AGMs

14 questions lodged at OzForex AGM


August 15, 2022

Online written questions lodged by Stephen Mayne at the 2022 OzForex AGM, held on August 11, 2022. Only 4 of the 14 were dealt with. The 10 which were ignored are in italics. Watch the full webcast on Youtube.

1. Please outline the selection process for the recent chair succession. Were any external candidates considered, was any outside firm involved in the selection process and were there multiple candidates? If so, what was the voting process? When Patricia Cross was first invited to join the board, was it with a view to appointing her as chair?

Answer: Yes, they went outside specifically looking for a new chair.

2. Many thanks for once against disclosing the proxy position to the ASX with the formal addresses before the meeting commenced. OzForex has been doing this for longer than any other ASX300 company that I'm aware of. Competitors like Macquarie refuse to do this. Please explain the history of this excellent transparency practice and could Patricia Cross, a former Macquarie director, commit to continuing this practice at future AGMs when she takes over as chair. Well done on the 98%+ mandates on all resolutions too.

Answer: Yes, we've always done that and will keep doing it.

3. Could the CEO comment on how we are playing the emergence of Crypto and whether he thinks the bubble will ever permanently burst. Also, what does he think about the AFL taking tens of millions of sponsorship dollars from Crypto.com? Isn't crypto more like gambling than transacting? What is our involvement with the industry?

Answer: We're watching it closely and it helps having a San Francisco office. The fees for traders tend to be very high.

4. Best practice with director elections is to disclose as much information as possible, including the city of residence and age of candidates. Could Patricia Cross and Connie Carnabuci please provide this information when addressing shareholders. Also, what are Patricia's plan in terms of building her shareholding in the company as chair?

5. I fully support the appointment of Patricia Cross as chair. She speaks six languages and OzForex is her sixth listed financial services board seat over the past 25 years, the others being AMP, NAB, Macquarie, Suncorp Metway, Aviva PLC. Could she please comment on why she never served as chair on any of these other boards when she now clearly has demonstrated ambition to be an ASX300 financial services independent chair at Ozforex. Did she never have the support to be chair at those other 5 companies or did she never put her hand up? If not, why not?

Answer: It was offered but with three young kids I didn't have the time. The kids are all now grown up, so she's ready to a public company chair.

6. I've participated in more than 100 online AGMs by ASX listed companies since COVID struck and this is the first one taking questions via Zoom. It seems to be working fine? Are you aware of any other listed companies which used Zoom like this and why did you choose Zoom over the other options such as Lumi? Is Zoom the cheapest option in the market and do you know how many people are currently participating through zoom?

7. Could Connie please comment on her experience of the board recruitment process at OFX Also, could Connie please provide her side of the story on the Christian Porter defamation saga when she was general counsel at the ABC. Were Mr Porter's attacks on the ABC in any way justifiable and did she enjoy being cross examined by MPs at Parliament House in Canberra on this and other matters?

8. It is a shame there were no questions in the room at today's AGM. How many independent shareholders have actually bothered to attend today and what is the seating capacity in the room at your headquarters up there on level 20 of 60 Margaret Street? Will you consider using incentives to attract more shareholders to attend next year's AGM?

9. Could the out-going chair please comment on whether he believes a chair should develop multiple viable internal successors and acknowledge that he didn't do this at OFX, hence the need to recruit a successor from outside. Will Patricia Cross undertake to recruit or help develop viable internal chair successors so we don't have to go outside again when we next deal with chair succession.

10. It is very unusual for a full time public servant to be allowed to serve on an ASX300 board. Could Connie explain the background on how and why she was allowed to do that for two years at OFX up until her resignation from the ABC last year.

11. Given the interesting discussions across a range of topics today, could the chair undertake to make an archived copy of the webcast plus a full transcript of proceedings available on the company's website? The likes of Nine, AGL, ASX, ANZ, CIMIC, Domino's, G8 Education and Lend Lease all produced their 1st AGM transcripts in 2021. Will you follow suit today?

12. How many years have we used the current audit firm? Have we ever put the audit to tender and do we have any plans in the future to put the audit to tender. Let's hope we don't end up like Macquarie Group which has paid PwC and its predecessor firms more than $1 billion in audit and other fees over many decades without ever putting the audit to tender. Could Patricia Cross comment on why she never insisted on an audit tender when serving on the Macquarie board and whether she regards regular audit tendering as good practice.

13. New chair Patricia Cross made quite a pointed comment on the big banks needing competiton from the likes of OFX in the forex market. In light of these comments, could she advise whether she still owns any shares in NAB or Macquarie, where she served on the board, and whether she and her high flying lawyer husband plan to fully divest from investments in all OFX competitors. Also, well done to Patricia for commmiting to buy 100,000 shares tomorrow. Feel free to answer this question in one of the 5 non-English languages that you speak.

14. Who was reading out the online questions today. He did a good job with no editing or censorship and accurate pairing up the specific question with the relevant resolutions. Well done for also having a general question session at the end of the formal business. This is good practice. Please stick with the hybrid in future years.