Text: Jintong News Agency
On the morning of June 27, 2024, in the scorching heat in Beijing, the annual general meeting of shareholders of Chinese was being held in the conference room on the 15th floor of Block A, Chinese Plaza, No. 16 Financial Street.
Since the general meeting of shareholders is to elect a new board of directors, it has attracted much attention.
That night, Chinese Shou disclosed the voting results showing that all the bills were passed.
However, the voting results of some of the bills are surprising. Among them, the proposal to elect Wang Junhui as a non-executive director of the eighth board of directors was voted against by 74.09% of the H share shareholders attending the meeting.
Not only H-share shareholders were opposed, but even small and medium-sized shareholders of A-shares had a large proportion of negative votes. According to the announcement, shareholders of A shares holding less than 5% of the shares voted against 18.56%.
According to the materials of the shareholders' meeting, Wang Junhui is currently the chief investment officer of China Life Group, the parent company of Chinese Life, and serves as the party secretary and chairman of Chinese Life Pension Insurance Co., Ltd. Moreover, he has served as a non-executive director of Chinese Life since August 2019, and has been a non-executive director from the sixth and seventh to the current eighth board of directors, which can be described as the "elder of the three dynasties" in the board of directors.
Perhaps it is precisely because of familiarity that shareholders will express their opinions by voting.
Although Wang Junhui was finally re-elected to the new board of directors, such a high proportion of negative votes is indeed rare.
In fact, it is not the first time that the shareholders of Chinese Shou have "made a statement".
In June 2021, Chinese Life held the 2020 annual general meeting, and Yuan Changqing, then president of China Life Group, was nominated as a non-executive director candidate for the seventh board of directors, which was opposed by 87.37% of minority shareholders of A shares and 85.26% of shareholders of H shares. However, Yuan Changqing was eventually elected.
It seems that the shareholders of Chinese Shou really dare to vote against!
One director was opposed by 74% of H share shareholders
Who is Wang Junhui? Why are they not "welcomed" by H-share shareholders and minority shareholders?
Wang Junhui was born in July 1971, graduated from Beijing University of Technology in 1995, majored in software, and graduated from the Institute of Fiscal Science of the Ministry of Finance in 2008 with a doctorate degree in finance. He is currently the Party Secretary and Chairman of Chinese Life Pension Insurance Co., Ltd., and the Chief Investment Officer of Chinese Life Insurance (Group) Company.
According to the materials of the shareholders' meeting, Wang Junhui has served as the chairman of Chinese Life Pension Insurance Co., Ltd. since November 2023. Since August 2016, he has served as the chief investment officer of Chinese Life Insurance (Group) Company. He has served as the chairman of China Life Security Fund Management Co., Ltd. since December 2016 and a director of China United Network Communications Co., Ltd. since March 2021. From 2004 to 2023, he successively served as the assistant to the president, vice president and president of Chinese Life Asset Management Co., Ltd., and the president of China Life Investment Holdings Co., Ltd.
Wang Junhui is also currently a director of Chinese Life Insurance (Overseas) Co., Ltd., the chairman of the Insurance Asset Management Association of China, a standing director of the Insurance Association of China, a director of China World Trade Investment Co., Ltd., and a director of China World Trade Center Co., Ltd.
Since August 2019, Wang Junhui has served as a non-executive director of Chinese Life. According to the announcement of the resolution of the 2018 annual general meeting of Chinese Life, 9.12% of the H-share shareholders attending the meeting voted against his appointment as a non-executive director of the sixth board of directors of Chinese Life, and 0.04% of the shareholders of A shares holding less than 5% of the shares voted against.
In June 2021, Chinese Life held the 2020 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, the board of directors was changed, and Wang Junhui was once again nominated as a non-executive director of the seventh board of directors of Chinese Life, and the proportion of H-share shareholders who voted against this meeting was 3.63%, and the proportion of shareholders holding less than 5% of A shares voted against 3.73%.
At the expiration of the three-year directorship, Wang Junhui's proposal to be re-elected as a director soared. Shareholders of H shares voted 74.09% against, and shareholders of A shares holding less than 5% of the shares voted against.
What's going on here? Is it related to Wang Junhui's investment performance in China Life Group?
But China Life Group and Chinese Life are different companies after all, and even if Wang Junhui is the chief investment officer of China Life Group, he only serves as a non-executive director of Chinese Life, and if it is voted against proportionally for this reason, it is obviously "wrongly killed" by shareholders.
From the performance of Chinese Life in 2023, in 2023, Chinese Life will achieve a total operating income of 837.859 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.43%; The net profit attributable to the parent company was 21.110 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 34.20%.
In 2023, affected by the continued low operation of the equity market, the investment income of Chinese Life will decline year-on-year, and the net investment income will be 198.207 billion yuan that year, with a net investment return of 3.77%; The total investment income was 141.968 billion yuan, and the total investment return rate was 2.68%.
Jintong News Agency noted that the results did not affect the voting of shareholders on other proposals. At this shareholders' meeting, the candidates for executive directors, including the chairman, president and two vice presidents, as well as other non-executive directors and independent directors, voted against at a relatively normal level, but Wang Junhui encountered a high proportion of negative votes, and the reason is really incomprehensible.
The president of the group also encountered a large percentage of negative votes
What happened to Wang Junhui at this year's shareholders' meeting has also happened before.
In June 2021, Chinese Life held its 2020 annual general meeting, and Yuan Changqing, then president of China Life Group, was nominated as a non-executive director of Chinese Life. The proposal was opposed by 87.37% of the minority shareholders of A shares and 85.26% of the shareholders of H shares attending the meeting. However, in the end, Yuan Changqing was elected as a non-executive director of the seventh board of directors of Chinese Life.
However, a year after being elected, in June 2022, Chinese Life issued an announcement that Yuan Changqing resigned as a non-executive director due to his age.
Yuan Changqing has worked in ICBC and Agricultural Bank of China for more than 10 years, and also served as Secretary of the Commission for Discipline Inspection and Deputy General Manager of Everbright Group. In June 2017, Yuan Changqing was transferred from the chairman of the board of supervisors of the Agricultural Bank of China to the president of China Life Group. In April 2022, Yuan Changqing retired at the age of age, and Cai Xiliang from Sinosure took over as president of China Life Group.
What happened to Chinese life is not unique. In fact, many financial institutions listed in Hong Kong have encountered a large proportion of H-share shareholders' opposition votes at shareholders' meetings.
At the annual general meeting of Chinese Insurance held on June 28, the proposal of Wang Tingke, chairman of Chinese People's Insurance Company, to be elected as executive director was opposed by 9.69% of H share shareholders.
At the annual general meeting of shareholders of the Postal Savings Bank held on the same day, the proposal of Liu Jianjun, President of the Postal Savings Bank, to re-elect the executive director was opposed by 3.93% of the shareholders of H shares, becoming the proposal with the highest number of votes against by the shareholders of H shares at the shareholders' meeting.
At the general meeting of shareholders of the Agricultural Bank of China held on May 21, the work report of the board of directors was even opposed by 17.27% of the shareholders of H shares.
Industry insiders believe that although the opposition votes of shareholders at the shareholders' meeting appear to be "discordant", this is a way for shareholders to express their opinions normally in corporate governance, and it is also a reflection of the modernization of corporate governance capabilities.