The Australian Shareholders Association (ASA) is a not-for-profit organisation established in 1960 to protect and advance the interests of investors. It does this by advancing the interests of retail shareholders with government, industry, the markets and individual companies, monitoring companies with the aim of improving both financial performance and corporate governance

Corporate governance

Corporate governance is a number of processes, customs, policies, laws, and institutions which have impact on the way a company is controlled...

 and providing information and education to shareholders.

Current activities

The ASA advocates for shareholders by attending company annual general meetings

Annual general meeting

An annual general meeting is a meeting that official bodies, and associations involving the public , are often required by law to hold...

 and engaging with government on behalf of shareholders. Representatives of the ASA attend AGMs through the use of proxies given to the ASA by shareholders, where issues such as executive remuneration, company performance, shareholder rights and director qualifications/workloads are often discussed. Current government engagements revolve around Productivity Commission

Productivity Commission

The Productivity Commission is the Australian Government's principal review and advisory body on microeconomic policy and regulation. It is an independent statutory authority in the Treasury Portfolio and responds to references from the Treasurer...

 recommendations on reforms to executive pay and talks with the Treasury

Department of the Treasury (Australia)

The Department of the Treasury is an Australian Government department. Its role is to focus and develop economic policy.-History:The Commonwealth Treasury was established in Melbourne in January 1901....

 to tackle unsolicited off market offers such as those by David Tweed

David Tweed

David Tweed is an Australian businessman who conducts a business of offering to buy securities at either below market value, or at a price that is above market value but via installments. Paying in installments can disadvantage the seller due to the time value of money...

.

The ASA has a number of shareholder education activities, including publishing a monthly magazine called EQUITY, running regular seminars and a organising a bi-annual national conference.

Past activities

The ASA has pushed for a number of things over the years, including:

• Organising shareholders into the GIO
  GIO General
  GIO is an Australian general insurance company founded by the New South Wales State Government in 1927 as the Government Insurance Office of NSW...
  
   and Aristocrat class actions, allowing shareholders to recover their losses.
• A say for shareholders in executive remuneration and additional auditor independence as part of the CLERP 9 corporate reforms. This resulted in a non-binding vote on executive pay at AGMs, required audit partners to rotate every 5 years, the disclosure of non-audit work in the annual report and for audit partners to attend and answer shareholder questions at the AGM.
• Through engagement with companies at AGMs and through the media, pushing for executive bonuses to require performance hurdles. This has resulted in an increase in the number of listed companies that require performance hurdles to be met before bonuses are awarded.
• A workload policy of 5 equivalent directorships for directors and no external directorships for CEOs.
• Opposing ASX
  ASX
  ASX may refer to:* Australian Securities Exchange, the primary stock exchange of Australia* Advanced Stream Redirector, a computer file format listing Windows Media files * Armstrong Siddeley ASX, a British experimental turbojet* John F...
  
  changes that would make it easier for smaller companies to list and for small to medium listed companies from being able to raise up to 25% of issued capital without shareholder approval.

Chair

• Helen Dent (2008-present)
• Ian Curry (2007-08)
• Stephen Matthews (2005-07)
• John Curry (2003-05)