Tesco 2008 Annual Report Download - page 26

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Tesco PLC Annual Report and
Financial Statements 2008
24
Relations with stakeholders
We are committed to having a constructive dialogue with all stakeholders
to ensure we understand what is important to them and allow ourselves
the opportunity to present our position. Engagement helps us identify new
risks and opportunities to ensure that our long-term strategy is sustainable.
In some instances we find that working with stakeholders in partnership
can help deliver shared goals. We might not be able to satisfy all stakeholder
concerns all the time but through engagement we can do our best to
balance competing demands. We know that customers need to be able to
trust our business and they will only trust us if we do the right thing by all
our stakeholders. Our programme of engaging with stakeholders including
customers, staff, suppliers, investors, non-governmental organisations and
others, is set out in more detail in the Corporate Responsibility Review and
on our website. The addition of Community to our strategy this year and
our Community Plans in each country have helped to demonstrate our
commitment to tackling a wide range of societal and environmental issues.
We also carry out external research to help us understand how well we are
addressing stakeholder concerns.
We are committed to maintaining a good dialogue with shareholders
through proactively organising meetings and presentations as well as
responding to a wide range of enquiries. We seek shareholder views on
a range of issues from strategy to corporate governance and SEE issues.
We recognise the importance of communicating appropriately any
significant Company developments. This shareholder communication
is mainly co-ordinated by the Investor Relations department. During the
year, the Group met with most of our leading shareholders representing
over 70% of the issued shares of the Company. To complement this
programme, the Chairman meets with major shareholders independently
from the Executive team. Shareholders also have the opportunity to meet
with the Senior Independent Non-executive Director. The Board is kept
updated of the views of stakeholders.
It is normal that institutional shareholders may be in more regular
contact with the Group than others, but care is exercised to ensure that
any price-sensitive information is released to both institutional and private
shareholders at the same time, in accordance with applicable legal and
regulatory requirements.
The Annual General Meeting offers the opportunity to communicate
directly with all shareholders. The whole Board attends the meeting and
is available to answer questions from shareholders present. To encourage
shareholder participation, we offer electronic proxy voting and voting
through the CREST electronic proxy appointment service. At our last
Annual General Meeting in June 2007, all resolutions were voted by way
of electronic poll. This follows best practice guidelines and allows the
Company to count all votes, not just those of shareholders attending
the meeting.
Every shareholder may choose to receive a full Annual Report and
Financial Statements or the Annual Review and Summary Financial
Statement, either in paper or electronic form. These reports, together
with publicly made trading statements, are available on the Group’s
website, www.tesco.com/tescoplc.
By Order of the Board
Jonathan Lloyd
Company Secretary
28 April 2008
Tesco PLC
Registered Number: 445790
Registered in England and Wales
Registered Office: Tesco House, Delamare Road,
Cheshunt,
Hertfordshire EN8 9SL
VAT Registration Number: GB 220 4302 3
www.tesco.com/annualreport08
Corporate governance continued