Billionaire Gold Coast pubs baron Bruce Mathieson backs ’world first’ virtual AGM company

GOLD Coast pubs and pokies baron Bruce Mathieson is ‘delighted’ at the response to what he says is the world’s first virtual annual general meeting.

Pubs and pokies baron Bruce Mathieson. Picture: Ludbey Wayne.

GOLD Coast pubs and pokies billionaire Bruce Mathieson is “delighted” at the response to what he says is the world’s first virtual annual general meeting.

“It is definitely a world first, 100 per cent,” Mr Mathieson told the Bulletin yesterday.

“It is something new and something completely different.”

The Albatross Ave-dweller said the technology start-up, Omni Market Tide, which he backed financially, had secured partnerships with Westpac and Telstra and would now “chase the big companies” to attract new business.

“I think it was a very, very good start,” he said.

“We’ll now target the big guys and see how that goes.

“A lot of big companies are already very interested in the technology.”

Shareholders approved, sending shares in the newly listed OMT up 18.18 per cent to 3.9¢.

OMT will roll out a new mobile app designed to speed up the evolution of totally “virtual” annual general meetings.

The app by OMT has been designed to facilitate shareholder communication over mobile devices ahead of AGMs and support the live streaming of meetings.

OMT managing director Megan Boston previously said the app was being developed to enable shareholders to ask questions at meetings and vote on resolutions from anywhere in the world.

At yesterday’s first virtual AGM, the majority of the listed company’s 1000 shareholders voted in real time using the app, OmniLoop.

Ms Boston said the virtual meeting was a first for Australia and the world and enabled shareholders from anywhere around the globe to not only live-stream the event but also to vote and ask questions in real time.

Ms Boston said virtual AGMs were the way of the future and enabled more shareholders to participate in company matters.

“No one is doing the voting or asking of questions through an app, it is just the live streaming at the moment and that’s why this is historic,” she said.

“People can do it in their own home or in their office.”

Ms Boston said shareholders from Asia and New Zealand took part in yesterday’s meeting which, she claimed, had 100 times the usual level of shareholder participation.

She said most share market trading was now done through a mobile device and the next logical step was for AGMs to be digitalised.

Ms Boston said it had taken a while for an app to be developed for AGMs because company leaders did not want to part with tradition.

“There is a lot of inertia there. People don’t like change. When you look at the people who make these decisions, the company secretaries, they are quite risk-averse,” she said.

“People got used to the old system and there hasn’t been an alternative.”

OMT listed on the share market in July last year.

Westpac and Telstra are using the app to keep shareholders informed but are yet to commit to using it during their AGMs later this year.

Ms Boston said it was only a matter of time, and many people were keenly watching the success of OMT’s virtual meeting before taking the leap.