Sunday 30 September 2018

Just one more thing about Ryanair....

I can see that there were at least a couple of asset managers that did not vote against either David Bonderman as chairman or Kryan McLaughlin as senior independent director. And reasons given for this are that they expect the company to make changes and, if those changes are not made, there is a threat of a future vote against.

But it has also been made explicit by Ryanair that it will remove voting rights from ex-EU shareholders very swiftly in the event of a hard Brexit. So it seems a bit risky to have voted FOR directors that you actually want to see replaced when there is a risk that you won't be able to replace them in future.

I can't help thinking that there is a degree of self-delusion that voting for things you actually disagree with is a sophisticated approach. I don't think those who receive your vote in favour necessarily take it the way you mean it, or present it in the way you want - in this case O'Leary was very clear in the AGM that he wanted the level of support received to be seen as a positive. But if you're under threat of losing your ability to change your vote in future it seems especially risky.

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