In light of the Covid-19 outbreak, the parliament declared on April 7, 2020, that Annual General Meetings can now be held on video conference.
Previously, organisations were unable to gather stakeholders because of restrictions on mass gatherings.
What is an AGM?
An AGM is a mandatory meeting held by a company to update its shareholders on its business health.
At AGMs, financial statements will be presented to the shareholders. After which, they may raise queries on the financial performance of the company.
Some matters presented during an AGM include: the adoption of accounts, dividend declaration and approval of director’s fees.
How Were Companies Affected?
Large corporates such as DBS Group Holdings have had to defer their AGMs. They also had to defer their payment of final dividends, as these can only be approved at AGMs.
However, not only big companies were affected. Being unable to hold meetings has brought upon uncertainty and disruption to many.
Things to Note for Live Streaming Annual General Meetings
Here are some important things to note about live streaming AGMs:
1) Safeguards must be in place to facilitate effective participation.
2) The meetings must have live audio and video feeds.
3) Members must be given the opportunity to submit questions, such as through email, before the meeting, and they must be addressed by the management.
4) Your organisation might require certain essential persons to be in the same physical location to conduct the virtual meeting. In this case, an automatic time-limited exemption would be granted to permit temporary operations. However, the number of persons should not exceed 6. Safe distancing measures must also be complied with at the venue.
5) Issuers and non-listed companies must also provide for contemporaneous observation of the meeting proceedings by audio only means (e.g. a telephone number).
6) Issuers must publish minutes within one month after the general meeting on SGXNET and, if available, the issuer’s corporate website.
*This is not an exhaustive list. For more information, we recommend you follow updates from official news channels and SGX.
*Certain companies are allowed to postpone their AGMs. To check if your organisation is eligible, refer to SGX’s updated checklist.
Professional Live Streaming Service Provider for Virtual and Hybrid AGMs
To comply with the new regulations, many organisations have turned to hosting virtual and hybrid AGMs.
At the time of writing (Feb 2021), Vivid Snaps has offered our professional live streaming services to provide technical support for many virtual AGMs and hybrid AGMs alike. Our live streaming technical crew has worked with a diverse range of clients across different industries to support their AGM needs.
If you would like to engage our live streaming services, drop our project coordinators a message today and we will get back to you.
