Why people are contrary to the cancellation of treasury shares with no reduction of share capital?

Question

In a share buyback, the company buys its own share for example in the open market.

The bought shares can be retired or kept as treasury stock (reference).

One such operation was carried out by Unicredit.

In the shareholder's meeting, some shareholders voted against the cancellation of treasury shares with no reduction of share capital.

Notice, not the share buyback, just the cancellation of the shares already bought.

See shareholder's meeting notes at page 156.

Why existing shareholders, who either will or will not sell their shares, should be against the cancellation of wanna be treasury shares?

What they have to lose if the company retires its own shares?

Answer 1

Treasury shares can be resold providing additional funding for the company. If they're retired, a new issuance of shares will require additional shareholder voting.

Answer 2

Some people will vote against any proposal they don't see the need for, on the assumption that Corporate Boards Are Always Evil and must be trying to cheat the small stockholders somehow.

If the board didn't provide a clear enough statement of why this was being done and what the effects would be (or wouldn't be), I'm really not surprised they got pushback.

And there isn't a very strong reason for the average stockholder to either refuse or endorse this; it's mostly a bookkeeping detail. I'd say that's enough justification to approve it; others would grumble about it not saving enough money to be worth discussing. (A few hundred thousand dollars, at a wild guess.)