• Statement from the Chairman
  • Board Committees
  • Risk Management
  • Ethical Behaviour
  • Shareholder Relations

Shareholder Relations

Good relations with our shareholders are extremely important to us. We want them to have a full understanding of the dynamics of our business and our prospects, and to have an active, open and two-way relationship with us at all levels.

Our contact programme is developed in consultation with external corporate broking and investor relations advisors and reviewed against the market norm. In 2007 we had a total of 276 face-to-face investor contacts, including one-to-ones, Group meetings and investor events. Through that programme we met with 169 individually identified investors, including both current shareholders (including CFD holders) and non-holders. Five international roadshows included North America, France and Germany. Overall, our 2007 investor relations programme delivered further progress on an already high level of contact in 2006 (112 individually identified institutions), which was characterised at the time as ‘comprehensive and at the forefront of best practice for a FTSE 250 company, both in terms of the number of separate institutions met and the percentage of the register covered’.

Our active programme of investor and analyst education about Aegis includes the following activities:

  • the chief executive officer, chief financial officer and communications director conduct formal roadshow meetings with existing and potential shareholders after our preliminary and interim results;
  • significant time is spent outside our financial calendar roadshows meeting institutional investors, particularly in the UK, Europe and the US;
  • major institutional investors are offered the opportunity to meet with newly-appointed non-executive directors, and all of our non-executive directors are available for meetings on request;
  • our operational management are made available to meet with shareholders and analysts, as appropriate, and a range of senior management representatives regularly present at investor conferences and events throughout the year;
  • regular contact is maintained with the sell-side analysts who cover Aegis, and we actively monitor their opinions and forecasts; and
  • regular introductory meetings are held for new analysts and fund managers, and in October 2007, as in previous years, we held a detailed half-day seminar, covering strategy and operations at Synovate and themed around Synovate’s 3 ‘i’s values of ‘international, innovative, integration’.

The Board receives monthly reports from our investor relations advisors, covering market and sector issues, as well as changes in valuation. It also receives regular briefings from our brokers, giving views on shareholder perceptions, and continues to monitor what further steps it might take to improve its understanding of shareholder opinion. In the second quarter of 2007 we conducted an audit of institutional investor opinion, covering 19.6% of the addressable institutional ownership of Aegis at that time. The findings were subsequently presented to the Board.

The Annual General Meeting provides an opportunity for shareholders to address questions to the chairman or the Board directly (including the respective Chairmen of the Board Committees). Shareholders may also raise issues on an informal basis, following the conclusion of the Annual General Meeting. Published information, including press releases, presentations and webcasts of our results meetings, is available on our corporate website, www.aegisgroupplc.com. We relaunched this website in the course of 2007, and it now includes additional information, including on our businesses and strategy.

For further information, please contact our communications director, Charlotte Elston, on 020 7070 7700 or email her at communications@aegisplc.com.

If you would like to contact the chairman or one of the non-executive directors, please email at corpgov@aegisplc.com.

John Ross
Company secretary
18 March 2008