107: Scott Donald on Governance and Member Meetings
Conversations with Institutional Investors
Release Date: 12/19/2024
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Conversations with Institutional Investors
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Conversations with Institutional Investors
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Conversations with Institutional Investors
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Conversations with Institutional Investors
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113: FCLT's Eduard van Gelderen – Long Term Investing, Concentrated Portfolios and Decarbonisation
Conversations with Institutional Investors
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112: Fulcrum's Suhail Shaikh – Absolute Return Investing, Market Timing and The Role of Luck
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Conversations with Institutional Investors
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Conversations with Institutional Investors
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Conversations with Institutional Investors
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Conversations with Institutional Investors
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info_outlineIn episode 107 of the [i3] Institutional Investment Podcast, we speak with Scott Donald, Associate Professor at the School of Private and Commercial Law of the University of New South Wales, about his research into governance and the now mandatory annual member meetings of superannuation funds.
How do funds field questions from members? How can we check they answer all questions? What impact do these meetings have on the corporate culture and brand of a fund? After collecting nearly five years of data, Scott shares his insights into these interactions with members.
Overview of Podcast with Associate Professor Scott Donald:
02:00 Researching the intersection of Annual Member Meetings and governance
03:00 Five years ago a rule came into effect that funds needed to hold annual member meetings. Do funds see it as a box ticking exercise, or do they take the opportunity to build a brand through these meetings?
6:30 The Q&A process in these meetings are way more specified than in a (listed company) AGM
09:00 Member meetings don’t have the disciplinary effect that an AGM has
10:30 How do we know if the chair has identified some of the more uncomfortable questions?
11:30 There isn’t really a mechanism for a member to say: ‘Hey, I asked this question and you didn’t really give an answer’
13:00 Most questions get asked about fund returns
16:00 Climate risk questions are the second biggest in terms of the number of questions, after returns. We were interested to see whether all of those questions were from activists
17:30 What signal do we take from the questions being asked? I think there is a danger of misinterpreting that signal
23:00 Inconvenient questions for members
26:00 I hope funds will take a more bespoke and thoughtful approach to member meeting, rather than a this-is-best-practice and move on
27:30 False and misleading statement risk
30:00 Legitimacy is an issue in super and member meetings are a way of putting a face to super
31:00 We don’t know the extent to which the regulator is switched on to all these questions being asked
32:30 We are close to finalising the fifth season of member meetings and we will write that up
35:00 Upcoming research might look at the use of AI in super funds
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