For an Annual General Meeting scheduled to start at 11 in the morning, the lines start forming at about 10 in the morning, with people carrying wads of paper signifying attendance in person or proxy. Many of them have already got their take-away bags, with some displaying the brand names of other listed companies, and some full with goodie bags from other companies.
Cycling there, I stand outside Siri Fort Auditorium in South Delhi for about an hour watching how the complete exercise is designed to treat shareholders with something close to bordering on contempt by a bunch of callow youth from some random agency sub-contracted by the company, Hindustan Times or HT Media in this case. The contractual security staff on duty on behalf of the Department of Culture, which is what Siri Fort Auditorium comes under, are equally uncouth.
By this time, by my reckoning, about 600-700 people have come and collected their boxes, some have two, but not more, so maybe a 1,000 boxes have been off-loaded onto share-holders and others, because pretty much everybody at Siri Fort, from gardener to guard to general assistants and more have also taken a box. The young people in charge of the distribution are also tucking in merrily. One of the security guards makes a half-hearted attempt to tell me that mobile phones are not allowed in and I tell him why he wants to risk his future by taking me on so he shrugs and says something to the effect that he was only doing his duty.
At the registration counter inside sit about a dozen youth, each one busy with a video game or chatting with each other. I stand unattended for about five minutes before one of them looks up and motions me back towards the gate. Refreshments are there, he tells me, and so I tell him I need to register and go in.
He then tells me that to go in I should have brought the form with me. Which form, I ask? The form with the annual report. I have not received the annual report in hard copy, I just have the email, I tell him. Then you should have printed the form and filled it and brought it, I am told. I head in for the auditorium without registering, nobody challenges me, because at that juncture I meet some people in very fancy crisp suits. I just walk in with them (I may add that I was wearing a purple kurta, black jeans, purple socks and deep brown suede sneakers). Once in, I reach for the nearest young suit with walkie-talkie but not wearing necktie, figure out that he is somebody from the organisers, HT Media, a young man who goes by the name of Vikas.
I tell him that his boys outside are unhelpful and then for good measure I tell him that I have come into the AGM without an entry coupon. At that point, he looks visibly upset. Meanwhile some bouncer types have started following me, and they all singly and jointly go into the whole refreshment coupon thing. I tell them again that I really do not want the refreshment coupon but that it may be correct for me to register my presence, so we walk out together to the registration counter.
At the registration counter, the previously obnoxious but now scared young men thrust some forms at me. I tell them, no no, I do not want to vote, I already voted online, here is the email, can you wave your magic wand over it and generate the entry coupon and register my presence and check my Aadhaar or whatever else you want? We can't do that, they say, and we go through the same thing of you should have got the form from the annual report, which till now I have not received but never mind. I'm done with forms, I have just come from the RTO where I have just submitted about 65 pages of forms for something to do with a public service badge for driving taxi on private licence basis a Supreme Court order, so.
Eventually, after some to and fro, Vikas fills my form scribbles something on it, and hands me a refreshment coupon which I can not get away from, and then, says, "done, OK?". That is the point where I come closest to reaching out for a refreshment box and stuffing it in his face but resist because from a distance I see my friend from the auditor laughing away. I then nicely ask for and am given an AGM entry coupon.
The AGM is the usual waste of time, though some nice people walk past and give me hard copies of the very pretty annual report. One person makes a long speech about his love for Hindustan Times. Another persons says something about not being able to have morning tea without Hindustan Times. A third person sings some more paeans of praise. Finally a very intense looking young man starts asking some technical questions about the accounts and the holding company and the subsidiary and the suits on the dais say thank you and close the meeting with one of those we will get back to you next year kind of answers. The real Shobhana Bhartia then walks off with her suits following her.
I then walk up to the front and sit with the auditors, and ask Vikas if I can now meet the Company Secretary, and am told that Company Secretary is with the VIPs. This is the moment for me to get my hooks out and I go to town on the "what is a VIP, define VIP" song till the auditors on my side are laughing some more. I then wait for 10-15 minutes more filing some rude updates about the AGM on social media till the Company Secretary comes out to meet me. His name is Tridip Barat. My main grouse by now is that there is bottled water for the directors and others on the stage but tap water for us. If security prevents water inside for shareholders on the auditorium side then how is it allowed on the stage side? Vikas who is by now becoming an irritating little Pappoo starts off again with his VIP-VVIP song so he is waved away by both of us to, what else, go and have some refreshments.
Once that is done with, Tridib Barat and I start talking about random other stuff including my days as a motoring writer for, yes, Hindustan Times. As far as the AGM is concerned, it is over, but Barat tells me something interesting - his staff have told him that they have distributed 18,000+ refreshment boxes.
At this point I show him my refreshment coupon, amongst if not the last to be issued, which is only serial number 2766. Tridib Barat gives me a weak smile and says "samjha karo boss." He then walks me out, everybody is saluting him and by default me, and asks me if my car is there. I tell him, no, I am going to be cycling back, and he looks at me in amazement.
On the way out I hand over the refreshment coupon to the gate guard, who assures me that next time I come I can gladly enter with a truck full of phones and cameras, and tells me, Sir, "samjha karo pleej".
I reach home for lunch with a friend. I show him the HT Annual Report and ask him how come if turnover goes up, profit goes down, and what is the role of all these holding company and subsidiaries. And he also tells me, "samjha karo yaar." Listed company AGMs, samajh gaya.
(
Veeresh Malik is an activist from Delhi, who explores several things in life.)
If shareholders care only for share price, dividend and not fundamentals, focus on goodies distributed at AGM and not question management about performance then promoters can not be faulted for considering public company as their 'jaydaad' irrevocably. Only once in a blue moon, some Swaraj Paul will shake them up from deep sleep, but again politician by their side will save them, of course for a cost..
samajh gaye naa ?!!