Small shareholders in Australia's biggest listed companies are shunning annual general meetings.
The Governance Institute of Australia says big companies are engaging with large institutional shareholders and proxy advisory firms, but struggling to interest "mum and dad" investors.
Only 10 per cent of companies get more than 300 shareholders at their AGMs, often notorious for lengthy debates followed by a cup of tea and a sandwich.
And medium-sized companies attract just 0.3 per cent of shareholders to their AGMs, the institute's latest biennial survey of Australia's top 200 listed companies found.
Despite the low attendance, AGM costs per shareholder in large companies have surged 38 per cent compared to two years ago.
The average cost for a large company to stage its AGM is $280,100.
Governance Institute chief executive Tim Sheehy said AGMs were based on a 19th century model and were dying a slow and excruciating death.
"The writing has been on the wall for some time that the AGM in its current form is virtually irrelevant," he said in a statement on Tuesday.
The survey said the lack of shareholder engagement is related to the AGM forum itself, rather than outside conditions such as the strength of the share market or the level of satisfaction with a company's performance.
Companies have tried to increase shareholder participation by webcasting AGMs, but the number of shareholders using this option is also low.
Small shareholders also show little interest in direct voting, improved disclosure and additional short-term reporting by their companies.
Furthermore, 58 per cent of shareholders aren't interested in receiving the company's full annual report.
Concise reports have become longer and more legalistic, which undermines their value to shareholders.
Australian Shareholders' Association chairman Ian Curry said many small investors viewed the AGM as a dull, dry occasion on which the company chairman controlled all the numbers.
"People will turn out if there's a sample bag (of goods) or if there's a pretty good feed, but they won't necessarily come for a cup of tea and a dry biscuit," Mr Curry told AAP.
Practically nobody wanted to read an annual report that was 300 pages long.
Mr Curry said AGMs clearly needed to change radically but it was a challenge for companies to find better ways of engaging with shareholders.
Mr Sheehy said the federal government's Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee (CAMAC) had been considering the issue of AGMs and shareholder engagement.
But the recent federal budget had included plans to abolish CAMAC and transfer its work to Treasury.
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