HSBC explored axing in-person AGM amid frustration with cost and protests

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HSBC has discussed moving its annual general meeting entirely online after mounting frustrations with disruptions from climate protesters and the costs associated with in-person gatherings. 

The London-headquartered bank has examined if it can ask shareholders to participate exclusively by virtual means, according to two people familiar with the matter, as it moves towards “digital-first” gatherings of investors.

HSBC is set to host its annual meeting of shareholders at the InterContinental London Hotel early next week, which will be supplemented by the online Lumi platform.

A shift to virtual-only attendance would help the bank cut costs such as leasing out large venues, providing refreshments and hiring security personnel, one of the people said. It would also limit disruptions from protesters, said another person briefed on the matter.

“This may be the last year [HSBC] has an in-person option,” the second person said. “There’s always been this hope you can go virtual because of the protests.”

HSBC said its board had “not considered any proposal to move to a virtual AGM”.

“This year’s meeting, as in prior years, will be a hybrid meeting giving all shareholders the option of attending in person,” the bank added, in response to questions from the Financial Times.

Shareholder meetings were historically big events and are still viewed by hundreds of individual shareholders as their opportunity to engage with senior management and hold them to account. However, companies have increasingly sought to scale back the meetings and have asked for questions to be submitted in advance.

HSBC has in recent years dealt with significant disruptions to its AGM, predominantly from the environmental group Extinction Rebellion.

Climate protesters interrupted chair Mark Tucker’s speech in 2022 and sang a version of Abba’s hit song with lyrics adapted to “money, money, money, it’s so scummy in HSBC’s world”. The bank was again targeted by activists at its 2023 meeting, despite moving the venue from London to Birmingham.

The bank has been on a cost-cutting drive since Georges Elhedery took the helm in September and has promised investors $1.5bn of annual cost savings. Elhedery has overseen the merger of HSBC’s commercial banking and global banking and markets units as well as the wind-down of its investment banking operations in the UK, Europe and America.

A move to remote attendance would align HSBC with its Spanish peer Santander, which held its first fully remote AGM earlier this month. 

Many UK companies have taken a hybrid approach to AGMs since the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted annual investor meetings. But most have stopped short of fully remote gatherings for fear they could fall foul of UK company law.

A move to virtual AGMs would have a “low risk of an adverse outcome”, one corporate lawyer told the FT, with shareholders unlikely to legally challenge it. “There’s a safety in numbers if more companies are doing it,” they said.

Some companies have actively discouraged shareholders from turning up at meetings. 

AstraZeneca has moved to a “digitally enabled AGM” and told shareholders that management and board members would be taking part electronically. The pharma group does not bar investors from attending in person, but shareholders who do so “will be invited to connect online to the meeting”, according to its latest notice of meeting.

Haleon, the listed British healthcare group that spun out of GSK, in 2023 told investors not to travel to the venue on the day of the meeting as board members would not be available to interact with them in person.

In 2024, Haleon told investors the meeting would be virtual and broadcast from its London offices. 

Additional reporting by Hannah Kuchler