For Rhode Island public companies, planning their annual meetings means booking a location up to a year in advance, depending on the expected number of attendees, trying to plan on a date where most if not all of the trustees and shareholders can attend and choosing a location amenable to everyone.
Debbie Hancock, director of investor relations for West Kingston-based American Power Conversion, handles the planning and logistics of the company’s annual meeting. Hancock said she books the meeting three or four months in advance so that she can include the date, time and location of the meeting in the annual report and proxy statement, which comes out six weeks to two months before the meeting.
“A lot of the planning is based on turnout,” she said. Meetings could range in size from just the board of trustees and a couple of others to 1,000 people. Planning the meeting also takes a bit of coordination.
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“I need the board of directors to give me a date when they can meet, then I need to identify a location conducive to the shareholders and trustees,” Hancock said. APC holds its annual meetings in hotels, and has been booking in Milford, Mass., “halfway between our headquarters here in Rhode Island and our Massachusetts research and development facility” in Billerica, Mass.
Washington Trust held its annual meeting in April across the street from it headquarters at the Westerly Public Library.
Beth Eckel, senior vice president of marketing, said she usually books a location up to a year in advance, and chooses a place that can accommodate approximately 200 people.
“You can do it in a restaurant, in a hotel, really anywhere,” Eckel said. “We do it here because our headquarters are here and our largest shareholder base is here.” There are also few facilities that can hold 200 people and serve the needs of the bank’s annual meeting.
Eckel said that the date for the annual meeting – set by the board – is usually the same time every year. Notice of the meeting goes out in the company’s proxy statement approximately 45 days in advance. The location must have audio/visual capabilities for the PowerPoint presentation, as well as for the microphones and the live television feed into another room.
“We used to have them at the bank, and then we grew, so we moved to the local yacht club, but then we outgrew that,” she said. “You have to have some place that can accommodate a fairly large group. The gallery (at the library) has an overflow room,” that is used for more seating and has microphones and televisions set up for people to listen to and watch the meeting.
Most local public companies hold their meetings at a hotel – the Radisson, Courtyard by Marriott, the Westin Hotel and Crowne Plaza are popular venues. Other companies need larger venues: Textron held its April 23 annual meeting at the R.I. Convention Center, FleetBoston held its at Copley Theater in Boston and Slades Ferry held its annual meeting at the Venus de Milo in Swansea.
Other companies expect a smaller turnout and hold them at their headquarters or other locations like the Squantum Club in East Providence where Nestor will hold its June meeting.
Eckel said Washington Trust always plans with a guest list of 200. Attendance is always a variable, but having several hundred people on either side is common for APC, Hancock said. Despite never knowing exactly how many will attend, she said that the company has never used teleconferencing or video conferencing. And getting people together in one location has never been a problem, Hancock said.
The bank recently started using teleconferencing in its quarterly meetings, Eckel said, mostly due to the new regulations for public companies. Washington Trust also has audio of the annual meeting on its Web site.
Putting a price tag on the cost of executing an annual meeting is difficult, Hancock said.
“It’s difficult to quantify,” she said. “The primary costs are in the facility rental and the type of services you provide.” Sometimes a meeting is simply that; other times the company might provide beverages or a complimentary brunch.
Corporate spending has declined over the past couple years, however, she added, so the extras aren’t as common now as they might have been last year.
“The meeting is designed to facilitate the business of the company; it’s one of the only chances for the shareholders to see the CEO and the management and offer their suggestions,” Hancock said.
Washington Trust does incur some expenses in catering its annual meetings, as well as in hiring a group to handle the audio/visual (a video made for the staff, recording the meeting for the Web, handling the microphones).
“We are a public company, and we felt that was the best way (to get information
to the public), since we do have the technology and Web site,” Eckel said of
the teleconferencing and Web playback.
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