Ireland's largest private landlord, Irish Residential Properties REIT, said today than a voting issue with a third party platform has been resolved ahead of its EGM this week.
It had emerged over the weekend that shareholders votes for Friday's EGM through third party platform Broadridge Financial Solutions had been cancelled.
I-RES Reit said this followed an error on the Broadridge voting instruction platform.
"Broadridge has confirmed to the company that the issue has been addressed and that all voting instructions that had been submitted via the Broadridge voting instruction platform and cancelled have been resubmitted," the company said in a brief statement today.
Broadridge is a third party platform used by fund and asset managers.
Shareholders have been able to submit their votes via other means and will also be able to vote in person at the EGM on Friday.
"Broadridge is a system used by institutional shareholders to vote, and I-RES has no role in the selection of Broadridge as a third party processor," I-RES said in its statement over the weekend.
"We made an announcement to ensure that shareholders are aware they may need to recast their vote. It's important that every shareholder is afforded the opportunity to validly vote at the EGM."
At Friday's EGM, shareholders will be asked to vote on motions proposed by activist shareholder, Vision Capital, that I-RES be required to consider a comprehensive strategic review to assess options, including a sale of the company or its assets, or a process to sell I-RES or its assets in an organised manner over the next two years.
It is also proposing that five members of the board of I-RES be replaced with candidates that are supported by Vision Capital, which owns 5% of the business.
Vision received a boost in recent weeks after I-RES's largest shareholder said it was backing Vision's position.
Canadian property fund, Capreit, which owns 18.7% of I-RES, confirmed it intends to support Vision Capital's resolutions at this week's EGM.
I-RES has already said it will begin its own strategic review in the first quarter of this year after it reports full year results for 2023.
This will consider all strategic options available to maximise the inherent value contained within the IRES portfolio, it said.
These include but are not limited to new strategic initiatives, consolidation, combinations, mergers or other corporate action, a review of the company's status as a listed REIT, the sale of the entire issued share capital of the company and selling the company’s assets and returning value to shareholders.
I-RES has called on shareholders to vote against all the proposals from Vision.
In recent days the influential corporate governance advisors Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services have recommended that shareholders vote against all resolutions proposed by Vision Capital at the EGM.
