As many of you know I am a director of ShareSoc the UK Shareholder Society which many of you are also members of. We regularly launch campaigns to help individual investors in companies large and small. Our latest investor campaign was launched this week to have a Shareholder Committee at Royal Bank of
Scotland ($RBS), and we really need your help if you are already or know other RBS shareholders.
At ShareSoc we think this is in the public interest. We believe that there is a problem in the corporate governance of many quoted companies, as is evidenced in the recent Government Green Paper. RBS is an important asset and its ownership and the way it is governed is of interest to the wider public. There is a need for companies to step up and respond to Mrs May’s initiative on making capitalism work for everyone. Of critical importance is the role of large shareholders.
We are currently taking steps to implement our proposal of Shareholder Committees. We plan to request a resolution to the RBS AGM to form a Shareholder Committee. To do this we need the support of 100 shareholders who hold an average of at least 100 shares each; or the support of shareholders owning 5% of the shares; or RBS to volunteer to submit the resolution themselves.
Our view is that most sensible people will see the benefit of piloting sensible sounding initiatives, and that RBS with its track record is a very good candidate for such a committee. Any support and advice you can give would be appreciated.
Because the majority of the representatives on the Shareholder Committee are likely be nominees and asset managers, there must be a requirement that their duty on the Shareholder Committee will be to represent the interests of the beneficial owners (and not their own). Without this, we end up back where we are now with large shareholders who could force action on a number of issues but prefer to maintain the status quo.
Our director Cliff Weight is leading the campaign and he has written to Chris Philp, MP about how to improve his proposals and a copy of the letter we sent is on the ShareSoc Website.
ShareSoc sent out an email on Monday to our members asking for their support. The early response…
David... I'm going to do what I can to help. Will see if I can drum up some support.
