A busy week, but one made busier than it should be by the laziness of many listed Australian companies and their boards, starting with Harvey Norman, Goodman Group and Valad Group.

We have more than 80 annual meetings today, an interest rate decision tomorrow, retail sales and building approvals later in the week, credit figures and inventories, but no balance of payments and no national accounts.

Of those events, the rate rise tomorrow will dominate (as will America’s jobs figures on Friday night our time), but first we have to get through the last day for June 30 balancing companies to hold their shareholder meetings.

There were more than 90 meetings on Friday and a similar number last Thursday.

It’s a peak time for companies large and small to get organised and hold meetings.

There’s usually a rough rule of thumb that the later the profit report the worse the result, and the later the AGM, the worse the result, or the more indifferent companies are to seeing shareholders in a timely fashion.

But not always, BHP Billiton, Woolworths (both last Thursday) and Harvey Norman (today) are very solvent and very successful, but very, very slow.

However, standing out are the struggling property groups, Goodman Group and Valad both hold AGMs today.

And with good reason; both have lost heavily in the crunch as their business models of borrowing heavily on expansion plans in Australia, Asia or the UK have collapsed in tears and a flood of red ink. Goodman lost $1.1 billion, Valad, $1.49 billion.

Both have seen the prices of their securities collapse, making their holders that much poorer, both have raised money from the market to try and survive. Goodman has had three recapitalisations. Valad’s move into the UK market has been a complete and utter disaster (as has that of rivals Stocklands and Lend Lease)

No wonder the two AGMs have been timed for the last day of the meeting season.

But some make a habit of it and report late and hold their annual meetings later.

Many of the late reporters and late meeters are small companies, with easy-to-prepare accounts and not to much complexity in the business, compared with a BHP Billiton, a Commonwealth Bank or a Woolworths.

And yet BHP only held its Australian AGM last week, a month after the London AGM. Why the meeting dates couldn’t be reversed and Australian (where BHP is based and where its key iron ore and coal assets are located) shareholders called together first, has never been explained.

A noted late reporter last week was Woolworths, which might be the country’s biggest retailer, but that is no defence for a later meeting date. Rival Wesfarmers held its meeting a couple of weeks earlier and it is a far more complex business than Woolies. Woolies was a later reporter in 2008 as well.

Woolies has an end of June balance date, as does Harvey Norman, which is always among the last to hold its AGM each meeting season.

It holds its AGM in Sydney today at 11, and yet rival retailer David Jones also holds its AGM, also in Sydney today, also at 11 am.

Seeing it closed its books for the 2009 financial year on July 25, that’s effectively a month earlier than Harvey Norman. There is not much difference in complexity between the two retailers.

(That will get retail analysts confused as they try and work out which company is worth cultivating by attending, and which is worth possibly offending by not attending and sending an assistant along to show the flag).

But this won’t worry chairman Gerry Harvey. For years the company reported its interim and annual profits at the last minute.

He’s lifted his game in reporting earnings, now for AGMs. There is simply no reason to delay them as long as he does. He actually found time to update the market on a sales improvement a week ago, something that would have been nice for shareholders to hear at an AGM.

Seek, the Melbourne-based internet jobs group, holds its AGM today at 3pm. That’s three weeks later than a year ago when James Packer was still a big shareholder and a director. No more, so the Seek board takes its time and will bury its meeting this afternoon.

Just looking at the 80-90 meetings held Thursday, Friday and today, there will be a meeting roughly every six minutes or so, assuming the meeting day starts about 8.30am and finishes about 5-6pm.

That’s a travesty of good governance.

And if anyone is interested, the meeting is roughly even money for tomorrow’s RBA board meeting for a record third rate rise in as many months.

The retail sales and building approvals will show there’s still some life in the economy and the US jobs figures on Friday will show another solid fall in the number of jobs being lost, and perhaps a small easing in the unemployment rates from the record 10.2%. And no US banks went bust on Friday. Must have been the spirit of Thanksgiving.