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The vast majority of retail shareholders are failing to vote on company behaviour, executive pay and bonuses and climate change policy.
Both interactive investor and Hargreaves Lansdown investment platforms confirmed this week that less than 10 per cent of investors were using their right to vote at company annual general meetings (AGMs).
Just eight per cent of ii’s customers registered to vote on their shares in 2020 while just a quarter had switched on their free voting facility. An investigation by the Mail on Sunday prompted Hargreaves Lansdown to admit that less than 1 per cent of eligible customers vote.
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Richard Wilson, chief executive of interactive investor, said: “Far too few retail investors are voting but there is strength in numbers and investors’ enduring mark is ultimately made through their vote. I hold my hands up. There’s far more we can do to raise awareness. So I am starting now.”
Mr Wilson said he believed the investment platform industry, administering billions of pounds of retail investor money in PLCs, needs to do more to encourage and facilitate shareholder voting.
“There is no obligation to vote, but we need to be doing far more to educate and inform customers about the power of voting their shares. And if you don’t know what your platforms’ processes are on voting, it is important to ask.”
Last year Unilever was the most voted on company share on ii’s platform, followed by Sirius Minerals, Lloyds Banking Group, BP, Vodafone, Royal Dutch Shell, Scottish Mortgage Trust, GlaxoSmithKline, Rolls Royce, Royal Mail.
“Lloyds Banking Group has long been the UK’s most popular shareholding and companies like Rolls-Royce and Royal Mail have an army of vocal shareholders,” said Lee Wild, head of equity strategy at ii.
“Unilever’s vote last year to modernise its complex 90-year-old legal structure was one of the busiest we’ve seen. And, in a first for a global company, the Dove soap maker will put its climate transition plans before a shareholder vote at its AGM on 5 May. Part of its plan is to achieve zero emissions from its own operations by 2030.
“Unilever is leading the way in this area and other companies are under increasing pressure to put strategies on environmental, social and governance issues to the vote, not just pay. If they vote in numbers, investors with smaller shareholdings can make a real difference and influence how companies behave.”
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