By Stephen Mayne


Yesterday was the busiest day of the AGM
reporting season so far and we’re starting to get a picture of voting
trends on the remuneration reports. The issue is certainly attracting
plenty of attention as this story on The 7.30 Report last night indicates.

Investa Property Group is the prime example, getting mentions all over the place including Alan Kohler and the ever alert Paddy Manning in The Australian, after a season high 35.14% of shares were voted against its remuneration report.

Amcor
also had a minor scare yesterday, when 21.38% of the vote was cast
against the remuneration report. It would have been much worse if they
hadn’t backed down on the incentive scheme for new CEO Ken McKenzie.

However, no-one else has really gone close to losing so far. There was
talk of a protest at Gunns yesterday because the director retirement
scheme remains in place, but only 15.11 million shares or 7.76% were
voted against the remuneration report, perhaps because Gunns has
undertaken to review the practice.

AGL
also got into strife with the incentive scheme for CEO Greg Martin,
which attracted 87.2 million proxies in favour and 76.9 million
against. The giant energy utility runs its own share register, so these
strange messages about 18 million, and then 3 million, proxies on
the Martin vote being invalid wasn’t a good look. However, this protest
wasn’t replicated with AGL’s remuneration report, which attracted 146.33
million proxies in favour and only 17.63 million (10.75%) against.

Five interesting remuneration report votes

Investa Property Group: 35.14%
Amcor: 21.38%
Rinker: 19.6%
AGL: 10.75%
Gunns: 7.76%