No eggs to be ducked, but plenty of gripes flying

ANALYSIS: It was a mammoth agm, with debate on the first resolution lasting over three hours

IT WASN’T the bun fight of recent years, and no eggs were thrown, but AIB’s new executive chairman Dan O’Connor had to be on his mettle yesterday to keep control of the bank’s annual meeting in Ballsbridge, which lasted for more than four hours.

At the outset, O’Connor, who earned his spurs as a high-flying executive with financial group GE Capital, made it clear that he was happy to let “as many people as possible speak” during the meeting.

He must have regretted this when, more than three hours later, he was still stuck on resolution one: “to receive the annual financial report”.

There was occasional heckling from the 500 or so in attendance. “Resign, resign, resign,” shouted one elderly man. “Have you no shame . . . out, out, out,” he added.

O’Connor gave him the deaf ear. He also swerved a call from Donal O’Callaghan to pursue auditors KPMG for compensation for alleged negligence in not spotting the bank’s problems.

“The auditors have left [sic] us down and left us down badly,” O’Callaghan said. “We put our hands up and say we made the decisions, not the auditors,” O’Connor replied in dismissing the resolution.

At one point, Niall Murphy, a thorn in the side of AIB chairmen over the past 20 years, told O’Connor to “shut up”.

It drew a stern rebuke from one well-heeled woman.

“Mr Murphy, do not use the words ‘shut up’ . . . all of us want to get home.”

Remarkably, one shareholder stood up and urged his fellow investors not to be so negative and to look to the future. He offered moderate praise for the board, much to the amusement of those in the room, who gave him an ironic round of applause when he finished his speech.

O’Connor eventually called a halt to the debate over resolution one but, before he could move on to the six other motions down for decision, Neal Duggan, another agm regular, asked for a break for refreshments.

Sated by the trays of sandwiches and tea and coffee, the crowd had noticeably thinned by the time O’Connor and AIB managing director Colm Doherty returned to the podium.

Not that there was any shortage of speakers for resolution two: the re-election of seven directors, including O’Connor.

This involved a few awkward moments, with O’Connor unsure if he should sit down or stand up while the resolution for his re-election was heard.

O’Connor survived his first agm; the shareholders had their gripe. In a strange sort of way, it was a result for both sides.