Vampire bites HK&SH
8 May 2004
Investors made their views clear at the AGM of The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, Limited (HK&SH, 0045) on Thursday 6-May-04. The controlling shareholders and directors together own 773,843,770 shares (55.19%). We'll assume they voted in favour of giving themselves a mandate to issue new shares.
Deducting the insiders from the official poll results, the investing public voted as follows:
| Votes | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| In favour | 70,363,955 | 34.83% |
| Against | 131,668,337 | 65.17% |
| Total | 202,032,292 | 100.00% |
Voting turnout was 32.15% of the publicly held shares. This win for Project Vampire follows April's win at the CLP meeting and a win the previous day at Hong Kong and China Gas. Both HK&SH and CLP are controlled by the Kadoorie family.
Last year, HKS&H used its entire 20% mandate to issue new shares in one go, with a placing on 20-Oct-03 at a 10% discount to market price. In this "placing and top-up" transaction, the Kadoorie family subscribed for more shares than they sold to the market, which reduced the effective dilution of their shareholdings, but not for everyone else. Since new Listing Rules came into effect on 31-Mar-04, that practice is no longer permitted, and controlling shareholders cannot subscribe more shares than they sell in the placing.
Hopefully these voting figures will prompt the company to satisfy investor wishes by restricting its cash issue mandate next year, and instead use pre-emptive rights for all shareholders the next time they need to raise cash.
© Webb-site.com, 2004
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