It’s all about the climate down under
Australian companies such as BHP, Whitehaven and South32 all have climate related proposals waiting to be voted on at their upcoming AGMs.
But not all of these are guaranteed to even go to a vote …
This is because there is no law allowing shareholders the right to submit an ordinary proposal at the company’s AGM. So, Aussie shareholders have to submit proposals through a two-step process:
- First, they have to submit a special resolution that asks the company to change its constitution.
- Second, they submit the shareholder proposal which will only go up for a vote if the first one passes.
This is what is happening at the Australian coal mining company Whitehaven’s AGM.
The fate of the shareholder climate resolution — which asks the company to explain how it’s managing the risks of a net-zero scenario — hangs in the hands of the constitution change that requires 75% shareholder approval.
Crikey!
Sharing is caring
At its 2021 AGM, the second-largest software company in the world, Oracle, received only 60% support for its pay plan. This was due to shareholder concern over high share-based payments for its executives.
The company, which sells its software to companies such as FedEx, Zoom and Mastercard, defended the payments by saying that the figure is high because the performance goals are so rigorous that it is unlikely the executives will receive the full amount.
This year, the CEO is set to be paid $138,192,032, meaning that her reported pay will be 1,842 times more than an Oracle middle-range (median) employee. The CEO and joint Chair and Chief Technology Officer are both set to receive $129.3 million in share-based payments.
All eyes are on Oracle’s shareholders — will they support this pay plan?
Asset management giants all fuelled up
BlackRock and Vanguard have recently been hit by large withdrawals of money from their funds, as US Republican state governors claimed that the two biggest asset managers in the world are boycotting the fossil fuel industry.
As a result, the asset managers responded saying to a UK inquiry this week that they do not believe stopping investment in new coal, gas and oil is necessary for climate change plans and that they will not phase out fossil fuels.
BlackRock in particular said its role as a financial firm ‘‘is not to engineer a specific decarbonisation outcome in the real economy”.
However, the director of the UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment research initiative disagreed with this, saying “Financial institutions shouldn’t be investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure as this is not compatible with the aims of the Paris agreement [on the climate].”
Talk about fuming.
