The chairman of Marks & Spencer has admitted that the retailer’s annual meeting would have to “look different” next year after a shareholder backlash against the entirely digital event.
The high street stalwart’s AGMs were once famous for lavish hospitality and for small shareholders challenging the executives on subjects ranging from dividends to knicker elastic. Its last face-to-face annual meeting was in 2019. Covid forced companies to hold them behind closed doors for a period.
But this year, for the fourth year running, and despite pandemic restrictions having been lifted, the company kept the meeting “fully digitally enabled”; advised investors that board members would not be available for interaction and would not be offered refreshments. Instead, they were told to join the meeting virtually on
