Shareholder democracy

Shareholder Democracy

  Currently every single Investor campaign and all grass-roots shareholder action groups are massively hindered by the barricades that stand between them and actually contacting other shareholders. Shareholders' contact details are rarely on Share Registers, and those that are are declining rapidly. The simple fact that the vast majority of individuals’ investments are held via Nominees, means that they become anonymous to all and sundry. They may still be a company’s beneficial shareholders but they are uncontactable, other than by their broker/platform, ...

Marks and Spencer and ShareSoc write to Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch

Marks and Spencer and ShareSoc have written to Business Secretary The Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch MP urging the Government to change the Companies Act to modernise it to allow electronic (ie digital) communication with and between shareholders; and to allow digital GMs without the need for companies to change their articles. ShareSoc, UKSA and the QCA are the first co-signatories of the OPEN LETTER to the Business Secretary. All members are encouraged to read and sign the petition. Marks and Spencer has teamed up with the Mail ...

Shareholder Rights

ShareSoc continue to press for the name on the register, i.e. the beneficial owner not just the nominee as part of a package to restore the rights of individual shareholders, who have been disenfranchised by the nominee system and consequently disempowered. See our Shareholder Rights Campaign for more, and to support us on this. Below is some commentary on recent and not so recent relevant developments. You may have seen that Citi have “launched” a new shareholder voting system. It’s a test ...

Shareholder Rights – MoneyWeek article

Shareholder rights and in particular their erosion due to the nominee system are a big problem and one that both the UK Shareholders Association and ShareSoc campaign on (see our Shareholder Rights Campaign). It is hugely disappointing that HM Government has put this on the back burner due to prioritising Brexit and the Great Repeal Act. I would like to draw your attention to this article https://moneyweek.com/small-investors-voting-rights/ which includes comment from both the UK Shareholders Association and ShareSoc. My own comment in particular, ...

Defeating Shareholder Democracy at Alliance Trust et al

The existing shareholding arrangements in public companies, with many investors in nominee accounts, now effectively frustrate shareholder democracy. Alternatively they make it either very difficult in practice, or enormously expensive. Let's look at a couple of examples where ShareSoc has some recent experience of requesting share registers - Alliance Trust and Rensburg AIM VCT. In terms of the size of the company and numbers of shareholders Alliance Trust is one of the larger public companies. It has recently come under attack from ...