Good evening all.
I just wanted to post a quick message to say thank you to all those who supported me in nominating to be a director of Empire. I would also like to thank everyone who supported Dr John Brough and Peter Griffiths, who also nominated to be directors of the Company. Whilst lest than 50% voted in total, I thank everyone of those who did vote, regardless of how they voted, they voted and had their say, which is what our system is all about.
I must say, from my point of view, John and Peter, you have my utmost respect for nominating and putting your hand up...not many people are able to put their hands up to be directors of companies on the ASX, as it takes a lot of "guts" because it does become public and as we have seen, that it can become quite contentious when you have an incumbent Board of Directors attempting to protect the status quo for whatever reason. This is not your normal day jobs and I commend you for doing so.
Whilst its not my normal day job to nominate, I can appreciate that I am somewhat more expectant of that as a senior executive of companies, and therefore I have a more public profile, particularly from my past with ERM and its activities with Empire. That being said, I do not believe that any single one of our current Board members has ever personally as a shareholder (and I don't mean from a corporate point of view like ERM did the 249D and Tony Iannello and Brett Heading were nominated), decided to openly nominate against a Board, so in that respect, John and Peter, you have my utmost respect as people of integrity trying to do your best to make the company better, even though the odds were against us.
I totally disagree with the Chairman's comments that it is a waste of shareholders time and cost (although I am not sure what he refers to has being a cost or time) for a shareholder to exercise their right (both under Corporations Law and Empire's own constitution) to be a director. In fact its 'disingenuous" to say the least to have said that, as the Chairman himself was nominated by a shareholder originally as well - "yeh of short memories of some"
I would be privileged to stand beside both of you at any time, shoulder to shoulder.
Whilst we didn't get up, we did achieve two important things, the first strike against the remuneration Report and a voting down of the extra 10% placement capacity. We nearly achieved the third which was the ratification of the options to MIN. For clarity, I have nothing personally against MIN in anyway, they are doing the best for their shareholders which is their job, its up to our Board to do the best for its shareholders, which coincidentally includes MIN, but they have to do the best for ALL Empire shareholders.
In relation to the first strike against the Remuneration Report, I would urge all those who voted against the Remuneration Report to email Empire on their contact address which is
[email protected] to provide feedback to them on why you voted against the report.
This is something that the Company has an obligation to consider and report back on next year, particularly in light of this first strike. If you wish to see what I mean, refer to the bottom of page 30 of the 2016 Annual Report. So I urge you to provide "specific" feedback to them so that they can "consider it" and report back next year.
It is up to the Board to now move forward this year and do the things they have been promising and saying for years and turn this share price around. If they don't well as a shareholder I very much doubt they will be there next year at all.
I won't speak anymore on the meeting itself as docmin has given a pretty good run down. The only thing I will say is that I attended MIN's AGM earlier on the day on Thursday, (I don't believe I saw anyone from Empire, as I would have expected someone to be there to see what their major shareholder might say about their intentions) and I met both the MD and CFO quickly after the meeting just to introduce myself.
Anyway, their meeting was like chalk and cheese to Empire's - a well run professional meeting, and even though they received a hefty strike against their Remuneration Report etc, it was a well run and very respectful meeting and I was very impressed, they treated everyone who spoke with complete respect and dignity.
To give you an idea of how different it was, they had peaceful environmental protestors against the company outside handing out leaflets to everyone coming in. As I said they obviously had a first strike against their remuneration reports around 49% but for completely different reasons to Empire, more to do with proxy firms and their in principle against thoughts on incentive schemes. Remember their price is $11+ and they floated in 2006 at 90c and they have paid over $3.80 or thereabouts in dividends since 2006. So I doubt any of their long term shareholders are complaining about the share price. Their lead independent director gave a very good and detailed answer in respect of how the process they ran through for their incentive scheme, and I note even though the ASA were against the incentive scheme and more particularly about the terms of vesting, they did say they thought the remuneration overall was very reasonable given the business...
In fact the ASA reps who were there who recommended voting against the Remuneration report (two very elderly gentlemen by coincidence) and they were allowed to ask as many questions or make statements as they wanted, no time limits were talked about, no interjections, no comments about what was your question, in fact there was even a little bit of banter between them and the Board as the Board referred to the gentleman talking by his first name, as they were obviously on a first name basis, very friendly and very cordial well run and professional meeting - so in contrast and to be honest I felt seriously deflated going to the Empire meeting after having been at a well run meeting - if only Empire could do that.
There was no starting the meeting off with comments about removing people from the meeting, nothing like that. in fact one shareholder at the end, was also against the company with respect to this environmental protest which I won't profess to know anything about and won't make any comment on, but this shareholder stood up for probably 10 or more minutes making a very long statement, no one from the Board stopped him, no one rolled their eyes, no one interjected or anything he was allowed to talk as long it took him to say what he wanted to say. Then the Board professionally responded to him - there was no angst, nothing. Simply very professional.
Empire Board (I know one of them will be reading this - take note of the above and how you can still run a professional meeting even though
So to all thank you once again and as shareholders let hope that the next twelve months brings us good fortune and a revitalised share price, that's up to the Board and Management to now perform and do that no blaming shareholders, no blaming oil prices etc., get out and sell the good story and actually do something and drill, oh an make sure they don't stuff up the Red Gully North -1 remediation.....
Thank you
Kent Quinlan
