AGMs under attack as investors see red
Annual general meetings are normally fairly mild-mannered affairs.
Buttonholed: Shareholders used to just ask awkward questions at AGMs
The worst that a typical chairman can expect is some gentle ribbing over the quality of the coffee on offer and, perhaps, some pointed questioning over his staff's customer service performance.
But since the 2008 financial crash, an altogether darker mood now hangs over these traditionally sedate gatherings.
Trust the masters of the financial universe to get investors' blood boiling over.
Yesterday it was the turn of bailed-out Bank of Ireland to face the wrath of its shareholders.
And it was more than a barrage of virulent abuse that the BoI board had to sidestep. One angry investor hurled eggs at executives after seeing his investment in the 228-year-old lender go up in smoke.
Pensioner Gary Keogh said he resorted to missile throwing as a form of catharsis to 'bring his blood pressure down'.
Chief executive Richie Boucher and chairman Pat Molloy, who managed to dodge his projectiles, were 'lower than bottom-pond insects', he said.
It is not the first time that Keogh, 67, has expressed his rage in such an emphatic way.
Two years ago he hit the bullseye, landing two eggs on AIB chairman Dermot Gleeson at a meeting to approve the government bailout of the bank. Yet this was no impulsive act dreamed up on the spur of the moment. As if to underline the toxic stench hanging over the Irish financial sector, Keogh had left the eggs six weeks in his garage to rot before the meeting.
The red mist has descended in other corners of the eurozone.
In 2009, investors in collapsed Benelux bank Fortis yesterday literally 'voted with their feet' to display their contempt for management.
At an extraordinary meeting, dozens of investors whipped off their shoes and hurled them at executives.
In scenes of utter pandemonium, coins and ballot boxes were also aimed at board members during the meeting in normally sleepy Ghent in Belgium. And British bankers think they're unpopular.
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