meeting and disclosed to the ASX shortly before the meeting commenced. Could you advise how many of our 2,559 shareholders voted on Murray's re-election and when disclosing the poll outcome to the ASX could you please included the headcount data like with a scheme of arrangement. This is a voluntary transparency measure that many ASX listed companies now do in order to stimulate greater participation.
Answer: The surging Kiwi cinema software company has a market cap of $A445m but chair Susan Peterson at one point called it a “small cap”. She commendably disclosed that only 52 directed proxies were in favour of co-founder Murray Holdaway who put himself up early so I wasn't the only candidate. However, there were only 5 against, 3 abstains and 38 open proxies for a total proxy voting turnout of just 98 or 3.8%. See final voting results did not include the head count data. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q3. When Claudia Batten was last re-elected in 2024, there was a 21.6% vote against. What was the issue two years ago and has anything changed in order to achieve today's 97.5% vote in favour, which you commendably disclosed to the ASX before the AGM commenced?
Answer: Chair Susan Peterson explained that the 2024 protest was remuneration related and Claudia just happened to serve on the rem committee. If only they offered a rem report vote, Claudia wouldn't have had to “take one for the team”, as chair Sue put it. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q4. Given that Vista Group completely censored my platform calling for Australian-style remuneration report votes, how was the chair able to go on a roadshow and consult shareholders (watch video of her describing this via Twitter earlier in the meeting) about the said platform when it wasn't included in the 11 page notice of meeting, such that the 2,559 shareholders had no idea why I was running for the board? Why did you censor the platform and then selectively brief certain large shareholders on what was in the unpublished platform?
Answer: Chair Susan Peterson just explained their annual governance road show and said the nomination came up in those discussions. She also explained that NZ allows for shareholder resolutions and this would have been better than running for the board. Overall, not much of an answer and no plausible defence of censoring the platform was provided. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Copyright © 2026 The Mayne Report. All rights reserved
