The funniest scene emerged at NMG’s AGM yesterday where police were called in to prevent a portion of shareholders, specifically the SLC group, or News Network as they now call themselves, from entering the AGM.

This sparked chaos in front of the meeting room as the angry shareholders tried to break into the room. This led to the arrival of 50 police officers from nearby police stations who came to control the intense situation and prevent a confrontation.

Source: Bangkok Post

Now I have a few issues with how this all went down:

1. Shareholders, no matter what their agenda, should always be allowed into an AGM, NMG was definitely wrong in this case.

2. Board members are elected by shareholders, NMG has to respect this law

3. If they were so worried about News Network electing a member to the board, so what? In theory they only own 12% of the shares, 75% of attending shareholders need to pass it by Thai law, and even if 1 additional member is added to the board, again so what?

4. The obvious hypocrisy from NMG is that, it is a publicly listed company, it has raised funds from the public multiple times, and now that the some shareholders perhaps want some change, NMG is barring them from having a voice, sooooo, yeah a bit unfair.

It’s quite humourous and yet sad to see that minority shareholders viewpoints are respected.

Disclosure: I’m not a shareholder in either co.