During the 2023 AGM (annual general meetings) season, Euronext Securities supported over 425 AGMs ensuring the smooth conduct of the events and providing exceptional shareholder engagement regardless of the format of the meeting (traditional in-person, virtual or hybrid.) Now that the 2023 annual general meeting (AGM) season has ended, our experts look back at the season and see what this year’s experiences tell us about the future of the physical AGM.

Will virtual AGMs win the day?

Bjørn Stendorph Crepaz, Head of Issuance & Issuer Services Euronext Securities, believes there are two basic factors that speak in favour of virtual AGMs, or VGMs (Virtual General Meeting).

The main advantage we hear when it comes to choosing a hybrid or fully virtual solution is accessibility. All investors, regardless of their location or circumstances, have an equal opportunity to attend and participate in the meeting. That is also the explanation that companies, who opted for a VGM this year, gave. And it makes sense that this would be a compelling argument for large companies with an international shareholder base.

There are other factors related to trends in share ownership. “Something else that will have a bearing on how AGMs develop in the future is the demographic shift in share owners. If, as some industry experts believe, the average age of share owners continues to fall, so that we see younger, more tech-savvy generations becoming active investors in the stock market, then we can imagine that this development will further accelerate the push towards fully virtual meetings,” Bjørn Stendorph Crepaz says.

Physical AGMs and the local investor

Whether or not companies opt for a physical AGM also has a lot to do with the company- and local culture. “Many companies still use the AGM as a marketing and branding opportunity,” Marianne Benedict explains. “In Denmark, for example, it’s a part of fostering a strong local investor culture, and is a way for smaller investors to show their commitment to and engagement with the companies they invest in.” For these companies, there is still a feeling that virtual solutions lack the personal feel of the in-person AGM. “It can be difficult to replicate the feeling of a community celebration on a digital platform,” she says.

Hybrid AGMs – the best of both worlds?

Which brings us to the solution that Euronext Securities’ experts highlighted as the way forward at the end of last year’s AGM season: a hybrid solution. “The hybrid model is ideal in that it allows companies and investors flexibility,” says Marianne Benedict, Head of Issuer Services at Euronext Securities Copenhagen. “For professional investors who might have several AGMs to attend during a season, it makes it possible for them to attend more meetings even if they are spread out over a wide geographic area, because they have the option of attending virtually. And companies can maintain the close connection with their local investors who choose to attend in person.

Based on our experience, the only definite conclusion we can draw, according to Marianne Benedict, is that it’s still early days after the pandemic. “What’s clear after this year’s AGM season is that we’re still in a transition phase,” she says. “Pandemic restrictions are behind us, but we still haven’t defined what form the post-pandemic AGM will take.”

According to Pierre-Edouard Borderie, Head of Euronext Corporate Services, a subsidiary of the Euronext Group “companies tend to move more and more towards hybrid and virtual AGMs. In 2022 more than 35 companies chose Company Webcast webinar solution, to broadcast their AGM. This year, already 44 companies have broadcasted their AGM via Company Webcast.”

In Italy, Euronext Securities is a new player, having entered the marketplace just over a year ago with its value-added solution for managing the full lifecycle of general meetings. As Simone Canova, Business Development Manager, Issuers – Euronext Securities Milan explains, the pandemic pushed companies to adopt more flexible options in managing their AGMs and this triggered the government to regulate these options. A temporary pandemic regulation was created, (and has recently been extended to the 2023 AGM season), to allow companies to appoint a Designated Shareholder Representative, thus providing a mechanism for shareholders to be represented and have their voices and votes counted even if absent from the general meeting. This has created a unique opportunity in Italy, where Euronext Securities can be entrusted to act as an intermediary between the company and its shareholders, expanding its duties to include proxy voting, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, and providing expert guidance on corporate governance matters to guarantee transparency and integrity throughout the entire process.

Full GM support – regardless of the format

Euronext Corporate Services recommends that issuers acquire the most accurate mapping of their shareholders prior to the general meeting. This exercise aims to identify who will be present at the AGM, what will be the topics of interest and what voting results can be anticipated.

Whether the 2024 season brings a marked increase in physical meetings, virtual or hybrid, Euronext Securities’ Investor Services team is ready to provide clients with the necessary support.

