Online proxy voting gaining ground in Australia

The 2008 AGM season saw a strong increase in the use of online proxy voting by Australian shareholders. This follows several years of low uptake, particularly in comparison to the US.

Overall, from August to November 2008, more than 120,000 votes were received via Computershare’s new online voting service – InvestorVote. This represents approximately 10.46% of the total votes received – an increase of almost 200% from 2007.

While these figures are encouraging, it is important for companies to continue the momentum of 2008 and further promote the use of online voting for the upcoming season.

We are currently working on enhancing our existing InvestorVote system to further improve the service for your securityholders. We will provide more information later in the year.

“After using InvestorVote for the first time for our 2008 AGM voting, I was very happy with the outcome and participation levels. The new proxy form design worked well and was a key reason for the increased take-up.”
John Priestly, Company Secretary, ANZ