Getting ambushed by NAB in 2000

Having just settled down for what was expected to be a long drawn out affair, chairrman Mark Rayner ambushed Crikey by calling me up on stage to address the meeting right at the start of the formal part of the meeting. I've never been so nervous and had no notes prepared, hence the audible breathlessness in the voice.

The support from the floor was very good but insitututions appear to be taking a set against me as the primary vote was only 30 million shares in favour (worth $900 million) and about 300 million against (worth $9 billion). This might well be explained by NAB's recommendation to vote against me and the lack of a vacancy.

It was truly ridiculous that chairman Mark Rayner first explained that four directors had resigned or retired during the year, reducing the NAB board down to just eight. Then he tells shareholders there were five candidates but only four vacancies on the board. This closed shop meant I would have needed 98 per cent of vote to knock off one of the incumbents which clearly wasn't going to happen.

But the next resolution was to increase directors fees from $2 million to $2.2 million. Last year the directors only received $1.2 million and Rayner explained that the increase gave them flexibility to suddenly add a range of new directors, especially if a major merger in the UK was completed.

Surely the NAB should have said it was up to shareholders to decide if they wanted to elect or re-elect all five candidates. Woolworths, Telstra and Westpac (1993) have all done this when dealing with external candidates.

The meeting was quite interesting. Geoff Tomlinson rightly got a bollocking for taking on too many directorship. The $50 million lost by Medweb, which Thommo chairs, was splashed all over The Age that morning and I got up and pointed out that Reckon Ltd, also chaired by Thommo, has blown $20 million and Thommo was the man who sold National Mutual to the French at $1.25 a share against a current price of $3.

CEO Frank Cicutto is already about $15 million in front on his options so the issue of another 500,000 faced stiff opposition and appeared to be defeated from the floor, but was passed relatively comfortably by proxies.

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