please empty your brain below
dg writes: Very much so.
No wonder they held it in London, you wouldn't want to waste too much time travelling to and from this event - afterwards they can say that they're 'listening' to shareholders concerns.
Luckily you have also noticed that you are attending an event that is only attended by others of a certain age (many of whom seem to read a certain paper), at this point warning lights should appear, with a loud announcement that you are spending the increasingly limited time you have left on this Earth on pointless nonsense, and leave immediately.
Honed by years of experience. Make them sit through it all and send them away with a feel-good offering.
I haven't as yet attended a members' meeting: I think the nearest it came would have been around 2015/16, after my despair at seeing some truly awful Xmas window displays and spending some time watching the reactions of other passers by, which largely ranged from derisory laughter to "WTF!!!???" If the idea had been to attract people into the store, it was actually having an opposite effect.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/32293736@N04/23548445812/
But of course it is partly a game of skill - knowing stuff can help.
But the major winners are those who already have enough money to pay for good advice. That certainly doesn't guarantee a win, but it sure helps raise your chances. For ordinary people, I would agree that it may be best avoided.
Are the shares held in an ISA perhaps? Or are you not too concerned about capital gains (given the annual exemption) and income tax on dividends?
You weren't tempted to sell half of your shares when the price had doubled, and keep the rest? Then you would still be ahead. (Hindsight is wonderful isn't it...)
And looks like those emotional Sires are the main reason that DG is not going to another meeting of such kind again.
Personally, I've wanted out for quite a while, but the slightly bitter experience is that one can wait indefinitely for them to be "worth" selling.
It was a particular "disappointment" - as disppointments go - when they started issuing 'vouchers' in lieu of dividends :(
My favourite AGM I ever attended was Youngs (the brewery). The worst was for a city institution which I won't name where one of the shareholders gave a most appalling racist speech which was met with cheers from the floor. My piece on it was spiked.
If they had been displayed in some semblance of order, say all together of a particular tog value, or all types of a particular size together I might have spent less time there. Instead all the types were arranged higgledy piggeldy according to the colour of the box (type/material) so I ran short of time and missed and going down to the food hall with the time saved to buy some of the Chairmans favourite biscuits, thus assisting the value of your share prices.
Still, now I know who you worked for (I thought TfL Corporate for a long time), but not what you did, and why they thought it was a good idea to 'let you go'.
dg writes: No, you absolutely don't.
One thing that did strike me was that there were AGM groupies. You often saw the same characters at AGMs. I actually got onto first name terms with a couple from Horsham who would use AGMs as an excuse for a day out in London and some free grub and goodies.
M&S would never be on my investing list... but, don't forget the dividends you have received. I'll bet they are more than the interest you would have received (minus tax) from an instant-access saver account over the 15 years.
I went to one AGM, hundreds of miles away. Who else turned up? Older folk: some had acquired shares the same way. Mostly locals, getting there on bus passes. Just two of us from over the horizon. All the votes fixed, but the biscuits were nice.
The shares went from two-fifths of not much to a couple of quid then south again. I never paid for the shares, except in grief, but if I want to 'sell', it costs a packet.
Shares are a gamble, no divine right to profits nor dividends; no-one gangs up to install responsible management. The present lot are only fit for nuking rather than reconstruction.
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