This Glass Lewis “Proxy Season Briefing” might be fascinating for those that are US-centric and not aware of how much governance practices vary significantly around the world. Market practice particularly varies when it comes to the format of the annual shareholder meeting.
A surprising number of countries have annual meetings where there is almost always an in-person component. This includes the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Switzerland, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. In these countries, most of the annual meetings are in-person only or follow a hybrid format.
In comparison, the virtual-only annual meeting is popular in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Norway, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. Interestingly, Canada is experiencing a resurgence of in-person only meetings, which were up 24% this year.
And then you have the anomaly of Italy, where despite a 50% increase in the number of meetings allowing in-person attendance, “closed-door” meetings – for which shareholders are unable to attend in-person or virtually – accounted for more than 70% of meetings.
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