Blog

Regulators in Malaysia roll back virtual shareholder meetings

by Christopher Leahy, ACGA

29 October 2024

From 1 March 2025, all public limited companies in Malaysia will be required to hold physical meetings or provide shareholders with a hybrid option, ending pandemic measures which enabled fully virtual AGMs.

 The Securities Commission and Bursa Malaysia jointly announced the new measures on 30 August in response to research that showed more than half of all annual general meetings in the first half of 2024 were held on a virtual basis, despite the end of the Covid-19 global pandemic.
 
The SC Chairman Dato’ Mohammad Faiz Azmi said while fully virtual meetings served their purpose during the pandemic, it is time for issuers to transition to hybrid or physical meeting formats.
 
“Shareholder meetings, especially AGMs, are important sessions to engage the board and management,” said SC Chair, Dato’ Mohammad Faiz Azmi. “Domestic and international investors have also expressed their preference for hybrid or physical meetings. It reinforces good governance by promoting transparency and accountability.”
 
According to Bursa Malaysia CEO, Datuk Muhamad Umar Swift, the hybrid approach to general meetings strikes the best balance between accessibility (virtual) and engagement (physical). Critically, physical meetings preserve the sanctity of shareholder rights and ensure no one is excluded due to technological barriers, so companies must offer a physical meeting for shareholders, while a virtual meeting is an optional extra.
 
Institutional shareholders across multiple markets have become concerned that companies have started to adopt virtual meetings as a “default” option, in part because it makes shareholder meetings easier and quicker for them to handle as well as being cheaper. Importantly, virtual meetings make it more difficult for minority shareholders to pose questions to the board of a company when compared with a physical meeting.
 
Bursa Malaysia’s decision is a welcome move against the trend of leading regional competitors: Australia, Hong Kong Japan and Singapore as well as several other regional markets, now permit fully virtual shareholder meetings, despite the Covid-19 pandemic having passed.
 
The new requirement applies to all general meetings of listed companies on the Main and ACE Markets of Bursa Malaysia held from 1 March 2025.
 

About the Author(s)


Christopher Leahy
ACGA Specialist Advisor, Southeast Asia

Christopher Leahy
 is Specialist Advisor, Southeast Asia, with ACGA and Managing Director and founder of Velos Research, an independent research and advisory firm that partners with project owners, companies and investors to convert emission-reduction projects into commercial realities. Chris is also an independent non-executive director of Destileria Barako Corporation, an independent distillery and drinks group in the Philippines.

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