Annual general meetings in attendance: Slow return of shareholder meetings

DThe pandemic has abated, and the old culture of presence is gradually returning in hundreds of thousands of German office buildings. The new annual general meeting season this Tuesday starts again only virtually: Siemens Energy invited its shareholders to an online meeting. A number of other large DAX companies want to do the same in the coming months: Allianz, BMW, Mercedes, Beiersdorf, Infineon, Merck, Sartorius, Thyssenkrupp, RWE, Eon, Vonovia, and Siemens are again planning purely virtual shareholder meetings this year .

This bothers the pros among the shareholder representatives in particular. They’ve been deprived of the big stage during the pandemic and are slowly shuffling their feet impatiently. names like Klaus Nieding, Ingo Speich, Daniela Bergdolt, Marc Tüngler, and Daniel Bauer are well known in the boardrooms of German companies. Before the pandemic, they belonged to the small circle of those who met regularly at the general meetings, took to the podium, gave praise and criticism and were also taken seriously. This is not the case with all speakers: Because basically every shareholder is allowed to speak at the general meeting, regardless of whether he owns one share or hundreds of thousands, the board members also have to put up with a number of speeches from recalcitrant small shareholders with tiresome detailed questions that the general meeting often asks about prolong hours. But the word of the few professional speakers carries weight. Many of you represent funds and thus also represent appropriate owner shares.