Barclays 2013 Annual Report Download - page 63

Throughout 2013, we continued to actively encourage shareholders to
sign up to Barclays e-view, which is an online portal that allows
shareholders to manage their shareholding. We believe that
communicating electronically with our shareholders ensures that they
receive regular, up to date information directly to their inbox. We send
emails to all Barclays e-view members each time we publish our results
and provide details about the dividend, including links to Barclays.com
where they can find more information. Barclays e-view members can
instantly update their personal and bank details online. They can also
view their share sales or purchases, vote online and download their
electronic dividend tax voucher(s).
Ahead of the 2013 AGM we updated and amended our Shareholder
Voting Instruction Card, which is sent to shareholders who request
notification that our Annual Report and Notice of Meeting is available
online, to include an attendance card. This enabled those shareholders
who received the card and who also wished to attend the AGM to
quickly and efficiently register on the day itself. This improved our
shareholder registration process and was positively received by
shareholders.
We are aware that some shareholders do not keep their personal details
on the Barclays share register up-to-date. Starting in 2012, we
conducted a tracing exercise to reunite over 24,000 Barclays Sharestore
members, identified by our Registrar as having lost contact with us,
with their shares and unclaimed dividends. I am pleased to confirm
that at the end of March 2013, we had returned over £2m in dividends
to shareholders. We plan to run an exercise on the ordinary share
register during 2014 where we hope to trace 10,000 shareholders with
over £5m in unclaimed dividends.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our shareholders for
helping us to make two donations to charity in 2013. We donated over
£40,000 to ABF The Soldiers’ Charity and over £89,000 to UNICEF. We
ensured that we notified shareholders about these successes in our
September and December 2013 dividend mailings. You can find out
more about these donations in the Shareholder Information section in
the Annual Report.
AGM
The AGM is a unique opportunity to engage with our shareholder
population as a whole, particularly our private shareholders, and we are
committed to making constructive use of it to meet with you, hear your
views and answer your questions. I was available at the AGM, held on
Thursday 25 April 2013, to answer your questions, as were the
Chairmen of our Board Committees. I very much enjoy speaking to you
more informally before and after the meeting, and I hope that those of
you I was able to speak with at our 2013 AGM also found it interesting
and informative.
In accordance with best practice, all resolutions at the 2013 AGM were
considered on a poll, which was conducted by the Registrar and
monitored by an independent scrutineer. The results, along with proxy
votes lodged prior to the meeting, were made available on our website
on the same day. The votes cast at the meeting represented 61-68% of
all the shares in issue and all resolutions were approved.
The 2014 AGM will be held on Thursday 24 April 2014 at the Royal
Festival Hall in London. The Notice of AGM can be found in a separate
document, which is sent out at least 20 working days before the
meeting. The Notice of AGM and the accompanying circular, which
sets out a clear explanation of each resolution to be proposed at the
meeting, can also be found at Barclays.com/agm. The resolutions will
again be considered on a poll and the results will be announced via the
Regulatory News Service and made available on our website on the
same day. Shareholders unable to attend are encouraged to vote in
advance of the meeting via Barclays.com/investorrelations/vote. They
may also submit questions to the Board by writing to Shareholder
Relations at 1 Churchill Place, London E14 5HP.
Institutional Investors
I met regularly in 2013 with our larger shareholders to hear their views
on corporate governance matters, including remuneration, Board
composition and specific AGM resolutions. Sir John Sunderland,
Chairman of the Board Remuneration Committee, and Lawrence
Dickinson, Company Secretary, also met regularly with larger
shareholders and investor bodies to discuss remuneration matters.
Feedback from these meetings was provided to the Board and
appropriate Board Committees.
The Board was kept regularly updated on investors’ views. Copies of
analyst reports on Barclays were made available to the Board on a
regular basis and Directors were invited to attend results conference
calls and investor presentations. A weekly communication from the
Group Chief Executive to the Board included an update on investor
sentiment and share price performance. In addition, as part of strategy
discussions during 2013, the Board was briefed by an external adviser
on how Barclays is viewed by institutional shareholders as an
investment proposition.
Barclays Investor Relations is dedicated to managing relationships with
institutional equity and debt investors. During 2013 approximately half
of our shareholder engagement involved executive management
including the Group Chief Executive, Group Finance Director or other
senior divisional management from across the Group. We also
enhanced the way in which we engaged with these stakeholders in the
following ways:
 Established a New York based Investor Relations team to promote
more regular communication with North American investors;
 Expanded our programme of debt investor meetings and established
a fixed income results conference call for debt investors and analysts
at our full year and interim results; and
 Increased the frequency of our dialogue with our shareholders
through a global engagement programme of over 800 meetings
across equity and debt investors.
Other stakeholders
Our main regulators in the UK and US interact on a regular basis with
me and with the Group Chief Executive, Group Finance Director and
the Chairmen of the principal Board Committees. This provides us with
a first-hand view of regulatory matters. During 2013, more than 30
meetings involving me and individual non-executive Directors were
held with representatives of our UK and US regulators, including 13
meetings that I attended. Any significant matters discussed in those
meetings were reported to the Board or Board Committees as
appropriate.
During 2013, the Board was updated on customer and client metrics,
including Net Promoter Scores®, customer satisfaction rankings and
complaint levels. The Group Chief Executive also reported regularly to
the Board on meetings held with customers and clients.
Ensuring employees are well-informed, feel connected and understand
our culture and objectives is vital if we are to deliver long-term value for
our customers and clients. We build trust and seek feedback through
regular two-way communications, both informally, through events
such as internal forums and jams and formally, through our Employee
Opinion Surveys. The outputs from these events and the results of
Employee Opinion Surveys are reported to the Board by the Chief
Executive. This helps us understand our colleagues’ views and
concerns when shaping future organisational direction.
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