DBS to pay final dividend on May 26 after approval at AGM

Singapore

DBS Group will pay its shareholders their final dividend for fiscal 2019 of 33 Singapore cents per share on May 26, once it gets approval from shareholders via a virtual annual general meeting (AGM) to be held on April 30 at 2.30pm, it said on Wednesday.

Singapore's largest bank announced the new date and time of its adjourned AGM following tightened safe-distancing measures imposed by Singapore authorities which involved a month-long "circuit breaker" that resulted in a partial lockdown.

Legal measures have been put in place to provide for alternative arrangements for companies in Singapore to conduct shareholder meetings through virtual means.

DBS will hold its deferred AGM on the same day that it releases its first-quarter results for 2020. The AGM was originally scheduled for March 31. As shareholders must approve final dividend payments, the original dividend payment date on April 21 had to be pushed back as well.

As shareholders will not be able to ask questions at the AGM live during the webcast or audio-stream, they must pre-register and submit their questions ahead of time, either through the pre-registration website (https://go.dbs.com/agm2020) or by post. All questions must be submitted by 2.30pm on April 27.

The bank said it will endeavour to address "all substantial and relevant questions" received from shareholders during the virtual AGM itself.

"However, as there may not be sufficient time to address all such questions during the AGM itself, we will publish our responses to those questions which we are unable to address during the AGM, on our corporate website and on SGXNet prior to the AGM."

DBS will also, as is current practice, publish the minutes of the AGM on its corporate website and as a regulatory filing via SGX.

The minutes of the meeting will include the responses to "substantial and relevant questions" from shareholders which had been addressed during the AGM.

Shareholders must pre-register at the pre-registration website from now till 2.30pm on April 27 to enable DBS to verify their status as shareholders.

Following the verification, authenticated shareholders will receive an e-mail by 12pm on April 29. The e-mail will contain user ID and password details, as well as the link to access the live audio-visual webcast and a toll-free telephone number to access the live audio-only stream of the AGM proceedings.

Shareholders who had already pre-registered to observe and or to listen to the AGM proceedings through the live webcast as at March 26 - the day the deferral of the original AGM was announced - do not have to pre-register again.

Likewise, shareholders who had previously submitted filled-in proxy forms for the AGM do not have to submit proxy forms again. If they wish to, they can also withdraw such forms by 2.30pm on April 27 via dbsproxy@sg.tricorglobal.com