Marks & Spencer is at the centre of a row this weekend after telling its shareholders they should not attend its annual meeting because it has gone digital.
The retailer’s AGMs were once famous for lavish hospitality and for small shareholders challenging the bosses on subjects ranging from the dividend to knicker elastic.
But this year the company has said any investors who arrive at the venue on Tuesday will not be able to talk to board members face-to-face and will not be offered refreshments.
Instead, they will be told to join the meeting ‘electronically’ on their phones or laptops – despite being there in person. The move follows a drive launched this spring by M&S chairman Archie Norman to modernise popular capitalism.
Small shareholder lobby groups who came out in support of his drive now say they are ‘disappointed’ and ’embarrassed’. They called upon the retailer to offer shareholders a ‘hybrid’ meeting where they can choose to attend in person as well as digitally.
Under fire: M&S chairman Archie Norman claims some investors have a ‘misty-eyed’ view of AGMs
In a letter to investors, M&S said: ‘Shareholders are advised not to travel to the venue on the day as the meeting will be fully digitally enabled.’
Norman’s Share Your Voice campaign advocates ‘digital communication by default’ and making it easier for private investors to have a say in how firms are run.
He won the endorsement of leading lobby groups for small investors including the UK Shareholders’ Association and ShareSoc, as well as the Quoted Companies Alliance.
But these groups are upset at the hardline approach taken by M&S and want firms to have ‘hybrid’ meetings where investors are still welcome if they wish to attend in person. Mark Northway, of ShareSoc, said his organisation was ‘surprised by the language used in the communication to shareholders’. He added that it still supports the overall aims of Share Your Voice but said: ‘The M&S approach to this AGM has embarrassed us.’
He said he is ‘disappointed’ M&S wants a digital meeting and added ShareSoc has a ‘strong preference for hybrid.’ Shareholders could in theory still attend in person.
However, an M&S spokesman said ‘it wouldn’t be a very nice experience,’ because it will be streamed from a small studio at its HQ in Paddington, central London, which will be hot and cramped. Lib Dem peer Lord Lee of Trafford, the patron of ShareSoc, has tabled a question to Government, asking whether ministers are considering obliging companies to hold ‘hybrid’ meetings.
He said: ‘It is outrageously arrogant to exclude shareholders from attending the annual meeting physically and to say that the board is not prepared to meet them afterwards.’ The UK Shareholders’ Association said its board is ‘firmly in favour of a hybrid approach and doesn’t support virtual-only meetings’.
James Ashton, chief executive of the Quoted Companies Alliance, said firms are weighed down with costs and must be allowed to make better use of technology to reach more shareholders through cheaper means.
But he added: ‘Those that see digital-first as a way of dodging difficult questions run the risk of depleting their shareholder base.’
Norman said: ‘A lot of older shareholders have a misty-eyed view of AGMs and remember fondly the days when hundreds of shareholders would take the day off to attend town hall meetings.
‘But the reality of contemporary life is very different now and many of the physical assemblies are ill attended. Because they require time off in the day, they exclude most working age people and people who live away from London.
‘We have proven that with digital access and a digital friendly approach we can treble attendance and give access to many who would otherwise be shut out.
‘We have dedicated space for any shareholder who chooses to still attend in person and we’re not against hybrid AGMs, far from it. M&S has more private shareholder engagement than almost any other company.’
M&S has been holding hybrid meetings since the pandemic. In 2019 its old-style gathering was attended by 561 people, compared with 1,700 shareholders who logged on to its digital meeting last year.
