Do not let AGMs slip back to the dark ages

Hybrid format leads to more participation

We have all become used to conducting every aspect of our lives through a screen over the past 18 months – from pub quizzes and seeing family, to the work Christmas party.

Annual General Meetings were no exception. With UK AGM season coinciding with the start of the first lockdown restrictions, many companies were forced to hold meetings behind closed doors or send recordings to investors after the event. Why could they not move meetings to an online format like the rest of us? Because at the time, outdated legislation made it unviable to hold an AGM virtually. While hybrid meetings are now permitted, there is still today terminology within the Companies Act which denotes that an AGM must be held in a 'place' and in March 2020, it was decided that...