Finally, at 11 a.m. in the Burlington Hotel this morning, Smurfit shareholders will get the opportunity to grill Michael Smurfit about the company's poor performance which has seen the shares worth less than what they were 10 years ago.
If you are a Smurfit shareholder and you are annoyed at the way your investment in the company has been managed, then turn up at the Burlington today and voice your feelings. It's the only opportunity you - the small shareholder - will have to let Smurfit directors know exactly what you think about their performance.
The select bunch of institutional investors did, of course, get an advance on the executive chairman's musings on the state of the packaging industry through a webcast and conference-call last Wednesday. Other investors will have to wait to hear Michael Smurfit justify his stewardship of the Jefferson Smurfit Group and particularly the extraordinarily multi-million pound remuneration package he receives.
Already two Irish institutional investors, Irish Life and Aberdeen Asset Managers, have made it public that they intend to protest at Michael Smurfit's £5 million-plus package by voting against the re-election of five Smurfit directors - Dermot Smurfit, Howard Kilroy, Martin Rafferty, Albert Reynolds and Mary Redmond.
Current Account fervently hopes that Irish Life's Kevin Murphy and Aberdeen's Ivan Murphy will use this opportunity to publicly tell Smurfit shareholders why they are taking the unprecedented move of voting against the reelection of such corporate and political blue-bloods, including a former taoiseach and a former governor of the Bank of Ireland. Frankly, Messrs Murphy and Murphy owe it to their own investors to make it clear why they are taking such action. A silent protest by the two institutions is not enough.
Bank of Ireland Asset Management is the biggest Irish shareholder in Smurfit with an 8 per cent stake. BIAM told Current Account this week that it had made up its mind on how it would vote on the re-election of Smurfit directors but was keeping that decision to itself. Will BIAM register a protest by voting against the re-election of Howard Kilroy - its former governor and current nonexecutive director - and Mary Redmond, also a non-executive director? No doubt that is a decision that the BIAM suits have agonised over.
But this is about more than Michael Smurfit's pay packet.
It is about whether a family with less than 10 per cent of the company should dominate the management to such a degree that it occupies four of the five executive director positions.
It is about the untenable situation where the only nonfamily executive director, Gary McGann, earns less than two members of the Smurfit family who report directly to him.
It is about a situation where the directors apparently take the view that only shareholders suffer pain, and not the people who have managed the company over the past 10 years.
It is about boardroom accountability.
Previous Smurfit annual general meetings have shown that Michael Smurfit is not a patient man. Criticism at past similar meetings has been quickly dismissed by the chairman and chief executive, who is non-resident for tax purposes. Instead of getting answers to their questions, some shareholders end up being quizzed about the size of their shareholding, as if owning a small number of shares somehow confers reduced shareholder rights.
This time, one hopes that it has finally sunk in to Michael Smurfit that shareholders are angry. Their concerns need to be addressed, and that can begin this morning in the Burlington Hotel with the chairman offering a more sympathetic ear to his shareholders.
