The shareholder meeting season has just come to an end. All over the world, there have been a number of high-profile incidents: the police intervention to evacuate climate activists at the meeting of the Dutch insurer ING, shareholders turning against demonstrators at the BNP PARIBAS meeting in France, and forced adjournments at the RIO TINTO mining company in London. From a distance, it looks like a rebellion. Up close, it looks like a desire for gentle reform. The situation has changed since previous years. The same investors who support environmental activists behind the scenes have this year actually voted for management’s climate proposals at the same time. As proof, they are reappointing the current teams with historically high approval ratings. On average, a director this year was re-elected with 97% approval, 3 points more than in 2022; the proportion of directors exceeding 80% approval has never been so high, 4% more than in 2022, a proportion comparable in all European countries, the United Kingdom and the United States.

To show their support, investors even got involved, with record turnouts in all countries. While abstention from voting used to be an issue for shareholder meetings, as it is for many elections, it no longer is. 77% of investors in French companies voted this year, compared with 65% ten years ago.

The companies took good care of us. First, of course, there were the substantial dividends. 327 billion in dividends were paid to shareholders worldwide between January and March 2023, according to a report by asset manager Janus Henderson. 12% more than in 2022.

In terms of format too, they have listened to their shareholders. They have retained from the health crisis the format of a digital meeting, or at least a broadcast meeting, which is more concise and includes a large question-and-answer session. The average shareholder meeting now lasts 1.5 hours, 12 minutes less than in 2022, and includes a third of questions and answers. The champions of brevity are the United States, with meetings lasting 50 minutes on average, and the kings of the question-and-answer session are the British, who devote half of their total meeting time to it. France is a little behind in this transformation, with meetings lasting an average of 2 hours 06 minutes, including 25 minutes for questions and answers.

To encourage dialogue, companies have retained the platforms for asking questions remotely before or during the meeting, which were born in 2020 with the health crisis. Remote online voting has developed everywhere – except in France, where old habits die hard.

It was expected that there would be a dispute over executive remuneration. Companies had put a lot of work into their copy, with detailed documentation. Nevertheless, some companies were singled out for criticism, such as Unilever, where 60% of shareholders voted against executive pay, and Carrefour, where pay was narrowly defeated by 54%. In France, on the whole, things did not go as well as elsewhere, with half the companies increasing the fixed component of remuneration by 4% in 2022 and 11% in 2023. In France, fixed remuneration remains the benchmark, more so than elsewhere. This reflects the history of our country, marked by a culture of public companies, then of employees paid solely on a fixed salary. This is in stark contrast to the Anglo-Saxon countries, where variable pay was integrated right down to the bottom of the pay scale. This culture is changing with the widespread introduction of profit-sharing agreements and the development of employee share ownership.

The big losers of this 2023 assembly season are the climate activists. They are now speaking out in frustration. They have not achieved their goal. The climate strategies in place in Europe are moving in the right direction, but not fast enough in their view; and in the United States, the oil companies have gone backwards, with ExxonMobil even abandoning its 2030 carbon reduction targets. In Europe, politicians and legislators are taking over from the activists, who are publicly supporting them. By 2024, the “Net-zero” trajectory will no longer be a subject for general meetings, but simply compliance with the law.