Gravy Train: Investors In Hong Kong Eat Up Annual Meetings
There is such a thing as a free lunch if you're a shareholder in a big, publicly traded company in Hong Kong.
Found scarfing down fried rice at Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.'s annual shareholders' gathering last month, 70-year-old retiree Chan Chun Yuk said she hits just about any meeting called by a company in her stock portfolio if it is being held in a nice hotel and is serving food.
Mrs. Chan, dressed in sensible black slacks and flat shoes handy for racing to the chow line, said she has been disappointed by meetings staged by local utility Hong Kong & China Gas Co. because the buffet was too crowded. (The company says it has since switched to boxed lunches.) As for the elaborate, nine-course lunch laid out by conglomerate Hutchison this year at the swanky Harbour Plaza hotel, "The food is good," she said. She was slightly annoyed that she could get only orange juice, not tea, by the time her table was served.
Come annual meeting time, most big companies listed on Hong Kong's stock exchange know to expect a hungry crowd, especially of older people on fixed incomes looking for a well-stocked buffet. "It's a well-known fact that you have to lay it on, or you have angry shareholders," says Joan Wagner, a spokeswoman for phone company PCCW Ltd.
Because Hong Kong, the tiny capitalist enclave that is now a special region of China, is so small, shareholders can easily get to most corporate meetings by bus or subway. The waste-not, want-not ethos of elderly citizens here, some of whom grew up in poverty in mainland China, means few will pass up free food.
And many big Hong Kong companies are still family-run, meaning shareholders may not feel they have a real voice in company affairs. For whatever reason, "they trust the management," says Henry Law, a spokesman for Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd., which runs Hong Kong's stock exchange. "Whatever [management] proposes, they will support. So they just go there and enjoy the food."
PCCW, which is trying to pay down debt and boost its lagging stock price, has tried to cut back on annual-meeting extras. But the company still set up a table in its office lobby this year offering boxes of dim sum and little plastic containers of orange juice. People who arrived early for the 11 a.m. meeting also got breakfast.
Some shareholders didn't even bother attending the actual meeting, where there was heated discussion of executive pay. "They just came and sat and waited for the food to be served," Ms. Wagner says.
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It's a contrast to annual meetings held in the U.S. Blue-chip concerns like International Business Machines Corp., Boeing Co. and General Electric Co. generally stick to coffee, juice and water, though GE springs for a few muffins and doughnuts. Corporate annual meetings that once offered shareholders food, free products, discount coupons and, sometimes, live music have drastically cut back on freebies.
But the expectation of an annual-meeting lunch is so ingrained here that MTR Corp., which runs the city's subway system, includes this line in its invitation to shareholders: "Please note that refreshments will not be served at the annual general meeting." MTR has so many shareholders -- about 400,000, the result of a government program to encourage share ownership in the company -- that MTR says it would be logistically impossible to feed any significant percentage of them.
MTR's no-food policy means it can avoid troubles like the near-melee that erupted at this year's China Resources Enterprise Ltd. annual meeting. At that gathering, held earlier this month at company headquarters here, the fireworks started about 25 minutes into the meeting, after the board had finished its initial business and announced a two-cent annual dividend. Directors then politely invited shareholders to partake of barbecued pork buns, fruit and some sweets neatly laid out on a table at the back of the room.
Several senior citizens then rushed the table, scrambling to fill small dessert plates with the snacks. One woman piled three plates with savory and sweet buns to take back to her seat. She was admonished by a waitress, who told her she had taken too many. "This is my right," the woman shot back in Cantonese.
But those with a more diversified portfolio will never go hungry. Yiu Boon Hang, 76, and his wife Wu Kwun, 70, regularly attend the annual meetings of companies like PCCW, Hang Seng Bank Ltd., Hutchison and Hong Kong & China Gas. Ms. Wu says she and her husband go to so many, she forgets all the names.
Retired construction worker Chung Wing Kee, 63, said he's on the circuit, too. Hutchison's glamorous meeting remains his favorite. This year, the multicourse lunch, served in a white-tablecloth hotel restaurant with dazzling views of the harbor, featured delicacies including braised e-fu noodles and shark's fin dumpling in "supreme" soup. Another big draw: Since it is a seated lunch, there is no jostling for food. Crowds of seniors noisily made their way out of the meeting, ready to eat, even before the company's billionaire chairman, Li Ka-shing, could call the official gathering to a close.
Shareholder K.T. Ho, who spent the second half of the China Resources meeting chomping on a plate of red grapes, says he goes to seven or eight annual meetings a year and is genuinely concerned about the business discussed there. But when a company representative approached him at the meeting, his concerns turned to the culinary. "Why don't you serve lunch in a box?" he asked. "There should be a lunch box with barbecued roasted pork and dim sum."
Mr. Ho, 50 years old and recently laid off from his job as a government clerical officer, also said the meeting should be held in a nice hotel. "We can consider it," the company representative, Cindy Tam, said gently.
Sometimes companies can use the buffet to their advantage. Well-known Hong Kong shareholder-rights advocate David Webb recalls attending China Gas's annual meeting last year and pressing the company's chairman on a corporate-governance issue. According to Mr. Webb, the chairman then turned to the crowd and said, "I'm sure everybody's hungry and there's lunch waiting in the other room. Are there any more questions?"
