General Meeting Report– RT Removal meeting 2018
The meetingwas a pretty quiet and slightly tense affair, it was clear that it was a bit awkwardand difficult for some, but everyone carried on incredibly professionally. Before the start there was a deafly silence around the room for a few minutes.
Upfrontwere Directors Paul Burton, Rex Turkington, Greg Durack and Company SecretarySimon Robertson. Director John Davidson was overseas (China from memory) but was listening in by phone.
There wereat least a handful of HC members present.
The meetingwas chaired by Paul Burton, as deemed appropriate as the meeting was concerningRex.
The meetingstarted with Paul Burton running through the official spiel and housekeeping,followed by reading of the proposed 249d resolution. Paul then gave read out a spiel about Rex’s qualifications and achievements.
The Proxyvotes were put on the screen via power point slide early in the meeting, then theballot was called. The voting slips were collected by computershare and an interval for about 10 minutes was had before the result was announced. It was clear that it was going to be tight and from the tension in the room I don’t think that the company knew the outcome.
The votewas very tight and from memory was read out by Paul Burton (although may havebeen Computershare). Rex looked quite relieved and happy with the outcome.
FinalResult For - 287,818,198, Against - 290,485,924, Abstain - 259,588
The General meeting closed around 10:55 WST and an intermission was held before the AGM. Just enough time for those concerned to recompose.
I’ve neverseen a vote like this settled in the meeting room before! Only 2.6 millionvotes or a few percent in it!
Aftersitting through the AGM after the GM, from my perspective there is a win in thevote for both sides. The obvious being Rex held on by a slim margin but it was abundantly clear that the company took on board that the shareholders are not happy and that change is needed in the chair.
At the AGMRex made it very clear that he was a reluctant Chairman and there was no one morethan him that wanted a permanent chairman to be appointed. Paul Burton went to great lengths to emphasise the ‘Interim’ in interim chairman when introducing Rex at the meeting and the same with Rex when he introduced himself when running the AGM.
In the AGMin question time the company stressed that they wanted a chairman with a ‘Globalreputation’ but stated that this person was hard to find and that the appointeewill want to ensure that they are climbing on a winner (my words). With the mile stones that we have achieved this year that security is now there as the project is significantly de-risked. The company also stressed that a chairman of this caliber will not come cheaply but the company is now suitably resourced and positioned for such an appointment.
During the AGMPaul Brown emphasised that there was now a mandate from the share holders froma new chairman but stressed that he was not a nominee.
Rex spokeat length about his involvement with the funding (which sounds to be goingwell, but more on that in AGM report) and that he certainly didn’t see himselfas chairman after the funding deal was done.
AGM reportto follow (time permitting)
