DURBAN - STEINHOFF International shareholders once again shot down some of the important resolutions during the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) on Friday afternoon by voting against three of the five resolutions.
The shareholders voted against a proposal to amend the remuneration policy applicable to managing directors with 92.69 percent against while 7.31 percent voted in favour, while 83.77 percent voted against the proposal to adopt the annual accounts for the financial year to end September 2020 and 92.53 percent voted against the proposal to cast an advisory vote in respect of the remuneration report for the year to end September 2020.
Peter Wakkie was re-appointed as a member of the supervisory board, with 90.56 percent of the votes backing him, while a proposal to authorise the management board to acquire shares in the capital of the company was passed with 89.55 percent of the shareholders voting in favour of the resolution.
Supervisory board chairperson Moira Moses said it was unfortunate that the shareholders had voted against the three resolutions again.
“We are disappointed but we welcome the feedback from our shareholders and we are going to continue having further engagements with them on this.
“We remain committed in supporting our strategy for the betterment of our stakeholders and shareholders,” Moses said. The three same resolutions did not get the required majority vote during last year’s AGM and were not passed.
Steinhoff International is still reeling from the December 2017 accounting irregularities. The group had faced a number of claims and litigations against it and as a result, Steinhoff has proposed a settlement of €943 million (about R16.4 billion) to its claimants.
Its former auditing firm Deloitte has agreed to also contribute €77.94m and former Steinhoff directors and officers contributed €78.1m to help settle claims against the group, but have said this was no admission to any liability or wrongdoing. The claimants are categorised as market purchase claimants and contractual claimants.
Mayfair Speculators, the horse racing company, is one of the companies that has instituted a claim against Steinhoff and Marius Jooste for R4.1bn.
Steinhoff said it had no further comment on the issue on Friday, but it pointed to the update it provided on its 2020 annual report. Steinhoff shares closed 0.93 percent higher at R2.18 on Friday.
BUSINESS REPORT