AGM Information • May 9, 2018
AGM Information
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(REGISTERED IN GUERNSEY WITH REGISTRATION NUMBER 45241) (THE "COMPANY")
THIS DOCUMENT IS IMPORTANT AND REQUIRES YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. If you are in any doubt about the contents of this document, or the action you should take, you are recommended to seek your own financial advice immediately from your stockbroker, bank manager, solicitor, accountant or other independent financial adviser who, if you are taking advice in the United Kingdom, is duly authorised under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
If you have sold or otherwise transferred all of your ordinary shares in the Company, you should send this document, together with the accompanying proxy form, at once to the purchaser or transferee or to the bank, stockbroker or other agent through whom the sale or transfer was effected for delivery to the purchaser or transferee.
A company incorporated in the Island of Guernsey
Directors: Rupert Dorey (Chairman) Julia Bond Giles Frost John Le Poidevin John Stares Claire Whittet John Whittle
Registered Office Heritage Hall PO Box 225 Le Marchant Street St Peter Port GY1 4HY Guernsey Channel Islands
9 May 2018
To the Members
Dear Member
Please find enclosed the Notice of Meeting ('NOM') for the Company's forthcoming AGM, to be held on 11 June 2018. The NOM contains many standard motions which longer-term investors in the Company would be familiar with including director re-elections – where, in accordance with best practice the whole Board puts itself forward for re-election on an annual basis – approval of recent dividends and the reappointment of the Company's Auditors. We are also writing to inform you of proposals to make a minor amendment to the existing Articles of Incorporation of the Company (the "Articles") at the AGM, notice of which is given in Appendix 1 hereof.
As outlined in Chairman's Letter in the 2017 Annual Report, the Board are currently seeking a candidate to succeed Mr Dorey as Chair of the Company. While this process is ongoing, the Board agreed that Mr Dorey should remain in the role until a suitable replacement has been identified and there has been an appropriate transition period. Accordingly, Mr Dorey will submit himself for re-election at the AGM. The Board is currently undertaking a search with the help of an external recruitment firm and anticipates it will be in the position to short list candidates in due course.
In order to ensure an orderly handover, Mr Dorey will remain on the Board and work alongside the new Chair to support them in their new role. However, during this transition period, the number of Board members would be eight. Currently, article 73 limits the maximum size of the Board to seven members. It is therefore proposed that article 73 be revised to provide the Board flexibility to appoint more than seven members if it believes that it would be appropriate to do so. There is no current intention to increase the size of the Board permanently.
Resolution 15 proposes that article 73 be replaced in its entirety as follows:
"Unless otherwise determined by the Board:
and at no time shall a majority of Directors be resident in the United Kingdom."
If you have any queries on the changes to the Articles, please contact Tom Daish at the Registered Office on +44 (0) 1481 742612.
For any queries relating to the completion of the Form of Proxy, please contact Link Asset Services, by post at PXS1, 34 Beckenham Road, Beckenham, Kent, BR3 4ZF; by telephone on UK: 0871 664 0300, from overseas call +44 (0) 371 664 0300, calls cost 12p per minute plus your phone company's access charge. Calls outside the United Kingdom will be charged at the applicable international rate. Link Asset Services operate between 09.00 – 17.30, Monday to Friday excluding public holidays in England and Wales. Link Asset Services can only provide information regarding the completion of the Form of Proxy and cannot provide you with investment or tax advice.
Please read this document in its entirety before carrying out any of the actions requested of you.
Yours faithfully
Rupert Dorey Chairman
NOTICE is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of the Company is to be held at Lefebvre Place, Lefebvre Street, St Peter Port, Guernsey, at 10.00 am on 11 June 2018 for the transaction of the following business:
"Unless otherwise determined by the Board:
73.1 the number of Directors shall be not less than two; and
73.2 the number of Directors shall not be more than seven,
and at no time shall a majority of Directors be resident in the United Kingdom"
By order of the Board Estera International Fund Managers (Guernsey) Limited Company Secretary
9 May 2018
Heritage Hall Le Marchant Street St Peter Port Guernsey GY1 4HY
Guernsey-registered companies are not obliged to prepare and publish a Directors' Remuneration Report. However, the Company has included details of its Directors' remuneration within the Annual Report and Accounts and an ordinary resolution will be put to shareholders seeking approval of the Directors' remuneration.
In accordance with the AIC Code of Corporate Governance, the Board have resolved that, with effect from the 2017 AGM, each Director shall offer themselves for re-election on an annual basis. Further, when and if any director shall have been in office (or on re-election would at the end of that term of office) for more than nine years the Company will consider further whether there is a risk that such a director might reasonably be deemed to have lost independence through such long service. Mr Dorey has been a Board member since August 2006 and as such has now been a Board member for over nine years. However, the Board is confident that Mr Dorey remains independent and has offered himself for re-election on an annual basis since 2014.
This resolution renews the power, given by the Company's shareholders at the last Annual General Meeting, for the Board to offer shareholders the right to elect to receive further Ordinary Shares, credited as fully paid, instead of cash in respect of all or any part of any dividend (a scrip dividend). The Board believes that the ability for shareholders to receive future dividends from the Company wholly or partly in the form of new ordinary shares in the Company will be advantageous for the Company as it will benefit from the ability to retain cash which would otherwise be paid as dividends. It may also benefit certain shareholders depending on their tax status.
