85 Annual Report 2025 to participate effectively in and vote at the 2025 General Meetings and facilitated the interaction by the Directors and Management with the Stapled Securityholders at and after the 2025 General Meetings. All Directors (including the CEO who is also a Director) attended the 2025 General Meetings in person. A record of the Directors’ attendance at the 2025 General Meetings can be found in the record of their attendance at general meetings and Board and Board Committee meetings for FY 2025 set out on page 91 of this Annual Report. The upcoming AGM to be held on 23 April 2026 (AGM 2026) will also be held in a physical format similar to the 2025 General Meetings described above. Further information on the arrangements relating to the conduct of the AGM 2026 is set out in the Managers’ notice of AGM dated 25 March 2026. Stapled Securityholders are entitled to attend general meetings and are accorded the opportunity to participate effectively in and vote at general meetings (including through the appointment of up to two proxies, if they are unable to attend in person or in the case of a corporate Stapled Securityholder, through its appointed representative). Stapled Securityholders such as nominee companies which provide custodial services for securities are not constrained by the two proxy limitation, and are able to appoint more than two proxies to attend, speak and vote at general meetings of CLAS. CLAS encourages Stapled Securityholder participation and voting at general meetings. Stapled Securityholders may download the Annual Report and the notices of general meeting from CLAS’ Website and SGXNet. More than the legally required notice period for general meetings is generally provided. To safeguard the Stapled Securityholders’ interests and rights, a separate resolution is proposed for each substantially separate matter to be approved at a general meeting, unless the issues are interdependent and linked so as to form one significant proposal. Where the resolutions are “bundled”, the reasons and material implications will be explained in the notice of general meeting to enable Stapled Securityholders to make an informed decision. At general meetings, Stapled Securityholders are given the opportunity to communicate their views, ask questions and discuss with the Boards and Management on matters affecting CLAS. Representatives of the Trustee, Directors (including the chairmen of the respective Board Committees), KMP and CLAS’ external auditors, attend to address any queries from Stapled Securityholders. To ensure transparency in the voting process and better reflect Stapled Securityholders’ interests, CLAS conducts electronic poll voting for all the resolutions proposed at general meetings. One Stapled Security is entitled to one vote. Voting procedures and the rules governing general meetings are explained and votes cast on each resolution, and the respective percentages, are displayed live on-screen at the general meetings. An independent scrutineer is also appointed to validate the vote tabulation procedures. The results of the votes cast on the resolutions are also announced on SGXNet after the general meetings. Provision 11.4 of the Code requires an issuer’s Constitution to allow for absentia voting at general meetings. CLAS’ Trust Deeds currently do not permit Stapled Securityholders to vote at general meetings in absentia (such as via mail or email). Further to legislative changes implemented in July 2023 to recognise real-time remote electronic voting, the REIT Manager on 6 October 2023 implemented relevant amendments to the trust deed dated 19 January 2006 (as amended) constituting CapitaLand Ascott REIT so as to permit real-time remote electronic voting for CapitaLand Ascott REIT. As a result of similar recent legislative changes to the business trusts regime which automatically permitted real-time remote electronic voting for CapitaLand Ascott BT provided that the trust deed constituting CapitaLand Ascott BT is not subsequently amended to exclude such automatic application, the Trustee-Manager has considered and opted not to exclude the recognition of real-time remote electronic voting for CapitaLand Ascott BT. The Managers are of the view that although these aforementioned changes may still be considered a partial deviation from Provision 11.4 of the Code as Stapled Securityholders or their duly appointed proxy(ies) are still required to attend the general meeting virtually in order to avail themselves of realtime remote electronic voting, Stapled Securityholders nevertheless now have greater opportunities (in addition to the proxy regime) to communicate their views on matters affecting CLAS even when they are not physically in attendance at general meetings. The Managers will consider amendments to CLAS’ Trust Deeds to fully permit absentia voting after they have carried out careful study and are satisfied that the integrity of information and the authentication of Stapled Securityholders’ identities will not be compromised, and after the implementation of legislative changes to recognise methods of voting without the need for Stapled Securityholders or their proxy(ies) to be present in-person or virtually. Minutes of the general meetings are available to Stapled Securityholders upon request, and are also uploaded to the Website as soon as practicable. Accordingly, the rights provided to Stapled Securityholders are consistent with the intent of Principle 11 of the Code.
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