Marks & Spencer steps up shareholder democracy campaign

Marks & Spencer has teamed up with the Interactive Investor platform to give thousands of people who do not hold shares in their own name the chance to vote at annual general meetings.

The move is the latest in the retailer’s ‘Share Your Voice’ campaign – backed by The Mail on Sunday – which aims to boost shareholder democracy by making it easier for private investors to have a say in how the companies they own are run. 

M&S chairman Archie Norman wants to improve links between companies and small shareholders who use so-called nominee accounts on platforms such as Interactive Investor, where their holdings are pooled with those of other savers.

These are a popular, low-cost way of owning shares, but companies do not know the identity of nominee investors and cannot communicate with them directly. 

‘Nominees make up 40 per cent of the market and investor platforms are growing, so unless we act the connection between companies and private shareholders will be lost,’ Norman said.

‘However people own their shares, they have a right to have a say and hold their boards to account.’

The pilot scheme with Interactive Investor, the UK’s second biggest investment site, aims to increase shareholder participation at annual meetings.

Previously only retail investors who held shares in their own name could vote at M&S annual meetings. That right is now being extended to M&S shareholders on Interactive Investor’s platform.

The company has been holding digital-only meetings since 2020, with three times as many shareholders taking part compared with previous in-person meetings.

M&S has also joined forces with a number of trade bodies, including The Quoted Companies Alliance, to call for the Companies Act to be modernised so that shareholders have more of a voice in the companies in which they invest.

You can sign the petition at petition.parliament.uk/petitions/636051