There has been a lot said over the last few months as wejourneyed through this process of a change in the board.
Obviously I have been the spokesperson for the SAG on HC andthe purpose was to provide a clear and consistent message from the SAG. From my perspective I thank HC posters forobviously respecting that position and responding in a dignified way wheneverdiscourse was undertaken.
Today’s vote at the General Meeting send a resoundingmessage to the out-going board but also to the incoming board. Action by smallshareholders can have results and that all companies on the ASX should perhapsuse this 249F process undertaken by the SAG as a wake-up call that managementand boards are accountable and can be made accountable by the shareholders.
The lesson that the SAG learnt from this journey is that itis incredible hard to challenge a company’s board. The company has the moneyand legal resources to fight the shareholders at all stages of the process. Forthe SAG this included the refusal to approve a joint meeting with the Company,the refusal on a number of occasions to provide an up to date share register andthis was all in the environment that the only contact details the SAG had of shareholderwas their name and address taken from the share register when provided. Yes that is right the SAG did not know the phonenumber or e-mail address of any MLM shareholders. Hence the newsletter mail outs andthe SAG website asking shareholders to contact them. This is what the SAG hadto work with and it was relentless and it was only through the sheer guts anddetermination of the convening shareholders that this battle won out. Theycould have given up at any time and walked again.
What the B & M of the company had to work with was the opposite, unrestricted access to monies, legal opinion, legal threats, PR services, ASX releases and email / phone details of shareholder.
Moving on and on a lighter note… some statistics
442 shareholder voted today.
160 shareholders voted at the 2018 AGM
100 shareholders voted at the 2016 & 2017 AGM’s
MLM’s number of shareholders is 2,280
The smallest shareholder to vote had 272 shares (That right$6.80 worth)
Number of e-mails sent between convening shareholders andshareholders (3,501) (Onc we had some details)
Number of phone calls to and from shareholders (100’s) (Again once we had the details)
Number of letters send out to shareholder (5,600)
Cost to the SAG (considerable)
Thank you and Cheers
MalcolmD
