In line with what's practiced by other listed companies in Bursa Malaysia due to the covid19 pandemic. Public Bank did a fully virtual annual general meeting.
How virtual AGM works is that shareholders do not need to be physically present during the AGM. Shareholders can watch the AGM live from the internet. Questions and voting of company resolutions can be done via the live stream site. They just have to log into the company (Public Bank) share registrar page and then launch the live stream from there. Public Bank's share registration company is Tricor Berhad.
This time watching the AGM from a computer was really strange. Usually Public Bank's AGM in Malaysia is like Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, the AGM attracts people from all over Malaysia to come. The virtual AGM was strange because it was missing cheers, claps and singing.
As usual, Public Bank still leads in all the financial ratios among its peers.
- cost to income ratio (34.4%)
- gross impaired loan ratio (0.5%)
- net return on equity (13.6%)
Some of the items highlighted were :
- Public Bank will speed up its digitization plans by onboarding more users on their online platforms like mobile banking, internet banking.
- Public Bank will open additional 6 branches in Vietnam
- Public Bank does not view fintech companies as competitors but potential collaborators where a win-win situation can be worked out between both companies
- Public Bank's loan exposure to oil and gas companies is less than 1% of the business so there will not be any impact to the business
At the peak of the broadcast, there were 300 + viewers and towards the end there were only 100 + viewers left.
No door gifts were given for this year by the Bank as announced by the chairperson Mr Lai but total of 0.73cent per share dividends were announced, much higher than in year 2018.
I kind of agree with Public Bank managing director that Vietnam would be a good growth region as this country was the 1st in the region to open up country lockdown from the covid19 situation and domestic tourism and its industrial output seems to be recovering faster than expected.
Overrall the virtual AGM is a new experience for me but I prefer the actual AGM as it is more livelier. The last Public Bank AGM I went I blogged it here.
Public Bank share prices has recovered from its low of RM12.76 during the covid19 crisis. Whoever bought at that point should be really happy by now.
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