免费午餐：香港股民难以割舍的爱
谁说世上没有免费的午餐？如果你是香港某家大型上市公司的股东，那么你就有可能享受到这类好事了。
上个月在和记黄埔(Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.)股东年会期间，记者遇到了70岁的退休老太陈君玉（音），当时她正围著餐巾吃炒饭。她说，她持有股票的那些上市公司无论哪家举行股东会议，只要会议是在条件好的酒店里开，而且供应餐饮，她基本上都会参加。
陈太穿著居家的宽松裤和平底鞋，这样便于她快步到食品台前取食。她说，她对香港公用事业公司中华煤气(Hong Kong & China Gas Co.)的股东大会就非常不满意，那里的自助餐太挤了。（中华煤气后来已改成供应盒饭）。陈太说，和黄今年在很高档的海逸酒店搞了一个有9道菜的午餐，饭菜很好。让她稍微有点不高兴的是，她没能喝上茶，轮到她那桌的时候，只剩下橙汁了。
在召开年度大会的季节到来之时，香港交易所的多数大公司都准备著要接待大量虚“胃”以待的股东，特别是那些领取固定收入的上了年纪的人，他们对一顿丰盛的自助餐非常期待。电讯盈科(PCCW Ltd.)发言人瓦格纳(Joan Wagner)说，各公司都知道，这顿饭一定要安排好，不然股东们会有意见的。
在香港这个弹丸之地，股民们可以很方便地搭乘巴士或地铁出席公司的会议。这些信奉“精打细算，有吃有穿”的老年人──其中不乏从中国大陆过来讨生活的人──大多是不会放过享受免费食品的机会的。
而且，香港许多大公司仍是家族式经营，因此，许多股东并不认为他们对公司事务享有真正的发言权。香港交易及结算所有限公司(Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd.)发言人Henry Law说，不管出于什么原因，股东们信任公司的管理层。不论管理层提出什么方案，他们都会支持。实际上他们去开会也只是为了享用午餐。
正在努力偿还债务并改变股价低迷状态的电盈一直想削减年度大会的额外开销。但该公司今年还是在办公楼走廊里布置了桌子，供应盒饭和小包装的橙汁。那些赶去参加早会的人还能吃到早餐。
而一些人甚至根本不参与会议内容，比如有关管理人员薪酬的讨论等。瓦格纳说，他们来了就坐在那里，等著供应午餐的时间。
香港的这番景象与美国公司的年度大会形成了鲜明对比。在国际商业机器公司(IBM)、波音(Boeing)和通用电气(GE)等美国大公司，他们在年度大会期间大多只提供咖啡、果汁和水，不过通用电气也开始供应一些松饼、油炸圈饼之类的点心了。以前年度大会还会向股东提供食品、免费产品、打折券等，但现在这些免费赠品越来越少了。
但在香港，年度大会提供免费午餐的观念如此根深蒂固，以致于香港地铁有限公司(MTR Corp.)不得不专门在年度大会通知中告诉股东：务请注意，本次大会不提供食品。
在香港政府鼓励公众持股计划的推动下，地铁公司的股东多达40万人。地铁公司说，即使这些股东中有一部分出席会议，从食品供应组织上考虑，要想提供餐饮简直是天方夜谭。
地铁公司不提供食品的制度可以为它免去很多麻烦，至少不会发生华润创业有限公司(China Resources Enterprise Ltd.)今年股东大会期间爆发的近乎打斗般的混乱场面。
华润创业的大会是本月初在公司香港总部召开的。会议当天，在公司董事会做完业绩报告并宣布每股2美分的年度派息后，董事会邀请股东享用会议厅后部桌子上摆放的烤肉、水果和甜点等。
这时，几位老年股东一下子冲向食品台，手忙脚乱地向小餐盘里夹点心。一位妇女一个人弄了三盘食品想带回座位上，但被一位女服务生挡住了，服务生告诉她，她拿的太多了。这为妇女用广东话回敬她说，这是她的权利。混乱场面持续了大约25分钟。
不过，那些持有多家公司股票的股民就不会像这位妇女这么“饿”了。今年76岁的姚文亨（音）和他70岁的太太定期出席像电盈、恒生银行(Hang Seng Bank Ltd.)、和黄及中华煤气等公司的年会。姚太太说，他们参加很多公司的股东会，多得她连公司名字都记不全了。
今年63岁的退休建筑工人钟永基（音）说，他也参加了很多股东会。和黄的会议他最喜欢。今年的餐会很有档次，餐厅里铺著雪白的台布，窗外维多利亚港景色迷人。食物也美味可口，其中还有烩伊面、鱼翅灌汤饺等。
另一个优点是，因为午餐时都有座位，因此没有争抢食物的现象发生。在和黄主席李嘉诚还没来得及招呼公司人员作总结发言结束会议之前，老人们就大声喧哗著从会议厅出来急急地准备就餐了。
50多岁的何先生参加了华润创业股东大会的下半场。他一边吃著一碟葡萄一边说，每年他要参加7到8次年度大会，他对会上讨论的问题很关心。
但当一位公司代表走过来时，他关心的内容立刻转移到食物方面了。他问那位代表：你们为什么只供应盒饭？应该还有烤肉和点心。
最近刚离职的何先生以前是位政府公务员。他还说，会议应该在好一点的酒店里举行。那位公司代表Cindy Tam礼貌地回答说，公司会考虑他的要求。
有些时候，上市公司也会“利用”餐会。香港著名的股东权益活动家韦伯(David Webb)回忆起去年他参加中华煤气年度大会并向该公司董事局主席提出公司治理问题的事。
韦伯说，他提出问题后，董事局主席随即对股东们说，想必大家都饿了，公司在另一个房间为各位准备了午餐。哪位还有其他问题吗？
