Shareholder Showdown: High Dissent Shakes Up Woodside Energy and Plus500 

May 16, 2025

By Daniel Kehoe

The 2025 season has marked a clear shift in shareholder engagement strategy, with ‘Vote no’ campaigns emerging as a prominent tool being utilised by investors worldwide. 

While such campaigns have been used in recent years, 2025 stands out as the year in which they become a familiar tool among shareholders arsenals for demanding real accountability.  

Woodside Energy (Australia) is one company that has faced growing shareholder pressure through this tactic in recent years in response to its climate transition plan and net zero alignment. 

The company has been criticised for the strength of climate targets, and continued investment and expansion of fossil fuels, most notably its recent agreement with Aramco to develop the Louisiana LNG project. 

While the company make references to ‘lower carbon ammonia’, the core of the collaboration requires a significant expansion liquefied natural gas, an emissions-intensive fossil fuel. Shareholders view this is just one of many examples of the company’s lack of genuine commitment to net zero. 

Woodside Energy first faced backlash at their 2022 annual meeting, where its climate plan narrowly passed with just 50.32% in favour. 

By the 2024 AGM, support had dropped significantly, with only 40.15% of votes in favour, marking the first say on climate to be voted down by shareholders. This resounding rejection underscored the strength of shareholder concern over the company’s climate commitments. 

Dissatisfaction continued at the 2025 AGM where ACCR filed a “vote no” campaign against the re-election of Ann Pickard, Ben Wyatt and Anthony O’Neill, due to their collective responsibility for Woodside’s ongoing failure to address escalating shareholder concerns on climate risk.  

Of the three, Ann Pickard’s result stood out; she received 79.91% votes in favour due to her role as Chair of the Sustainability Committee. When considering the high average support on director elections (well over 98% on average) it demonstrates a level of shareholder concern. 

Elsewhere, Plus500 also faced shareholder discontent at its 2025 AGM. The company’s remuneration report was rejected by a majority of investors, receiving only 48.63% votes in favour. Although advisory in nature, this marked the fifth consecutive year of high dissent on remuneration, following last year’s even more striking 65.86% vote against. 

While the vote is non-binding there is little doubt that the result sends a clear message to the company’s leadership. Plus500 acknowledged that over 20% of votes were cast against two separate resolutions and stated that it takes feedback seriously and will continue to engage with shareholders.  

The repeated rejection of the say-on-pay policy underscores the continued shareholder dissatisfaction amid growing expectations for stronger remuneration governance and alignment with shareholder interests, and the lack of board responsiveness to shareholders.  

Minerva’s blog focuses on the latest developments in ESG investing and stewardship. Minerva is a global provider of sustainable stewardship solutions with over 25 years of expertise. Minerva empowers investors by providing essential tools, including ESG research and data, enabling them to navigate the intricate landscape of stewardship and proxy voting, whilst ensuring their decisions are well-informed and aligned with sustainable principles.

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