Elektron's 2009 AGM.

A brief summary of EKT's AGM is as follows.

At the start of the meeting the company indicated they could answer no questions on their recent acquistion news. This is not unusual they are governed by FSA rules.

Various shareholders placed a number of questions to the board of directors.

Firstly one shareholder questioned the auditors fee of about £170,000 as being on the high side. The FD Chris Leigh indicated one of the reasons for this was some of Elektron's operating companies were abroad. There were other minor figures questioned in the accounts.

Another question was concern that the Howle subsidiary was not performing when EKT had previously stated the subsidiary would benefit through new products to the oil and gas sector. The new director of Howle answered the question and indicated the oil and gas sector had reduced their orders however he seemed confident things would improve once the oil and gas sector picked up. He also commented on Howle's new website the subsidiary to be renamed Total Carbide. This is their new Total Carbide website... http://www.totalcarbide.com/

I put a number of questions to the board. First I asked the directors about their new product development and whether they could give me an example of some of their new products. Unfortunately due to confidentiality agreements with their customers it was not possible to provide details albeit the company indicated there would be new product announcements before the year end.

My next question was whether they company were happy with their top team they had in place and whether or not there would be further appointments. The company has taken on a number of key staff on lately with excellent credentials. Keith Daley indicated the company were happy with the team they had in place however they still had in mind more appointments in due course. Details of new director appointments are here.. http://www.totalcarbide.com/media/HowleTitmanDirectorAppointmentsJuly2009.pdf

The company had indicated previously they hoped to achieve a turnover of circa £100 million per year and I asked whether or not they were still on track in the medium term. It was confirmed they were.

My last question was with regard to the brokers dividend forecast for the next few years. I stated to the company they had paid on average a dividend cover of about 4 to 5 times the last few years. I thought over 7 times cover for 2012 was too high. One shareholder interupted my question indicating he would rather see the company reinvest rather than paying higher dividends. Keith Daley indicated the board had every intention of enhancing shareholder value apart from any dividends.

The meeting ended.