Just got back to the office from attending the BHD AGM earlier today.
No obvious pirates in attendance despite laying out some "pirate bait" at the back of the room (a few hotel mini-bar sized bottles of rum).
Today's AGM was very different to last year's series of AGM's held in Brisbane last November. The most notable differences being:
- no private security present. The new board of directors obviously have a clear conscience and have nothing to fear from their shareholders.
- the directors were very open and welcomed questions from shareholders, staying at the meeting until all shareholders present were satisfied that their questions had been answered. No limiting of questions to 2 per shareholder like under the old pirate regime.
- actual good news! With more discussion of this morning's announcement of the deal to secure the return of the King's Currency bank notes - with interest, no less! Nice work!
The resolutions recommended by the board were all carried quite convincingly (over 99% of the vote). I was very surprised that the pirates appear not to have voted at all in the poll. With JBL owning 17% of BHD I would have expected to see more votes against the board recommended resolutions. Pirates too busy fighting other battles?
The tone of the meeting was very professional and politically correct, with the board of directors declining to comment on whether the previous board of lying, cheating scumbags had done anything illegal - instead saying that it was a matter for ASIC to determine.
There was some interesting discussion of the future direction of the company:
- Would BHD return capital to shareholders and then be wound up?
- Or would BHD continue to operate as an LIC and take advantage of the deferred tax benefits to be gained due to the huge losses sustained courtesy of Captain Carpark?
It's still too early to say. Our battle weary board of directors have been concentrating solely on the battle at hand which is still not won yet. If Captain Carpark were a character in Game of Thrones he would be like one of those undead minions - just when you think he's dead, he gets up and just keeps coming at you like a rabid dog. I think we'll have to wait for Captain Carpark to actually die, burn the body, then wait for the dust to settle before we get an answer on this one.
There was also some discussion of ASX's suspension of BHD's trading and the likelihood of that suspension being lifted. Our new board of directors advised that they are making inquiries of the ASX with regard to finding out what needs to happen to get BHD compliant with ASX listing rules and trading on the ASX again. I'm optimistic that this one will happen in the not-too-distant future.
Overall a very good meeting, with shareholders leaving the meeting feeling much more optimistic than last year.
