6 questions lodged at 2024 Pro Medicus hybrid AGM
December 2, 2024
Below is the text of the 6 written questions submitted at this 115 minute Pro Medicus hybrid AGM held on November 24 2024. Three of them weren't asked. No early proxy disclosure in these 58 slides and some modest protests on last 3 items if you back out the nearly 50% stake owned by the two billionaire co-founders. No disclosure of shareholder voting numbers but the chair made the turnout sound very large with these concluding remarks at the end of the meeting.
Q1. Thanks to our incredible success, our share price is too high. Please seek approval for a 10-for-1 share split at next year's AGM. Such a lofty share price makes it harder for retail shareholders to be issued new stock in a DRP & it also complicates rounding up & rounding down when you do an SPP. For shareholders of modest means like me, who can only afford the minimum $500 purchase to attend AGMs, it is annoying to have to spend >$500 buying 3 or 4 of your shares. If a share split is good enough for Nvidia, why not us?
Answer: Not asked.
Q2. The 5 most valuable US big tech stocks - Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Nvidia - are together worth more than $20 trillion, largely because they have enormous pricing power and are over-charging customers the world over. Could the CEO comment on which of the big global technology companies we are most reliant on and what would we do if they suddenly put their prices up by 30%?
Answer: The CEO Sam Hupert gave a good summary of how they navigate the big 3 cloud providers. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q3. When it comes to professional directors who have made it big from a soaring stock, few in Australia have done better than Peter Kempen at Pro Medicus. The skin in the game alignment is enormous relative to other ASX200 chairs. However, after 16 years on the board, the last 14 as chair, the box tickers might argue Peter is no longer independent, something you are still asserting. Could Peter comment as to whether he is friends with our 2 founders & also whether this will be his last term or could run again in 2027?
Answer: The chair's stake is worth about $158 million but he made a good case for his ongoing independence including a "home visits" metric. He's only been to one of their homes once for a 60th birthday party. Watch video of exchange via Twitter, plus these additional reflections after his election. Peter also wrongly thought a similar question about succession and his shareholding was from me. Click here to watch that exchange.
Q4. A final question on AGM process & disclosure. I can't find any record of past AGM webcasts on your website. Will you publish the full webcast of today's AGM because less than 2% of your 15,154 shareholders will have watched it live at Leonda or online? Also, please publish the proxy position with the formal addresses ahead of next year's AGM & adopt scheme-like voting disclosure in today's poll outcome ASX announcement so we can see how many retail shareholders voted & what our sentiment was on all items?
Answer: Not asked but at least they did publish this webcast of the meeting.
Q5. Did any of the 5 main proxy advisers - ACSI, Ownership Matters, Glass Lewis, ISS and ASA - recommend a vote against any of today's resolutions, including this remuneration report item? If so, what reasons did they give and did this cause any material protest votes? Please don't say they are confidential. It is standard for companies to be across this detail on the voting recommendations and inform shareholders where relevant without publishing the full proxy adviser reports, of course.
Answer: The chair Peter Kempen said they were all in favour, unlike last year when one proxy adviser triggered quite a rem protest vote. Watch video of exchange via Twitter.
Q6. Peter Kempen is a former partner at Ernst & Young & EY was our auditor when he first joined the board in 2008. 16yrs later, EY is still our auditor. How many competitive tenders have we fun for the audit job over the past 16 years & when are we next planning to run a full tender for our audit work? This is not for a moment to suggest there is anything wrong with EY's audit work or any compelling case for change, it's just good practice to periodically market test & there are too many long tenured audit firms across the ASX200.
Answer: Not asked.
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