Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Shareholder Committee Campaign

ShareSoc and UKSA have now paused this campaign because RBS are now engaging better with shareholders and have announced a programme of 4 events a year specifically focussed on engagement with individual shareholders. You can find further details here: RBS Shareholder Committee Campaign – Update 17

ShareSoc has advocated the implementation of Shareholder Committees since our inception in 2011. Recently this initiative has received support in the form of the Government’s November 2016 Green Paper on Corporate Governance, and in the form of Chris Philp M.P.’s September 2016 paper entitled Restoring Responsible Ownership.

ShareSoc has decided to focus on RBS as a complex enterprise whose governance would benefit from the adoption of a Shareholder Committee.

ShareSoc has submitted resolutions to the RBS AGMs requesting the implementation of an RBS Shareholder Committee.

If you want to prevent further failures at RBS by creating a Shareholder Committee, please support this initiative.

Quick links

Please join the campaign by completing the form here, if not already a campaign member.

View updates on the campaign here

 

Background Information

Shareholder Committees

  1. The primary role of the Shareholder Committee is to improve the agency model of corporate governance by increasing the engagement and oversight of Shareholders in the operation of the companies owned by them.
  2. ShareSoc have been campaigning for many years for the establishment of Shareholder Committees. ShareSoc have written a detailed paper on the subject. See Shareholder-Committees.
  3. The MP, Chris Philp, wrote an excellent paper on shareholder committees in Sept 2016 and this has received wide publicity. See Responsible Ownership. ShareSoc have a number of concerns about the practicalities of a few of his suggestions and are in the process of writing to him to explain how the Shareholder Committee can best be implemented.
  4. The Nov 2016 Government Green Paper on Corporate Governance mentions Shareholder Committees as a way forward that could be mandated or could be adopted via the UK Corporate Governance Code or voluntarily. See Green Paper.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)

  1. RBS is a hugely underperforming company and since 2007, long term investors have lost 95% of the value of their investment, largely due to failures in corporate governance.. RBS is 62.4% owned by the Government via UKGI, so it is important to all the people in the UK that RBS has good corporate governance. Therefore, RBS should be in the forefront of adopting Shareholder Committees.
  2. We are submitting a resolution to the AGM. Legally, we can do this so long as we have over 100 shareholders supporting the motion who hold collectively 10,000 RBS shares (about £24,000 at today’s price).

Other Companies

ShareSoc hope that other companies will follow our RBS example but voluntarily adopt Shareholder Committees. If companies resist, then it is our intention to submit AGM resolutions to other companies.

Proposed Resolution

Our resolution for the 2019 AGM is available here.

Updates

Back to topJoin Campaign

Regular updates on the RBS Campaign will be posted on this web page and on the ShareSoc blog.

Update 1 30/12/2016. This press release was issued on the day of the submission of the Requisition to RBS: Press085 . The final version of the resolution as submitted to RBS is present in this document: RBS-AGM-Resolution.

Update 2 01/02/2017. This press release was issued after RBS unreasonably rejected ShareSoc’s requisition for an AGM Resolution: Press087

Update 3 11/03/2017. This update was sent to all campaign supporters: Update-3.

FT Article 01/04/2017. The Financial Times have published an article on the refusal of RBS to put a resolution to the AGM on shareholder committees. See this blog post for commentary on it.

Please write to the Chairman of RBS to support the requisition. A suggested letter you could use as a template is present here: Letter-to-Chairman

Update 4 Press Release 11/04/2017. ShareSoc issued this press release giving voting recommendations for Annual General Meeting of RBS: Press093

Update 5 16/06/2017. RBS Shareholder Committee Campaign: Click here to read.

RBS Shareholder Event 26/07/2017. An event for individual shareholders has been organised. Read more here.
Click Here to read Cliff Weight’s report about how badly it went.

Update 6 21/10/2017. RBS Snub to Chris Philp MP and next steps – Click here to read.

Update 7 26/10/2017ShareSoc send Open letter to RBS Board which is reported on in CityAM: http://www.cityam.com/274595/investor-group-chastises-rbs-toothless-approach-corporate

Update 8 05/12/2017. ShareSoc to requisiton a new resolution for a shareholder committee for the RBS 2018 AGM: https://www.sharesoc.org/sharesoc-news/rbs-firing-line-sharesoc-renews-campaign/

Update 9 13/12/2017. An update on our requisitions for RBS’s 2018 AGM:  https://www.sharesoc.org/blog/corporate-governance/rbs-campaign-update-9-progress-13122017/

Update 10 29/12/2017. 161 forms submitted, press release issued and huge media coverage: https://www.sharesoc.org/sharesoc-news/rbs-campaign-update-10-161-forms-submitted-press-release-issued-huge-media-coverage/

Update 11 14/2/2018. We’ve (almost) won! : https://www.sharesoc.org/sharesoc-news/rbs-shareholder-committee-weve-almost-won/

Update 12 29/4/2018. AGM Voting recommendations, remuneration and campaign update: https://www.sharesoc.org/sharesoc-news/rbs-agm-voting-update-12/

Update 13 8/7/2018. AGM result and subsequent publicity: https://www.sharesoc.org/sharesoc-news/rbs-agm-result-and-subsequent-publicity/

Update 14 1/1/2019. Resolution has been submitted. See RBS Campaign Update 14 for further details.

Update 15 1/4/2019. Resolution has been accepted and is on the AGM agenda. See RBS Campaign Update 15 for further details.

Update 16 23/9/2019. Report on RBS Shareholder Engagement Event on 10 Sep 2019. See https://www.sharesoc.org/blog/meetings-for-investors/rbs-shareholder-event-10-september-2019/ for further details

Update 17 15/12/2019. Campaign paused.  See RBS Campaign Update 17 for further details.

Update 18 17/4/2020. 2020 AGM Voting Recommendations.  See RBS Campaign Update 18 for further details.

For more information on ShareSoc, go here: About

If you wish to make a voluntary contribution to support the costs of running this campaign please go to this page of our web site: Donations. Alternatively we do recommend a paid subscription to ShareSoc which gives you many other benefits.

JOIN THE RBS SHAREHOLDER COMMITTEE CAMPAIGN

Back to top

Please use the form below to join this campaign (you will receive confirmation by return within 48 hours). You will be given free Associate Membership of ShareSoc unless you opt not to receive it, if you are not already a member of ShareSoc. Note that you may omit your telephone number, if you prefer not to disclose it, but we do need an email or postal address as we may need to send you forms for signature if we requisition an EGM or resolutions. It also helps us to know the number of shares in RBS you hold.

If you do not currently own any RBS shares, we can give you 1 share so you can join and support the campaign. Please tick the box in the form below to request us to give you 1 share.