We’ve worked closely with our clients both before, during and after the pandemic to create flexible AGM services that can be tailored to their specific needs, whether they’re opting for a physical, virtual or hybrid solution,” Marianne Benedict says. “So, whichever format they choose for next year’s AGM season, we’ll be ready.

To learn more about Euronext Securities’ general meeting services, contact your local team [1]

To learn further about Shareholder Analysis, Euronext Corporate Services’ shareholder identification tool please visit the website:

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Stay updated on all your shareholders and their behavior

Christian A. Viken

We provide updated shareholder register data on securities traded on Euronext VPS-registered securities on the markets – Oslo Børs, Oslo Axess, Marker Market and N-OTC.

Our registry is daily updated giving the market available information regardless of whether the change is mandatory or not. This provides an unique insight into the change in the ownership structure of companies that have not previously been available to the market, thus strengthening the purpose of public investor registers.

To get a full overview, please see the three product below or check out all our Data Services products.

• Top Shareholder Information
• Top Shareholder Changes

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Euronext’s CEO Stéphane Boujnah received the Outstanding Contribution Award 2023 at Financial News’s Trading & Tech Awards in London earlier this month.

A vision for Euronext

Stéphane Boujnah’s vision for Euronext has seen him realise an ambitious expansion and diversification strategy to establish Euronext as Europe’s leading market infrastructure, while significantly increasing the operating performance of the Group. Euronext now counts seven exchanges, four CSDs and one clearing house. It thus manages activities across the entire capital markets value chain, operating under a highly scalable and diversified model that is designed to provide value for customers and stakeholders.

Maintaining the bond between the UK and the EU

In his acceptance speech at the FN Awards, Mr Boujnah told the London trading scene of the importance he places on maintaining the bond between the UK and the European Union, despite Brexit. Euronext remains very present in London and in fact its teams there have increased since Brexit, in part with the acquisitions of MTS Markets, through the 2021 Borsa Italiana acquisition, and FastMatch, now Euronext FX, and also through organic growth.

Delivering pan-European harmonisation

Under Stéphane Boujnah’s leadership, Euronext has become established as the leading platform for the financing of the real economy in Europe. As part of the Group’s project and mission to build the backbone of the EU Capital Markets, Euronext has developed and successfully delivered ambitious pan-European projects.

These include the European expansion of Euronext Clearing, operating and enhancing Europe’s third-largest CSD network Euronext Securities, and the harmonisation of listing rules on the markets the Group operates, in line with the objectives of the EU Commission’s Listing Act. They also include the Data Centre migration from Basildon in the UK to a new green core data centre in Bergamo, Italy, which handles 25% of European equities trading.

With the acquisition of Borsa Italiana Group, Mr Boujnah has established Euronext as the largest listing venue in Europe, attracting the majority of European and international listings, with an aggregated market capitalisation of companies listed on Euronext markets twice that of LSEG and three times that of Deutsche Börse.

The Group has also diversified to cover additional asset classes including Euronext FX in currencies, Nord Pool in energy, Fish Pool in agricultural commodities and MTS in fixed income, as well as a broadened corporate services offering that supports companies at all stages of growth.

A mandate to continue

Mr Boujnah was recently reappointed as CEO and Chairman of Euronext’s Managing Board for a four-year mandate, and will continue to lead the teams at Euronext to deliver on the Group’s Growth for Impact 2024 strategic plan and to prepare the next strategic cycle, shaping capital markets for future generations.

The Euronext Group’s mission is simple: to connect European economies to global capital markets, accelerating innovation and delivering sustainable growth.

What are Warrants & Certificates, the different types available on the market and how to navigate through them?

Alexandre Atlani, Head of Warrants & Certificates at Euronext answers these questions.

Listen to the full interview, watch the video:
 

What are warrants & certificates?

Warrants and certificates are classified by the European regulation MiFID 2 as “Securitised Derivatives”.

Unlike derivative contracts, they are not issued by an exchange but they are created by an issuer, usually a large financial institution.

Warrants can be compared to options, in terms of pay-off and risk but there are many other types of warrants and certificates which don’t have their counterpart in the derivatives world.

