Shareholder Rights

www.allinvestorsmatter.co.uk – Access to fund raises

Please sign the petition, asking issuers to include retail investors when issuing shares, if you have not already done so. See www.allinvestorsmatter.co.uk The petition already has over 1,000 signatures. Signatories include: Mark Northway, Chairman, ShareSoc Lord Lee of Trafford DL FCA House of Lords Adam McConkey, Chairman, Quoted Companies Alliance Sarah Wilson, CEO, Minerva Analytics Ltd Andy Bell, Founder & CEO AJ Bell Peter Hargreaves, Founder Hargreaves Lansdown Paul Killik, Senior Executive Officer, Killik & Co Gavin Oldham OBE, Chairman Share plc/The Share Centre  ...

Daily Mail, 7 March 2020, Small shareholders set for power boost

Small shareholders set for power boost as shake-up may give ... This is Money, 7 Mar 2020: ...Cliff Weight, a director at ShareSoc, another group representing small investors, said: ‘Low rates of voting by individual investors mean opportunists can overly influence takeovers.’...

ShareSoc-UKSA Response: Law Commission Review of Intermediated Securities – Call for Evidence

ShareSoc-UKSA submitted a joint response on behalf of individual investors, on 5 Nov 2019. The key points we made were: Communication by email rather than by post is now the norm and assumed as the default position. Printing annual reports and shareholder circulars and sending them to shareholders by post is no longer necessary. Postage and printing costs were some of the key drivers of the nominee system. A modern system of intermediated securities should embrace and recognise modern technology and ensure ...

Law Commission Error on Segregated Accounts

In a previous blog post on the Law Commission’s consultation on Intermediated Securities I queried their claim that all investors in nominee accounts had the option to use a...

Shareholder Rights Being Eroded

There is a good article in the Financial Times today (Saturday 22/6/2019) which is headlined “UK shareholder rights being eroded”. As the article says, almost no investors who buy shares legally own the shares they have bought, which rather surprises them. That’s because most of them buy via nominee accounts operated by stockbrokers and platforms. Not only that, but most nominee accounts are “pooled” accounts so even identifying who are the “beneficial owners” is not always easy. Does it matter? Yes it ...

Shareholder Rights and Nominee accounts – Update and letter to BEIS

Our relationships with key opinion formers continue to grow. Peter Parry, Mike Dennis, Mark Bentley and I had a very useful meeting with BEIS on 8 Jan and at their request I have written explaining why the Minister should now act on the nominee account issue. A copy of my letter of 18 Feb is below. (The reason for the long delay in writing this letter was due to illness. It was delayed due my trip to Cambodia and Vietnam, and then ...

Protect your rights, act now!

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to regain the rights and protections that you have lost as a result of the nominee account system. I urge you to act now by raising this issue at AGMs and writing to your MP, as suggested below. Probably the most important ShareSoc campaign is the Shareholder Rights campaign, launched in October 2014 to gain full rights for ALL shareholders. Individual shareholder rights have been eroded, particularly by the nominee account mechanism and the way that platforms and ...

Shareholder Rights

Probably the most important ShareSoc campaign is the Shareholder Rights campaign, launched in October 2014 to get full rights to ALL shareholders. Individual shareholder rights have been eroded, particularly by the nominee account process and the way that platforms, registrars and brokers fail to provide a good service to individual investors. Often, individual investors do not get informed when a general meeting is going to happen, and do not receive circulars, voting forms and annual reports. And many platforms make it difficult ...

Sophos, Interquest and Government Policy

Yesterday I missed the Sophos (SOPH) AGM due to having a clashing engagement, but I noticed that in the announcement of the voting results that there were substantial votes against the Remuneration Report (29.8% against) and also high votes against most of the directors. One only needs to glance at the Remuneration Policy to see why. The maximum bonus opportunity is 200% of salary, and the maximum LTIP award is 500% of salary in normal circumstances and up to 750% in exceptional ...

AIC Response to Green Paper

The Association of Investment Companies (AIC) have published their response to the Government's Green Paper on Corporate Governance. One recommendation contained therein is that "The AIC also recommends that a detailed study to assess retail investors’ access to voting services on platforms and other nominee account services is undertaken to identify any necessary reforms". This is of course a very positive endorsement of an issue that ShareSoc has been campaigning upon for some time - see our campaign page here: Shareholder ...

How to Hold Shares – Investors Chronicle Article

Friday (11/3/2016) saw the publication of a sound article by Investors Chronicle under the headline "Choose the right way to hold your shares". It reported on the recently published BIS research paper on shareholding in the UK upon which we have previously commented. It quotes me extensively on the subject including these comments: "The UK Individual Shareholders Society (ShareSoc) said the report showed "the need for reform". Roger Lawson, deputy chairman of ShareSoc, says brokers have an incentive to keep investors ignorant ...

Better Finance Press Release on Shareholder Rights Directive

The following press release has just been issued by Better Finance - an organisation that represents private investor associations: PRESS RELEASE A CAPITAL MARKETS UNION WITHOUT A SINGLE MARKET FOR EU-WIDE SHAREHOLDER ENGAGEMENT Brussels, 9 November 2015 – The Commission’s proposal for the review of the Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD), aimed at countering wide-spread short-termism in favour of a long-term perspective in the governance of listed companies by stimulating stronger shareholder engagement, was presented to the European Parliament (EP) and Council. Whereas the EP ...