Shareholder Democracy

Vanguard backing shareholder committees

According to a report in the Financial Times this morning, Vanguard is to promote the idea of "shareholder liaison committees" to improve corporate governance. This is of particular significance because Vanguard is one of the largest investment groups in the world and overtook Pimco last year to become the second largest fund manager.  Vanguard primarily runs low cost index tracker funds and therefore has to hold all major companies. Indeed they are one of the largest holders of shares in many ...

BP and Shell facing climate change resolutions

Both BP and Shell are likely to face resolutions at their next AGMs which will raise the issue of climate change. A coalition of investment groups including ShareAction and the Local Authority Pension Fund (LAPF) are looking for signatories to a requisition for a resolution to require more reporting by these companies on various aspects of their approach to carbon reduction and emissions management. See http://www.lapfforum.org/news/co-filers-sought-for-2015-shell-and-bp-agm-resolutions for more information. Comment: Some investors feel that the Annual Reports of such companies are already ...

ShareSoc Welcomes BG Group Decision but calls on Sir John Hood to Resign

ShareSoc is delighted by today’s news that BG Group has decided to withdraw the conditional share award that was proposed for new CEO Helge Lund. This is a good illustration of active shareholders being able to influence corporate policy and restrain abuses. However, today’s announcement, including acceptance by Mr Lund of the revised terms, clearly demonstrates that the original proposal was excessive and unwarranted. It is obvious that insufficient consultation with shareholders had been conducted before the proposed package was announced, as ...

Progress on the Kay Review

Back in 2011 the Government commissioned Prof. John Kay to review the operation of UK stock markets. There were concerns about "short-termism" by investors, poor corporate governance in companies, excessive executive pay, lack of engagement by investors with companies, high investment charges and excessive intermediation in the investment chain. The resulting report was a very good analysis of the defects in the way the market operated and the recommendations in the report for change were generally accepted by the Government. The Government ...

The Vote at Electra Private Equity

Electra Private Equity have fought off an attack from Sherborne Investors Management. The latter wanted a change of directors and for the company to conduct a strategic review, but resolutions to remove three directors were defeated with over 61% of the votes cast against them. The interesting aspect of this event was that over 81% of the votes in issue were actually voted. There was considerable debate last week at the meeting ShareSoc held on shareholder rights about the difficulty of getting ...

Shareholder Rights campaign launched

Last week ShareSoc launched a campaign to improve shareholder rights with a meeting in London. It focussed on the problems associated with nominee accounts and the adopted legal requirement to replace paper share certificates with an electronic system in a few years time. There was an impressive line-up of speakers at the meeting which included John Kay (author of the Kay Review and FT writer), Michael Kempe from Capita representing the ICSA Registrars Group, Peter Swabey from ICSA, John Lee (Lord Lee ...

Guaranteed Rights for All Shareholders – Campaign Launch Meeting

On the 14th October 2014 ShareSoc is launching a campaign to give full rights to ALL shareholders. At present most private investors purchase shares in nominee accounts. With a very few exceptions this means that they have no automatic rights to vote, to attend General Meetings of companies or even receive information on the affairs of the company. Investors in public companies have been disenfranchised and their rights undermined. The meeting on the 14th October 2014 will explain how and why this situation ...

New boards elected at Oxford Technology VCTs

Today all four of the Oxford Technology VCTs held their Annual General Meetings. The meetings were well attended as Oxford Technology VCT (OXT) and Oxford Technology 3 VCT (OTT) previously had their VCT status withdrawn by HMRC, although this has now been temporarily "set aside" while an appeal is processed. ShareSoc formed a "Shareholder Action Group" with a committee of interested shareholders to make representations on this matter and protect their interests. We also pushed for changes to the corporate governance of these ...

Shareholders voting without knowing what for at Majestic Wine

Shareholders at Majestic Wine were given a proxy voting form that included two common resolutions - a vote on the Remuneration Report and a vote on Remuneration Policy. But there was no description of the Remuneration Policy in the Annual Report. As a shareholder in the company, I found this somewhat baffling and therefore voted against the second of those resolutions on the basis of not knowing what I might be voting for. The company subsequently withdrew those resolutions on the because ...

Giving Personal Shareowners a Voice

"Giving Personal Shareowners a Voice" was the title of a meeting yesterday (3/7/2014) organised by Gavin Oldham of The Share Centre. It was organised to discuss a number of concerns about shareholder engagement with companies and the rights of individual shareholders. It was attended by a number of "stakeholders" interested in this area including representatives from the BIS, FRC, WMA, Wider Share Ownership Council, ShareAction, UKSA, ICSA, a number of journalists and myself representing ShareSoc. The first topic covered was the failure ...

Barclays wins vote on pay

Barclays Bank Annual General Meeting yesterday showed how difficult it is to get excessive pay awards voted down. Despite strong opposition from PIRC, F&C and Standard Life (the latter actually spoke at the meeting which is unusual for institutions), only 24% of votes were cast against the Remuneration Report with an even lower number against the Remuneration Policy. There were a number of shareholders who abstained so the media commonly reported 34% of shareholders  as failing to support the board, but ...

Insurance companies and Kentz

With the attack by the Government on annuities in the budget and the revelation that the FCA is to look into the treatment of some policyholders such as those in "closed" funds, both investors in these companies and their directors must be somewhat incensed. Indeed the Financial Times reported this morning that half a dozen of the City's top institutional investors have consulted a leading law firm over alleged "market abuse" in the way the latter review was disclosed. It seems ...