Warrants and certificates are mainly tailored for retail investors. They allow them to take positions on many types of underlyings: indices, equities, commodities, fixed income, etc.

They also allow them to take strategies with more or less risk and yielding more or less return. As well, investors can access a wide geographical coverage of underlyings allowing them to trade or take positions on foreign underlyings without having to pay cross-border fees or commissions.
 

What are the different types of Warrants & Certificates available on the market?

There are many types of warrants and certificates. Some offer leverage, some don’t.

• Leverage allows to magnify the variations of the price of the underlying, either in a positive way if in the same direction as the investor’s strategy, or in a negative way if in the opposite direction of the investor’s strategy.
• Some instruments can have a fixed or constant leverage, a fixed or constant leverage, some have a variable leverage.
• Some instruments will appreciate (or depreciate) in a short amount of time, or with a small variation of the price of the underlying.
• Some instruments will have a bullish strategy (or upward), some products will be adapted for a bearish (or downward) strategy, and some products will be used for a neutral strategy.
• Some products will be only sensitive to the variations of the price of the underlying while some other instruments or product types will be sensitive not only to the price of the underlying but as well to the time passing by, to the volatility of the price of the underlying, to changes in the interest rates, or changes in the dividend rates.
• Finally, some instruments can have a knock-out barrier (or kill switch), which will early expire or deactivate an instrument rendering it worthless.

How to navigate the different types of Warrants & Certificates?

Over the years, naming standardisations have been implemented to navigate across the many different types of products. This mostly under the influence of industry associations, issuers and stock exchanges. Nowadays, the mostly used classification is that of EUSIPA: the European Structured Investments Products Association.

This is a three-level classification where each product type is associated to a 4-digit code.

• The first digit, whether 1 or 2 will indicate if the product is an investment or a leverage product.
• The second digit will provide a bit more granularity for investment products for example, we will know if it’s a capital protection product, a yield enhancement, a participation or a credit linked note and for leverage products, whether it is one without knock-out or with knock-out or a constant leverage product.
• The third and fourth digit will provide even further granularity.

On Euronext’s website live.euronext.com, investors can find the EUSIPA code and EUSIPA name of each warrant and certificate listed and traded on Euronext.

On 30 May 2023, Euronext was awarded “Best Pan-European Index Provider 2023” as well as the “Excellence Award for Robust Biodiversity Solutions 2023” at the Ethical Finance Awards.

The W&F Awards showcase the key players in the finance industry who are committed to ethic and sustainability in their daily business practices.

Ethical Finance Awards shines a light on the key players in the finance industry who are not only committed to excellence in their day-to-day business practices, but also ensure that those practices are ethical, sustainable, and eco-friendly.  And this award strives to become a guide to banks, investment firms, mortgage brokers, insurers, and pension providers that have adopted ethical practices across their businesses.

The winners have been determined via a process of research and shortlisting, completed by international experts. The criteria with which experts assess nominees is purely merit-based, selected due to the performance, customer service and innovation within their field rather than external factors like the number of votes.

These two sectoral recognitions demonstrate the relevance of Euronext's index-based offering for market players.

Euronext has been offering a large range of ESG, ESG Blue-chip and thematic indices since 2008

Euronext has been pioneer in the index space with advanced solutions starting with the launch of its first low carbon index back in 2008 -now compliant with the Paris Agreement. Alongside its index solutions to continue supporting the growing demand for investment solutions that include ESG, Thematic, Alternative energy and other trends, Euronext offers a full suite of climate and biodiversity-focused products and solutions aligned with EU Climate benchmarks, EU ESG/SRI labels and the different EU regulations framing the ESG space.

Discover our key ESG indices

Euronext has also been innovating ever since, by developing a wide suite of ESG blue-chip indices, designed to complete the ESG offering in our blue-chip franchise and innovative thematic indices.

Find out more about our range of indices

With more than 15,000 ETFs, funds and derivatives associated with our indices and billions of assets under management, Euronext’s ESG, climate, wealth and ethical indices are used by financial institutions and tracked by ETFs and structured products all around the world.

Euronext has extensive expertise across ESG and thematic indices and is strongly engaged in supporting the financial sector’s sustainable transition.

For further information, contact us at index-team@euronext.com