Foxtons AGM goes virtual with new management bonus scheme on agenda

Foxtons' Annual General Meeting next month is to be held virtually, meaning voting will be electronic.

A feature of last year’s AGM was a shareholder revolt over bonuses to senior management. At that time, chief executive Nick Budden and chief finance officer Mark Berry were awarded £389,000 in bonuses for 2018, up from £371,000 the previous year; the AGM rebellion came just after Foxtons revealed that Berry was quitting “by mutual agreement.”

After last year’s AGM the remuneration policy was rewritten and Sheena Mackay, who joined Foxtons’ board in September 2017, stepped down as chair of the remuneration committee.

At the end of last week - in a trading update explaining the company’s furloughing of 75 per cent of its staff and asking investors for a further £22m to help it weather the crisis - Foxtons referred to how its new bonus policy would be applied in the current market.

The statement said: “Given recent volatility in the company's share price the remuneration committee intends to consider carefully the appropriateness of the share price used to calculate the quantum of the awards arising from the Restricted Share Plan in 2020, and to closely monitor the impact of Covid-19 on the company's remuneration policy (such plan and policy to be proposed to shareholders at the forthcoming AGM) and use its discretion to adjust vesting outcomes if it considers that ‘windfall' gains have occurred.”

Now the next AGM, on May 13, is to be held at Foxtons’ head office in Chiswick, west London - a building which, like many, is expected to be closed because of the virus crisis. 

A new statement from Foxtons about the conduct of the next AGM says: “The company therefore wishes to notify its shareholders that physical attendance in person at the AGM will not be possible. The meeting will take place with the minimum necessary quorum of two shareholders, which will be facilitated by the company in line with the government's strict social distancing advice. The board encourages shareholders to vote electronically and to appoint the chair of the meeting as their proxy with their voting instructions … We are disappointed that we are having to adopt these measures and appreciate our shareholders' understanding in these unprecedented circumstances.”