The parent company of We Energies had big plans for its annual shareholders’ meeting — holding it at the New York Stock Exchange and giving directors the opportunity to ring the closing bell — but the company changed course due to the COVID-19 pandemic and may hold a virtual meeting instead.
It’s a major letdown for WEC Energy Group Inc. (NYSE: WEC) executives and shareholders. But the Milwaukee-based utility company is one of multiple publicly traded Wisconsin companies contemplating a shift in the spring ritual of in-person annual meeting.
WEC Energy still makes a big production of its annual meeting with large-screen videos, a stage and a few hundred attendees receiving an update on the company’s performance, holding it in recent years at Concordia University Wisconsin’s field house in Mequon. Most Milwaukee-area companies dropped the public-presentation approach years ago as such events are expensive and the meetings consist primarily of routine business matters.
But companies have continued to hold the shareholders meetings in person usually at their corporate headquarters and invited shareholders to attend.
“We had been looking forward to hosting our annual meeting at the New York Stock Exchange to recognize our long-standing listing on the exchange,” WEC Energy executive chairman Gale Klappa said in a press release.
The company will provide details over the next few weeks when plans for the May 6 meeting are finalized, Klappa said. Read the full story here.
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