The date by which feedback was requested by the Taskforce has now passed. Below is a summary of the key elements of the Taskforce proposal. Please sign up below to hear from us on how things progress.
Do you have shares registered in your name and not through a fund, ISA, financial intermediary, or a pension plan?
If so, there’s a government-sponsored proposal from a Taskforce chaired by Sir Douglas Flint that could have big implications for you and your shareholding.
The proposal focuses on digitising shareholdings, and lots of the recommendations are good.
But the recommendations will also take away your automatic shareholder right to vote, ask questions, influence corporate decisions, and communicate directly with the companies you own shares in.
If these proposals go ahead, you will be required to transfer ownership of your shares to a nominee on your behalf. A nominee is often a bank or a broker who holds the shares on your behalf and passes on some of the benefits of ownership, such as dividends, but not the full suite of ownership rights, such as voting and attendance at meetings. Your ability, therefore, to automatically exercise the rights you currently enjoy directly as a shareholder will be subject to what services the nominee offers, and possibly at a cost to you.
Sign up below for updates from us on how things progress.
About us
The Shareholder Feedback site was developed by the Computershare group of companies.
Through this site and campaign, we hope to make sure shareholders know about the recommendations from Sir Douglas’s Taskforce and have an opportunity to comment on them during the consultation period.
Computershare has an interest here. We support a lot of what the Taskforce has recommended, for example we want more digitisation of shareholdings, but we also think that shareholders should retain their rights to deal directly with the companies in which they own shares and have concerns that any enforced transfer of property rights will be detrimental to ongoing efforts to encourage retail investment in UK companies. Part of our business is facilitating those interactions between shareholders and companies, and we have already voiced our concerns to Sir Douglas and his team.
If you share our views, we hope you will do the same. You can also read the full report here.
You can read more about Computershare on our corporate website.