Thanks for organising this. I just left a comment giving the very modest number of shares our SMSF has.
I am absolutely of the view that the management need to be accountable to the shareholders. My concern is that because the operations of the company, including the management, are domiciled overseas they perhaps feel unencumbered by their legal responsibilities to the shareholders under Australian law.
If we get the 5% support to call a general meeting, we are going to have to decide what motions we want put on the notice of meeting. There is no point calling a meeting unless you have specific motions to put to the meeting.
Just making the board of directors turn up to a zoom meeting and asking for an update isn't going to achieve anything. They can just give a one paragraph update and stonewall shareholders like they have been doing for, crickey, how long has it been now?
If you want to get some action from management, some of the motions on the notice of meeting might be (and this is just off the top of my head)
- Cancelling management entitlement options,
- sacking the board,
- wind up the company by placing it into liquidation,
- place the company into administration.
I don't much about this but my understanding is that we, the shareholders, can vote to place the company into liquidation and appoint an administrator whose job it will then be to "collect, protect, and realise the company's assets".
See:
https://download.asic.gov.au/media/1339292/Insolvency_guide_for_shareholders.pdfOf course, shareholders rank behind creditors when it comes to paying out money received from liquidating the company.
On a practical level, we would need to find a liquidator willing to take the case. I've only looked into placing a company in liquidation once before many years ago and we decided against it back then. I would be happy to support such a move in the case of AB1 though because, even though I don't own a lot of shares, I'm too old for this crap.
I lost $100K in another delisted company, Tiger Resources (TGS). In the case of Tiger, the company became delisted. The creditors took a scheme of arrangement to court that diluted the existing shareholders so much that our shareholdings were deemed to have no economic value. The court approved the scheme because creditors have all the power and I don't think any shareholder wasted their time or money lodging an objection in the court. I thought about it but what was the point?
So, if the management of Animoca Brands hold the shareholders in such contempt that they can't even provide audited annual financial statements as required by law, and can't even bother to update shareholders on their non compliance with the law, then I am happy to support any shareholder who has the motivation to call a meeting and place the company in liquidation.
Hopefully that will get some positive response from the management.
