RBS

VOTE FOR RBS AGM SPECIAL RESOLUTION 28 SHAREHOLDER COMMITTEE

RBS have now sent out the 2019 AGM circular to shareholders. This contains Resolution 28 requiring RBS to establish a Shareholder Committee, which was requisitioned by ShareSoc and UKSA members. If you own RBS shares, please vote for our resolution. Sadly, the RBS Board will be voting against our resolution and have recommended shareholders to vote against it. Their rationale (which is full of spurious reasons and illogic) is as follows: The concept of a shareholder committee was included in the Government’s Green ...

Excessive Pensions, Lloyds Bank and RBS

Over 20% of shareholders voted against the Lloyds 2017 Remuneration Report. Lloyds then consulted with shareholders, but this still resulted in the awful recent press. Clearly the engagement process did not work. I therefore call for Lloyds Bank to implement a Shareholder Committee, which is a more formal and regular engagement process, which builds trust and understanding between committee members and the company. This can only improve the current processes. The Lloyds 2018 annual report says: Responding to feedback We were disappointed that our ...

Unhelpful Computershare provide RBS register in ugly pdf format

I am writing this blog to castigate Computershare for their unhelpful service and suggest that registrars should be required to respond to valid register requests with a more usable response. I recently requested a copy of the RBS register of shareholders. I wanted this so we could write to RBS shareholders about the upcoming resolution for a shareholder committee at the 2019 RBS AGM. Despite repeated requests, Computershare refused to provide the register in a user friendly format. I know that the Computershare system is capable of ...

RBS General Meeting Report

98.7% of shareholders voted for the proposal, with 1.3% against. A very strong majority. UKGI did not vote their shares. I watched the General Meeting on the webcast. Attendance looked pretty thin. Three people asked questions. Neil Mitchell questioned the prudence of using company funds to buy back shares when there was £15bn of GR legacy issues claims outstanding. He also questioned why there had to be so much haste (why not wait until the AGM and after the annual results were ...

RBS General Meeting: You Decide!

I have today published two posts on ShareSoc's blog, expressing different opinions on RBS's proposed resolution to buy back shares from HM Treasury. One from our chairman and another from senior ShareSoc member Roger Lawson. Firstly, the facts. You can find full details of the General Meeting and proposal here: https://investors.rbs.com/shareholder-centre/shareholder-meetings.aspx. If you are a shareholder you should study the circular available from that webpage before deciding how to vote. ShareSoc encourages its members to make their own minds up on matters such as ...

RBS Share Buy-Back

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is proposing to buy-back up to 4.99% of its shares from the stake held by the Government (by UKGI on its behalf). At present the Government holds 62% of the company stemming from the bailout in the banking crisis ten years ago. They have been trying to get shot of it ever since as no Tory government thinks it should be investing in banks. This latest proposal makes it clear that UKGI cannot easily sell ...

RBS General Meeting – Voting Considerations

RBS has called a General Meeting for 6th February to consider a Special Resolution giving the group the authority to make off-market purchases of up to 4.99% of the outstanding shares from HM Treasury. In effect this is an authority to effect a capital reduction, which will partially reduce the overhang of government held shares. The timing is pretty poor, coming just three months prior to the AGM and without the benefit of full year financial reports. But it seems to signal ...

Banks Claims Group Limited, FCA and RBS

Neil Mitchell, who ran Torex Retail before he blew the whistle on an earlier fraud at the software company and RBS’s Global Restructuring Group took control of the business, has applied for a judicial review of a UK Financial Conduct Authority decision in July that its options for taking action were “limited”. Neil, who claims to represent 530 complainants affected by alleged wrongdoing at GRG, alleges in his judicial review application that the FCA has been “unlawfully refusing or failing” to ...

Lax Regulation (Globo, GRG) and Japanese Trust AGM

Globo was one of those AIM companies that turned out to be a complete fraud. Back in December 2015 the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) announced an investigation into the audits of the company by Grant Thornton (GT). Even the cash reported on the balance sheet in the consolidated accounts of the parent company proved to be non-existent (or had been stolen perhaps). I have previously complained about the slow progress and the lack of any information on this investigation. But former shareholders ... Read more

RBS AGM result and subsequent publicity

Paul Jackson wrote an in-depth analysis of the RBS Shareholder Committee campaign and the issues raised in the prestigious Investors Chronicle, 22 June 2018 issue, which is read by tens of thousands of investors. We are grateful to Paul and Investors Chronicle for giving us permission to reproduce this article. Click here: https://www.sharesoc.org/blog/shareholder-democracy/whose-company-is-it-anyway/ RBS AGM Result - Shareholder Committee Vote – We did well but it was a wasted opportunity UKGI Votes were 75.3% of those cast. So their vote decided the outcome. 7.8% of ...

Whose company is it anyway?

Paul Jackson wrote an in-depth analysis of the RBS Shareholder Committee campaign and the issues raised in the prestigious Investors Chronicle, 22 June 2018 issue, which is read by tens of thousands of investors. We are grateful to Paul and Investors Chronicle for giving us permission to reproduce this article. A rather strange thing happened at the RBS annual general meeting at the end of last month. UK Government Investments (UKGI) used its 70 per cent stake to help scupper a resolution ...

Access to Placings for Individual Investors

The FT, 7 June, publishes ShareSoc and the UK Shareholders' Association joint letter about placings which exclude individual investors. We continue to urge all companies and their brokers and Nomads to allow individual shareholders to participate in placings. The letter focussed on the recent placing by UKGI of RBS shares and was written by Cliff Weight and Peter Parry. It said: It is a public disgrace that individual investors have been excluded from the placing by UK Government Investments Limited ("UKGI") of RBS ...