Olam Group Limited’s board and sustainability committee may face scrutiny from investors at the upcoming annual general meeting after reported performance on safety metrics improved significantly despite an upward trend in operational fatalities.
With thousands of companies holding AGMs during proxy season, it’s hard to know where to start. Glass Lewis’ Controversy Alert service can help, identifying the most crucial meetings globally and allowing investors to make better informed voting decisions with the latest information in hand.
In this post, we provide a roundup of the AGMs taking place in the coming week that were previously highlighted by Controversy Alerts, and look deeper into the situation at Olam Group. To get alerted ahead of time, get in touch and sign up for Glass Lewis’ Controversy Alert service.
Controversy Alerts April 22 — April 26, 2024
April 22 Broadcom Inc; Controversy Alert issued April 3
April 23 Astra Agro Lestari Tbk; issued April 4
April 23 Sabana Real Estate Investment Trust; issued March 29
April 23 Telecom Italia; issued April 10
April 24 Primary Health Properties; issued March 22
April 24 Rogers Communication Inc; issued April 11
April 24 Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc; issued April 4
April 24 Woodside Energy Group Limited; issued April 5
April 25 Olam Group Limited; issued April 11
April 26 Baloise Holding AG; issued April 9
April 26 First Resources Limited; issued April 10
April 26 JBS SA; issued April 4
Deep Dive: Olam Group Limited
As the responsibilities associated with public company board oversight expand to cover emerging areas of risk like ESG and human capital management, so do investor and stakeholder expectations around committee performance. Those expectations may play a factor at Olam Group Limited’s 2024 annual general meeting.
In FY 2023, the company reported 16 operational fatalities, including one involving a member of the public. That’s up slightly from last year, when the company reported 15 fatalities, and the year before (14). Yet Olam’s reported Lost Time Incident Frequency Rate (LTIFR) dropped significantly over the past year, from 0.41 in 2022 to 0.21 in 2023. Fatalities aren’t the only component of LTIFR, but investors may nonetheless have questions about the disconnect. Moreover, the upward trend in reported fatalities, coupled with the fact that one incident involved a member of the public, raises concerns about the board’s oversight of operational safety practices.
As the committee responsible for overseeing the health, safety and wellbeing of employees, the board’s sustainability committee may receive particular scrutiny. Notably, only one member of the committee who served during FY2023 will be standing for election at the AGM, Ajai Puri. Fellow incumbent committee member Marie Elaine Teo is not up for election this year, while the committee’s current chair, Nihal Vijaya Devadas Kaviratne, will be stepping down at the AGM. The other member of the committee, Yuji Tsushima, was only appointed in March 2024.
Another topic of potential investor scrutiny is the board’s relative lack of gender diversity: out of nine directors, Teo is the only woman. Although Singapore’s Code of Corporate Governance does not set any requirement on gender diversity, groups such as BoardAgender and the People’s Action Party Women’s Wing encourage companies to maintain at least 20% board gender diversity, rising to 30% by 2030. Companies appear to be responding. In the past five years, overall board gender diversity in Singapore has increased from roughly 10% to 18.8% in 2023 — and to 25.9% among Straits Times Index (STI) constituents, representing the top 30 companies on the Singapore Exchange. Olam isn’t an STI constituent, but it isn’t far off, having been one of five “STI Reserve” companies, just outside of the index, until August 2023. However, with the Singaporean state investment fund, Temasek, holding a majority stake in Olam, the company is somewhat insulated from institutional expectations.
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