Save our shareholder meetings (Daily Mail)
This Is Money / Mail on Sunday has launched a campaign today to save shareholder meetings, as it is rightly concerned that virtual AGMs limit the ability for owners from holding organisations to account, and may even be illegal. The timing couldn’t be better given Nationwide members still have the opportunity to vote and attend the AGM scheduled for this coming Friday, 25th July 2025. It’s not a fair fight, but a just one, in my view.
My thanks to Patrick Tooher who quoted me in the article given Nationwide’s move to a virtual-only AGMs post pandemic, and the growing concern regarding its approach to governance.
Nationwide, Britain’s biggest financial mutual, is also under fire for not allowing any of the 16 million members who own the building society to attend this coming Friday’s AGM in person, leading to charges that bosses are not being held to account.
And there is much to discuss.
Members will be asked to approve a controversial plan to hand chief executive Debbie Crosbie a pay package of up to £7 million. It comes as Nationwide is still swallowing Virgin Money after a £2.9 billion deal – the biggest in banking since the financial crisis – which the mutual’s members did not get to vote on.
Small wonder critics say Nationwide is becoming more like the shareholder-owned High Street banks it parodies in ads fronted by actor Dominic West.For its part, Nationwide says it has seen ‘a significant increase’ in attendance and engagement since moving to an online format in 2023, reversing a previous decline.
But campaigners such as James Sherwin-Smith, who tried to stand for election to the society’s board, remain unconvinced. He said: ‘Nationwide is the only building society to go virtual-only. It’s not a great look for a supposed ‘beacon for mutual good’.’ He also notes that attendance at Nationwide’s online-only AGM last year fell.
The move to virtual-only meetings is shrouded in uncertainty and may even be illegal, according to the Financial Reporting Council, a governance watchdog.
Ministers are under pressure to clarify the law over the physical location of AGMs to halt the shift online. A review is expected soon.
Catherine Howarth of the ShareAction group said: ‘It’s vital the Government and FRC take steps to stop this pattern in its tracks.’
Mail on Sunday / This Is Money (20th July 2025)
