Since the pandemic we have become increasingly used to interacting online. Work Teams or Zoom meetings have become a regular occurrence for office workers and video conferencing obviously
served a social function when Covid restrictions were in place.

Perhaps it’s not surprising then that Marks & Spencer’s (MKS) eye-catching ‘Share Your Voice’ campaign to push for a greater voice for ordinary shareholders presented online-only AGMs as a solution.

Marks’ own AGM this year was a digital-only affair, in a continuation of the enforced move online during Covid.

To give Marks & Spencer and its chairman Archie Norman their due, it is a really good thing they are pushing for retail investors to have more of a voice at the table. As the company says: ‘Outdated legislation means that ordinary people who have invested in the UK’s listed businesses struggle to hear from and communicate with them.’ You can read more about Marks’ campaign in this article.

Only ‘members’ of the company listed on the share register are ensured of the right to attend general meetings and vote on resolutions. To guarantee you are listed on the register you must hold your shares in paper certificate form or via a broker-sponsored Crest personal membership stockbroking account; Crest being the depository for the UK’s electronic share holdings.

If you instead hold shares in the nominee account of an investment platform, as most of us do, then your name is not on the register (the platform’s is instead) and nor are you a member, you are simply a beneficial owner of the shares. That said, most platforms facilitate attendance at AGMs and enable investors to vote.

While the proposal for online-only AGMs might help in terms of accessibility, some see problems with this approach and some of the campaign’s other proposed solutions.

Social venture The Engagement Group (TEA for short) – which is set up to push for more inclusive investor engagement says: ‘How can shareholders and other stakeholders be assured that the Share Your Voice campaign’s headline call for shareholder democracy matches its motives, given that the passing of a proposal for digital only AGMs would restrict shareholders’ ability to engage with company directors?’

Another bugbear for TEA is that Share Your Voice’s proposals ‘pass on the responsibility of facilitating dialogue between companies and their ultimate shareholders to the platforms and the registrars, thereby removing responsibility from the company, which as described above can be fulfilled more easily and less expensively than what companies may initially think’.

TEA highlights the efforts of investment trust BlackRock World Mining (BRWM) to identify the names of the individual shareholders behind the nominee accounts and write to them individually to invite them to attend AGMs. As the TEA argues, a hybrid approach seems the most sensible option with in-person access facilitated alongside the ability to participate online. From this writer’s experience chairing Shares’ own Spotlight investor events, being able to get up close and personal with company directors and questioning them directly can be an extremely enlightening experience for ordinary investors.

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