Today was the Sports Direct AGM and, once again, chairman Keith Hellawell was in the firing line. He had previously said he would stand down if he failed to get the support of a majority of independent shareholders.
Ahead of the AGM Unite has flagged up numerous ongoing problems at the company, and its complete failure to deliver on previous pledges. Major investors like Fidelity, Aberdeen, Hermes and Royal London all publicly announced they were voting against. Trade Union Share Owners members also voted against and called for other shareholders to do likewise. All the voting agencies also recommended a vote against.
However, Hellawell squeaked through. According the company's AGM statement he received the support of 55% of the independent vote. In raw scores, he got 63.3m in favour, whilst 55.6m voted against. Inexplicably one or more major shareholder seems to have abstained on this vote, with 6.4m abstentions. But even of they had been shifted to the against column, though the margin would have been wafer thin, Hellawell would have been OK.
I suspect there is going to be a lot of scrutiny go how individual institutions cast their votes. We know that Phoenix was voting in favour, and the likelihood is that Odey did too, but that still leaves a lot of votes unaccounted for. (Ladies and gentlemen, start your spreadsheets....)
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