Shareholder Committees

In a previous blog post, I discussed the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Green Paper on Corporate Governance Reform issued in November 2016.

One of the options suggested in the Green Paper in relation to shareholder engagement on pay, was to ‘Establish a senior “shareholder” committee to engage with executive remuneration arrangements’. According to para 1.36, ‘A complementary or alternative way to enable greater shareholder engagement on pay might be to establish a senior Shareholder Committee to scrutinize remuneration and other key corporate issues such as long term strategy and directors’ appointments. The full implications of adapting any such model in the UK, however, would need careful consideration given its potential impact on our long-established unitary board structure.’

The idea of a shareholder committee received support from some organisations including a joint response to the Green Paper from The UK Shareholders’ Association (UKSA) and the UK Individual Shareholders’ Society (ShareSoc).  Both of these organisations represent the interests of private shareholders who invest directly or indirectly via nominee accounts in public companies or in other forms of equity-based investment.

Their joint response stated ‘We strongly support the concept of Shareholder Committees, provided that they represent the interests of all shareholders, including private investors and investors in employee share plans.’ They are of the view that ‘Shareholder  Committees  are  a  core  part  of  the  solution  to  the  problems  of  corporate  governance. There are many  other elements of governance and control that can be improved and we have commented  in  our  response  on  those  where  we  have  specific  knowledge.  However, without Shareholder  Committees,  and  concomitant  reform  to  restore  the  rights  of  individual  shareholders, other changes to corporate governance are unlikely to produce meaningful change.’

However, certain organisations, for example, Tomorrow’s Company, are wary of widening the scope to include issues such as remuneration.  Tomorrow’s Company’s website states that ‘The original idea proposed by Tomorrow’s Company in 2010 was for a Shareholder Committee which would involve shareholders large (and small) in the most important single governance decision – who represents them on boards. Later variants, like this one and that by Chris Philp MP, have widened the scope to involving investors in discussions about remuneration.’ Tomorrow’s Company then points out that ‘The risk of this more complicated approach is that it compromises the clear leadership responsibility of the board.’

 

Royal Bank of Scotland

A case in point is that of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).  With over 70% ownership by UK taxpayers, there is a very real argument that its governance is of interest to the public more generally.  Aime Williams in her article ‘Shareholders clash with RBS’, (1^st April 2017, Financial Times) reports that ‘About 160 individual investors are pushing RBS to form a shareholders’ committee, which would allow retail investors to have a formal say on RBS proposals, such as executive pay, company strategy and director appointments.’

However, RBS’ preference is for a stakeholder committee which would allow a wider stakeholder group to have a voice and air any concerns to directors.  A key difference though, is that a stakeholder panel would have less power and therefore would likely be less effective than a shareholder committee, which would be able to wield more influence.

The RBS Annual General Meeting will be held on 11th May 2017.  It will be interesting to see the outcomes of various resolutions, especially on potentially contentious issues such as executive remuneration, and whether a shareholder committee is established in the future.

 

 

Chris Mallin

April 2017