How do businesses hold general meetings of shareholders during Covid-19?

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Many businesses delayed General Meetings of Shareholders. Internet photo

Many businesses have delayed the meetings

The Board of Directors of Mobile World Investment Joint Stock Company (Code: MWG) has just decided to delay the annual meeting in 2020 to cope with the development of the Covid-19 epidemic in Vietnam and as recommended by the Ministry of Health on limiting crowded events.

The Mobile World (The Gioi Di Dong) General Meeting of Shareholders was scheduled to be held on March 27, with the closing date of February 20.However, the company has decided to ask shareholders to postpone the meeting on grounds of reducing the risk of infection and to ensure fairness among shareholders because the travelof foreign shareholders could face difficulties due to isolation requirements and immigration procedures.

Along with The Gioi Di Dong, another enterprise operating in the retail sector –FPT Digital Retail Joint Stock Company (FPT Retail - Ticker: FRT) – also decided to delay the meeting. Accordingly, this business has passed a decision to postpone the organization of the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders 2020 scheduled to be held on March 20 due to concerns about the development of the Covid-19 epidemic. The company said it would decide to hold the congress at an appropriate time.

Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company (Code: VNM) has decided to postpone the annual general meeting of shareholders. Regarding the specific time for organizing the meeting, Vinamilk will announce it no later than June 30, 2020.

Vietnam Container Shipping Joint Stock Company (VSC) has announced that it will postpone the organization of itsAnnual General Meeting of Shareholders in 2020, even though it was scheduled on March 31. However, VSC also affirmed that the meeting will soon be held at an appropriate time, it is likely to be held on June 30, 2020.

Hai Phat Investment Joint Stock Company (HPX) has recently consulted about extending the time to hold the General Meeting of Shareholders. The time and location of the meeting will be announced in the future.

Besides, there are also notable names announcing the delay of the General Meeting of Shareholders such as Tan Tao Investment and Industry Joint Stock Company (ITA), SSI Securities, Digiworld (DGW), Dat Phuong (DPG) andEximbank.

Medical supervision at events

In addition to businesses delay the time of holding the General Meeting of Shareholders, there are still many businesses that hold the General Meeting of Shareholders under strict medical supervision.

BIDV's Annual General Meeting of Shareholders 2020 took place on the morning of March 7, at the time of the Covid-19 epidemic. Therefore, BIDV has prepared measures to prevent epidemics such as masks, hand sanitizer, and setting up a medical area to check the temperature to ensure the congress succeeds. The number of people attending the meeting was very small, just a few dozen, but they still haveenough conditions to conduct the meeting.

GTNFoods has just held its annual general meeting of shareholders in mid-February – the time when Covid-19 broke out. When attending, shareholders are asked to answer a questionnaire about travel information near the meeting date and the ability to interact with people coming from Wuhan or China. When completing the first two "barricades", shareholders will be registered to participate in the meeting and receive documents with a medical face mask.

An Phat Green Plastic JSC (AAA) has recently announced that shareholders should attend the upcoming annual general meeting to make a commitment not to relocate from the epidemic area within 14 days and to be in good health without cough, fever, shortness of breath, or close contact with an infected or suspected person. In addition, the company said shareholders will have theirbody temperature checked, wash their hands with antibacterial geland perform necessary medical procedures when attending the meeting.

Similarly, the Board of Directors of Sai Gon - Dong Xuan Beer Joint Stock Company (BSD) also asked shareholders to declare health as instructed. Shareholders and participants from the epidemic area will not be allowed to attend the meeting for health reasons.

On the management side, the State Securities Commission recently said that it had submitted to the Ministry of Finance's leadership to submit to the Prime Minister a number of solutions to immediately deploy electronic voting services for the General Assembly shareholders of public companies and securities investment funds replace the direct voting at the traditional shareholders' meeting.

Electronic voting system (E-Voting) has been implemented by the Securities Depository Center since the beginning of 2017, the original purpose is to help shareholders ensure their rights and interests at the annual meeting. For objective reasons, many shareholders didnot attend, leading to the case that enterprises must cancel meetings because the number of participants didnot reach the prescribed rate.

According to the State Securities Commission, this will create favorable conditions for businesses on the floor to successfully organize the General Meeting of Shareholders, and will also help shareholders, especially foreign shareholders in areas affected by the disease are likely to participate and express their rights through electronic ballots.