Pumpkin10: Can I ask? What did you do last year? Not bother voting?

Ha, that's a story of its own! Last year I wanted to attend the AGM in person. The reason was that I had already invested a serious amount of money in this stock and I wanted a better "feeling" for this company. I wanted to meet the management guys and – most important – wanted to see the lab and get a good grip of what was going on there.

So I asked my broker for an AGM ticket (90 EUR). However, it turned out they weren't able to send me a physical document. They said the ticket would be available for me at the AGM when I showed up there. So I had to book an expensive international flight without knowing for sure whether the ticket would really be there.

Well, it wasn't. Nevertheless I was allowed to attend the AGM and the subsequent lab tour. But I was unable to vote and I would not have been able to testify I was a shareholder indeed. Still my journey to Storrs was a success and was worth every cent, because everything I saw and the people I met (including several hub leaders and other members of this forum) gave me huge confidence in the technology and the team.

Of course I refused to pay my broker's bill for the AGM ticket, because I didn't receive one – which they accepted. However, they started an investigation in order to find out whom they could hold responsible for the failure. Well, they even were unable to spot the cause – too many institutions involved in some intransparent manner – obviously even too intransparent for the experts themselves.

Conclusion: For non-US foreign shareholders this is a large pile of [censored], effectively denying them their voting rights.