21 Oct AGMs MOVE ONLINE – PERMANENTLY; ACQUISITION ALERT: THE COMPANIES TO WATCH
Welcome to this week’s business and media intelligence update.
AGMs MOVE ONLINE – PERMANENTLY
Are the days of shareholders enjoying their annual “free” tea and biscuits over? Say it isn’t so …
It’s now official: Australian listed companies will be able to host online-only annual meetings with shareholders, after the Federal Government introduced a draft bill this week to amend the Corporations Act and make the emergency COVID-19 corporate relief permanent.
Rather than hosting physical AGMs, companies will be able to hold “hybrid” meetings, which shares the characteristics of both the traditional and virtual format.
Additionally, if permitted by a company’s constitution, AGMs can be exclusively online provided 75 per cent of shareholders agree.
However, not everyone is happy about the proposed reform, with many arguing the removal of physical meetings will lead to a loss of transparency and engagement.
REBRANDING: YAY OR YEE?
What do you do when your name no longer reflects who you are?
Well, if you’re Kanye West, you change it. The award-winning musician, producer, and erstwhile husband of Kim Kardashian-West has changed his name to a single syllable word Ye (read: yay).
And Ye’s not the only one. After facing weeks of negative coverage from the Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets, the social media giant Facebook announced this week that it was changing its name to “reflect its focus on building the metaverse”. Erm, okay.
As they say, a rose by any other name, would smell as sweet.
ACQUISITION ALERT: THE COMPANIES TO WATCH IN AUSTRALIA’S M&A BOOM
It’s no secret that Australia is in the midst of an M&A streak.
But which companies are on the for-sale watch list?
Well, according to The Australian Financial Review, Suncorp and AMP are top of the list, along with Challenger and BT Panorama. Beyond the banking space, the A2 Milk Company and Treasury Wine Estates are also reportedly being stalked by local and domestic players.
You can read more about it here.
BREAKING VIEWS
Competition in the streaming market is heating up. Australian home-grown platforms such as Stan (owned by Nine Media), and Binge (News Corp), are now fighting a war against well-established global players, as well as new contestants HBO Max, Paramount + and NBC Universal’s Peacock.
However, Netflix, the veteran and industry leader, has now over 222 million customers, according to the company’s recently released third quarter results.
The platform gained 4.4 million new subscribers at the end of the quarter thanks in part to the South Korean series Squid Game. In the first month, 142 million accounts watched the show, making it the No.1 program in 94 countries.
The series stormed the globe (literally) with a South Korean internet provider suing Netflix to pay for costs for increased network traffic and maintenance work caused by the surge of viewers.
Read more here.
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