Shareholder requisitioning of Special Resolution for HSBC’s next AGM in 2026
Members, it’s nearly that time of year again and we feel requisitioning a resolution for the next HSBC AGM remains a key valid tactic in continuing our fight.
It’s clear the institutional shareholders always support the board and vote a Past Chair of Campaign & Resolution co-ordinator against the resolutions we raise BUT getting clawback formally on the agenda at the AGM seems a worthwhile exercise in ensuring it’s not ignored.
Last year’s resolution while defeated, did actually result in Nancy getting our first ever proper meeting with Aileen Taylor (Group Chief People & Governance Officer at HSBC Holdings) an actual HSBC Group board member! (Which irreconcilably was all the resolution requested)
Nancy met face to face with Ms Taylor and her dialogue with her is continuing but slowly. Ms Taylor promising to take the issues Nancy has raised to the next official Group Board meeting in December and has promised to come back to Nancy in early 2026!
Unfortunately, that’s after the deadline, of 31st December, if we want to raise a resolution at the next AGM
We have therefore, fully discussed as a committee whether we should raise another resolution and have concluded we feel we need to requisitioning one for the next AGM.
As many of the shareholders who have supported us in the past will know, it’s always a rush to complete the process, as forms must be completed within one month of proving share ownership.
It means I always have a busy December and the postman thinks I’m very popular with Christmas Greetings!
I’m happy to co-ordinate again this year and will send out the relevant instructions and attachments towards the end of November, to everyone I know as shareholders from previous years.
I will then again need your urgent action printing off attachments, signing as necessary and getting everything back to me before Christmas, including the letter from Invest Direct or similar if you do not have your shares in a paper certificate format. (I will again alert the relevant people at HSBC that we will be doing this, so hopefully Invest Direct will act swiftly as they did last year).
I appreciate some people might have sold their shares for financial reasons (especially when they cracked £10) but hopefully enough members are still shareholders to again achieve the necessary threshold of at least 100 shareholders completing the request.
In recent weeks we have been very busy drafting new resolution wordings and currently have 2 variations which are getting our full attention, including getting support from our friends in the Legal faculty at Exeter University, the resolution/s need to be different from those we’ve done previously, but obviously still focussed on our objectives to tackle the unfairness of how clawback is applied and that it was not clearly and consistently communicated like HSBC have robustly claimed in the past.
Clearly, as long as campaign members with shares support us again with completing the necessary forms, we will get the resolution officially published in the AGM notices and ensure it remains firmly on the boards agenda.
Please feel free to e-mail me directly if you are a shareholder and would like to be involved for the first time.
Regards
Colin Denny
Past Chair of Campaign & Resolution Co-ordinator
