19th May 2005 14:52
MFI Furniture Group PLC19 May 2005 19 May 2005 RESULT OF AGM At the Annual General Meeting of MFI Furniture Group Plc held on 19 May 2005,all resolutions put to shareholders were duly passed with the exception ofResolution 10 to approve the directors' remuneration report. The final proxyvotes received in respect of each resolution put to the meeting are set outbelow. Resolution Votes for (including votes cast at the VotesNumber Chairman's discretion) against 1 310,315,066 970,3362 311,906,997 101,3793 319,564,778 756,4624 301,244,363 5,867,2155 304,096,794 3,014,5796 309,174,192 2,873,3307 310,740,843 1,305,7488 316,244,426 4,076,4999 315,595,664 4,723,33011 309,553,850 10,770,74112 311,871,665 8,424,60513 320,250,130 88,889 Voting on Resolution 10 was conducted by poll and the result is set out below.In view of the number of proxy votes cast against Resolution 10, the Chairmanmade the following comments: "I would like to take this opportunity to give you some more information abouttwo issues. First, the Executive Co-Investment Plan introduced in 2002; here theRemuneration Committee exercised its discretion in line with the rules of theplan, as approved by shareholders, to extend the plan for a fourth year. Second,certain directors are entitled to 18 months base salary as liquidated damages ontermination of their employment following a change of control of MFI. "Let me deal first with the co-investment plan. We extended the plan for anotheryear to incentivise management to achieve the stretching targets, which wouldbenefit all shareholders, and which was part of the original plan. I would liketo make it clear that there was no rebasing or reduction of targets. RREV hadoriginally objected to this extension, but once we made a fuller explanationRREV understood the reasons for a further extension and indeed have now statedthat they "no longer view it as a major issue". Clearly we should have put afuller explanation in the Remuneration Report. Our Remuneration Committeechairman, Lesley Knox, and I will be contacting our major shareholders todiscuss this. "In relation to the liquidated damages on change of control clause, TheRemuneration Committee has already amended the policy for new directors, such asour new Finance Director, and was going to be reviewing the policy for existingDirectors later this year. In the light of the concerns expressed it will bebringing forward this review. "The Remuneration Committee is concerned to ensure that all remunerationarrangements are fully understood and supported by shareholders, and thereforewelcomes the forthcoming discussions with shareholders." The result of the poll on Resolution 10 is set out below: Resolution 10 - To approve the directors' remuneration report and policy Votes for (including votes cast at the Chairman's discretion) 113,269,075Votes against 173,237,424 Enquiries: Susan Gilchrist, Fiona Laffan Brunswick 020 7404 5959 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
Howden Joinery