SIAS urges Noble to be ‘polite’ to shareholders after AGM fiasco

Don’t shut unitholders up, management told.

The Securities Investors Association of Singapore (SIAS) has urged Noble’s management to be ‘firm but polite’ to shareholders, after unflattering reports about the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) circulated.

“Chairman and Directors of meetings need to adopt a friendly and willing attitude towards their shareholders who are, after all, owners of the Company. Where they cannot accommodate the questions, they can easily be firm but polite,” SIAS reiterated.

The AGM’s transcript, which was released today, showed that Noble’s Chairman Richard Elman refused to answer a number of questions related to a spate of accounting allegations levelled at it by Iceberg and Muddy Waters.

"We consider the Iceberg matter finished. We will not, we will not be revisiting details of these allegations in this meeting," Elman said.

The transcript showed that Elman interrupted a minority shareholder named Richard Lau when he attempted to ask a question about Yancoal.

“Does it have to do with the financial statement? If it does, I’ll answer it. But if it doesn’t, we won’t, ok. We have to stick by the rules and regulations that the meeting is being run by,” Elman said.

Elman's response caused shareholder Manohar Sabnani to call Noble "too defensive".

"If you are not guilty of anything, why are you so uptight?" Sabnani asked, which drew applause from other shareholders.

SIAS stated that while the Annual General Meeting is a statutory meeting and limited by time within a set agenda, chairmen can still address the serious concerns of minority shareholders and not side-step them.

“The Chairman could have given comfort to the anxious shareholders by answering in a manner, even briefly, acceptable to them. Much disappointment and anxiety could have been avoided by the Chairman hearing out the shareholders. Shutting up the shareholders instead only creates acrimony,” SIAS stated. 

In response to SGX queries after its AGM, Noble stated that all shareholders' queries were answered during the meeting and that some directors even stayed behind and spoke to interested shareholders personally.

"Going forwards, Noble will continue to respond to all valid questions raised by stakeholders," Noble stated.