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Your shareholder meeting is one of the most important events in your annual governance lifecycle and you need it to be executed flawlessly. But you know that the effort involved in planning, administering and governing a meeting, plus managing the vote, takes a lot of time and resources.
Whether you’re planning an in-person, virtual or hybrid meeting this year, Computershare can assist you with the multitude of tasks that need to happen before, during and after your annual meeting. You can streamline processes and vendors by consolidating proxy design, printing, mailing, tabulation and scrutineering responsibilities with a single meeting solution partner.
In-person meetings
In a recent news release, Computershare reported that in-person shareholder meetings remain the most common among Computershare clients globally, representing around two-thirds of total meetings held in both the 2021 (67.7%) and 2022 (68.3%) AGM seasons.
An in-person meeting offers the opportunity for investors and other key stakeholders to engage directly with your board and other company leaders, and many people prefer this face-to-face interaction. The cost, detail and planning needed for an in-person meeting can also demonstrate your company’s commitment to investor and stakeholder relations.
With Computershare’s annual meeting solution, your company will benefit from quick and easy registration, on-site voting and tabulation, real-time reporting during your meeting, and final tabulation results and comprehensive reports post-meeting.
Virtual and hybrid meetings
While in-person meetings were popular among Computershare clients globally, Canada moved in the opposite direction, seeing a 6.1% decrease in the proportion of meetings held in person. This region also saw the greatest increase in the proportion held virtually (5.7%) and a 0.4% increase in those that were held as hybrids.
“We saw a distinct growth in virtual meetings in the Canadian market [in 2022], which may indicate a preference for how AGMs are hosted in future years, but it’s too soon to tell for sure,” said Irfan Motiwala, CEO of Computershare Issuer Services in Canada. “More companies are beginning to recognize the value of virtual AGMs as they enable a much broader shareholder engagement opportunity regardless of where they are based.”
Virtual annual meetings can maximize attendance, offering stakeholders anywhere in the world the ability to attend your annual meeting remotely from any digital device and cast their votes securely online. The hybrid option combines all the best features of in-person and virtual meetings.
Computershare’s virtual meeting solution delivers powerful, secure technology, with features including a sleek, easy to navigate user interface, better Q&A moderation, a dedicated chairperson’s view and enhanced meeting reports. With video and audio options, you can stream video of your meeting presenters from one or multiple locations, with or without slides, or choose an audio only meeting.
No matter which meeting format you choose, with Computershare, you’ll have one partner for all your annual meeting and Registry needs. Contact us today to discuss your upcoming annual meeting.