Back in March 2016, Peter Costello became chairman of the Nine TV Network.
Since then he has received support from shareholders at a level that would have made even Joe Stalin and Fidel Castro go (the old fashioned form of) green with envy; to say nothing of Idi Amin.
We saw it again at the Nine AGM last week: the lowest vote in favour of any of the five resolutions clocked in at 99.11 per cent.
Even the vote on the remuneration report - which in recent years has become the ‘go-to’ target for shareholders with a beef against a company, or indeed a beef against anything - clocked in a 99.6 per cent ‘yes’.
Is there another company on the ASX that has come close? I don’t know. I doubt it.
Most remarkably Costello has been getting this level of – there really is no other word for it – gushing endorsement almost from the get-go of his chairmanship.
Last year was a bit of an exception.
Two votes ‘only’ got 92.15 and 92.73 per cent endorsement.
Two still got the ‘standard’ 99 per cent-plus endorsement, including the rem report with 99.71 per cent; the final vote ‘fell short’ at 98.93 per cent.
The two votes in the low-90s were on the granting of benefits to the CEO Hugh Marks. Maybe that was Victorians disgruntled at the viewing options on Nine through the long – and I mean long – nights, and days, of Chairman Dan’s never-ending lockdowns in 2020.
In pre-Covid 2019, Nine had seven votes at its AGM. The lowest ‘yes’ was 99.56 per cent, the highest 99.98 per cent – come on, you could almost hear, the collective of ex-dictators moaning from their graves, we never went that high.
In 2018, four votes: lowest 99.67 per cent, highest 99.96 per cent.
In 2017, five votes: three of them over 99 per cent, one just under at 98.42 per cent, with the rem report attracting something of a protest, getting ‘only’ 96.91 per cent endorsement.
In 2016 at his first AGM as chairman, Costello did get something markedly less than these numbers. Only four of the six resolutions got around the 99 per cent mark, although one of them did clock up 99.98 per cent.
But only 80.78 per cent voted to endorse future benefits to the CEO and Costello came perilously close to getting a ‘strike’ against the rem report, with only 78.55 per cent endorsing it.
As he only became chairman in March, three months before the end of the financial year relevant to the rem report, it might reasonably be said that was on the head of his predecessor.
Whatever, that was then, back in 2016, and ever since it’s been essentially 99 per cent all the way.
There’ve been 26 votes at the five AGMs: 23 have delivered around 99 per cent or better and just three below, with the lowest still 92 per cent.
I think I can confidently say this has been unique; and impressive, as Nine had had its ups and downs especially after merging with Fairfax.
It’s also a bit puzzling; that literally no shareholder in five years has had beef about anything, when AGMs have become a virtual Hyde’s Corner of complaint.
Costello’s support as a chairman makes a delicious contrast with the near-universal negativity of most of the pollies and especially his former federal colleagues.
Maybe investors remember approvingly the – last – treasurer to give them budgets surpluses and tax cuts almost every year.
Maybe, here’s the wicked thought, voters would as well.
After all, he is only 64, younger than Malcolm Turnbull, to say nothing of Joe Biden.
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This is one of the more extraordinary things I’ve seen in my decades as a financial journalist. It is also a tad puzzling, if also deliciously wickedly suggestive.