Kweichow Moutai investors flock to distiller’s biggest ever shareholder meeting after outcry over sales unit plan
- Investors in the world’s biggest liquor maker are expected to bombard chairman Li Baofang with questions over share price outlook and plans to streamline sales
- Moutai stock has surged more than 50 per cent this year to an all-time high
Kweichow Moutai, the world’s most valuable liquor distiller, is holding its biggest ever annual shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday, with about 1,500 investors flocking to a small town in China’s southwestern Guizhou province.
Another 3,025 shareholders took part by voting online to endorse the company’s 2018 work report and other resolutions, bringing the total number of shareholders involved to 4,500, the company said in a stock exchange filing late on Wednesday night.
Attendees are likely to be keen to quiz chairman Li Baofang and fellow executives on issues including the sustainability of the baijiu maker’s stratospheric stock market performance and its controversial new plan to set up a wholly-owned sales subsidiary.
With four times more registrations to attend than last year, organisers earlier in the week were forced to find a bigger convention centre to stage the meeting.
Investors will want to know the outlook for the share price, which has surged more than 50 per cent this year to an all-time high. Kweichow Moutai has chalked up an annual return of 32 per cent since its listing in 2001, compared with 2.5 per cent for the Shanghai Composite Index in the same period time, according to Bloomberg data.
Shareholders will be looking for clues as to whether Kweichow Moutai can maintain the kind of stellar returns and earnings growth that warrants bullish calls by investment banks.