Only go to the odd AGM meetings, but was surprised with...

Only go to the odd AGM meetings, but was surprised with adulation given to Gail Kelly. The way some elderly people gave compliments to her, she could become a sect swami - don't known the female equivalent. Actually with the white outfit and the long pink scarf she had the persona or appearance of a cult leader.

One elderly gentleman was happy to give management and the board the carte blanche to rip us off on the remuneration question.

The majority of attendees complimented the board for doubling the share price under Gail's watch. My personal opinion is that it was pure luck, not strategic planning, or she was there at the right time and place.
All the major banks doubled over this period, but if the strategy was a correct, there would've been a larger gap between WBC and ANZ and NAB share prices. I give her credit for WBC being at least a little bit ahead and for dividends.

A number of younger attendees were pushing the environment issue about whether WBC would give a loan to Adani and the likely damage at Abbot Point. I was impressed with the chairman's tactful response.

I should've taken the opportunity to continue this environmental theme but I'm too gutless to speak before a crowd.

Instead I spoke to some board and executive people stating that as small share holder, it not financially beneficial for me to go online. As a small share holder of many companies with small holdings - not a trader - and not living at a remote location. I'm better of receiving everything by mail because my data usage and printing costs would be quite large.

I try to follow the big businesses attitude of scrimping for every cents to increase my profit margin.
I'm a person who believes that if I go online for environmental reason, I should be compensated adequately for the following reasons.

A lot of small shareholders are not aware that they are subsidising management and the large shareholders.
If an annual report costs WBC $5 per copy - same cost for small and large shareholders - to print, and I have 1 WBC share and another person has 100 shares. Who get the most out of the $5 for my environmental sacrifice? I'm not contented to receive just the scraps for my efforts.

Since the introduction of the Internet what used to be a businesses expenses for the private and public sector, has been transferred to clients or customers if they do business online. That is, mail has been exchanged for data usage and printing at your expense.

The question is, should shareholders who go online receive a special payment as an incentive, or should the way we interact with the internet be changed dramatically. There needs to be a rebalancing or shifting of business expenses back to its rightful owners.

That implies that WBC should bear most of the cost of data flow. This would be enough incentive for me to go online even though security is still questionable.

Radicool Views

Sent from my iPad