Annual report 2009 - Santander

73• Separate voting on matters such as the appointment ofdirectors and on articles or groups of articles which aresubstantially independent in the event of amendments tothe Bylaws or the Rules and Regulations for the GeneralShareholders’ Meeting.• Fractional voting by financial intermediaries.• Granting of proxy to any person, whether or not ashareholder.• Attendance of a notary to prepare the minutes of the meeting.• To defend the rights of its shareholders, the Bank has alsotaken care to resolve any possible conflicts of interest that mayarise in proxy-granting by establishing the requiredmechanisms on the proxy cards.The Bank usually calls general shareholders’ meetings by givingadvance notice in excess of the mandatory 30 days’ notice, andmakes available to the shareholders, through the Group’swebsite and from the date of publication of the announcement,all relevant information, including the proposed resolutionssubmitted to the shareholders at the meeting.The chart below shows the number of days’ advance noticeused to call annual general shareholders’ meetings in the lastfive years.4. Information provided to the shareholdersand communication with themOn the occasion of the 2009 annual general shareholders’meeting, the chairman once again sent a letter to allshareholders inviting them to suggest the matters they wouldlike to see dealt with, without prejudice to their rights to receiveinformation and make proposals.923 letters and e-mails were received, all of which wereduly answered.During 2009, the Bank held 628 meetings with investors andmaintained an on-going relationship with analysts and ratingagencies, which entailed personal contact with more than1,300 investors/analysts. For the second consecutive year, thedepartment of investors relations was chosen by investors (buyside) and analysts (sell side) as the best IR Team in the financialindustry in Europe, according to the survey conducted by thespecialised magazine Institutional Investor. In September andOctober, the department participated actively, by attendingmore than 100 meetings with investors, in the capital increasesuccessfully carried out at the Brazil subsidiary. The departmentalso continued to inform the main investors and analysts of theGroup’s policies in the area of corporate social responsibility.The shareholder area is responsible for the relationship with themore than 3 million non-institutional shareholders of the Bankthroughout the world. It prepares the global loyalty programmesand is responsible for the implementation of exclusive productsand services for the shareholders.Advance notice to the annual general shareholders’ meetingNumber of days403743433830 días2005 2006 2007 2008 2009Corporate governance report Annual report 2009