This resolution renews the share buy-back authority that was given by the Company's shareholders at last year's Annual General Meeting. Resolution 9 gives the Board authority to make market purchases of the Company's own shares, up to 14.99 per cent. of the Company's issued share capital (as at the time immediately following the passing of the resolution) and subject to minimum and maximum purchase prices. This authority will only be invoked if, after taking proper advice, the Directors consider that benefits will accrue to shareholders generally.
This resolution, a standard resolution for investment companies listed under Chapter 15 of the UK Listing Rules, renews the authority given to the Board at last year's general meeting to allot Ordinary Shares for cash without first offering them to existing holders on a pro rata basis. The number of shares allotted must be less than 10 per cent. of the number of Ordinary Shares admitted to trading on London Stock Exchange plc's main market for listed securities immediately following the passing of this resolution.
The Board does not currently intend to allot shares under this power other than to take advantage of opportunities in the market as they arise, and only if they believe it would be advantageous to the Company's shareholders to do so. The Board also confirms that no allotment of new shares will be made unless the lowest market offer price of the shares is at least a premium to the latest published net asset value.
Article 73 of the articles of incorporation currently limits the maximum size of the Board to seven members. However, as part of the Board's ongoing Board recruitment programme, there may be periods when the appointment of a suitable candidate would result in the total number of Directors exceeding seven. The proposed change to article 73 ensures that the Directors have flexibility to make appointments. However, the intention is that the number of Board members will not otherwise exceed seven.
Members are requested to submit their votes in respect of all the resolutions proposed in this Notice of Annual General Meeting. It is the recommendation of the Board that Members vote in favour of each resolution on the basis that the Board considers their passing to be in the best interests of the members as a whole.
Certain of the Board are also members of the Company, each of whom intends to vote in favour of all resolutions proposed in this Notice of Annual General Meeting. Their holdings as at the date of this notice are as follows:
| Ordinary Shares of 0.01p each held |
Percentage of total issued share capital |
|
|---|---|---|
| Rupert Dorey* | 1,037,614 | 0.07% |
| Julia Bond | 14,020 | < 0.01% |
| Giles Frost** | 880,313 | 0.06% |
| John Le Poidevin | 65,333 | < 0.01% |
| John Stares | 75,000 | < 0.01% |
| Claire Whittet*** | 68,017 | < 0.01% |
| John Whittle**** | 58,864 | < 0.01% |
* Included in this number are 200,000 shares owned by Mr Dorey's spouse and 43,927 shares are held by another close family member.
** Directly and through a wholly-owned company.
*** Holds shares through a Retirement Annuity Trust Scheme jointly with Ms Whittet's spouse. **** Holds shares through a Retirement Annuity Trust Scheme.
CREST members who wish to appoint a proxy or proxies through the CREST electronic proxy appointment service may do so for the Annual General Meeting and any adjournment(s) thereof by using the procedures, and to the address, described in the CREST manual (available via www.euroclear.com/CREST) subject to the provisions of the articles of incorporation. CREST personal members or other CREST sponsored members, and those CREST members who have appointed a voting service provider(s), should refer to their CREST sponsor or voting service provider(s), who will be able to take the appropriate action on their behalf.
In order for a proxy appointment or instruction made using the CREST service to be valid, the appropriate CREST message (a "CREST Proxy Instruction") must be properly authenticated in accordance with Euroclear UK and Ireland Limited's ("Euroclear") specifications and must contain the information required for such instructions, as described in the CREST manual. The message, regardless of whether it constitutes the appointment of a proxy or an amendment to the instruction given to a previously appointed proxy, must, in order to be valid, be transmitted so as to be received by the issuer's agent (ID RA10) by 10.00 a.m. on 7 June 2018. For this purpose, the time of receipt will be taken to be the time (as determined by the time stamp applied to the message by the CREST applications host) from which the issuer's agent is able to retrieve the message by enquiry to CREST in the manner prescribed by CREST. After this time any change of instructions to proxies appointed through CREST should be communicated to the appointee through other means.
CREST members and, where applicable, their CREST sponsors or voting service provider(s) should note that Euroclear does not make available special procedures in CREST for any particular messages. Normal system timings and limitations will therefore apply in relation to the input of CREST Proxy Instructions. It is the responsibility of the CREST member concerned to take (or, if the CREST member is a CREST personal member or sponsored member or has appointed a voting service provider(s), to procure that his CREST sponsor or voting service provider(s) take(s)) such action as shall be necessary to ensure that a message is transmitted by means of the CREST system by any particular time. In this connection, CREST members and, where applicable, their CREST sponsors or voting service provider(s) are referred, in particular, to those sections of the CREST manual concerning practical limitations of the CREST system and timings.
The Company may treat as invalid a CREST Proxy Instruction in the circumstances set out in Regulation 34(1) of the Uncertificated Securities (Guernsey) Regulations, 2009.
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