25/11/2011 Euroshareholders welcomes the call for evidence on Empty Voting launched by ESMA. The whole issue of voting rights and who can and cannot exercise them is of vital concern to Euroshareholders, our member organizations and all European individual shareholders, as it is one of the issues harming shareholder engagement and therefore good corporate governance.

Position paper:
ESH reply ESMA call for evidence on Empty Voting1322236744.pdf

14/09/2011 EuroInvestors welcomes the European Commission’s consultation on Social Investment Funds. As far as retail investors are concerned, similar retail funds already exist throughout Europe, like the “fonds solidaires” in France. The key challenges to effectively promote retail investments in social businesses will be to: define very clearly and precisely what social businesses are: the EC proposed definition is not precise enough and diverges from other existing definitions; have a neutral control on the reality of the “social” nature of any business claiming it.; grant investor information and protection rules as close as possible to those provided by MiFID and by UCITS IV Directives; have an independent and trusted rating of such funds; simplify and clarify the offerings in this field instead of just adding yet another category of retail investments of which there are already too many, creating a lot of confusion in retail investors minds; especially the difference with SRI funds must be very clearly spelled out.

Position paper:
EFI reply on Social Business Initiative consultation1317736808.pdf

09/08/2011 EuroInvestors (EFI) agrees with the European Commission (EC) that venture capital is particularly important for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the EU, since venture capital provides finance to companies with promising but untested business models that are confronted with high levels of uncertainty as regards their future prospects. In these circumstances, these companies often face difficulties to find access to other more traditional sources of funding, in particular innovative start-up businesses that face difficulty in accessing traditional bank lending or finance through stock exchanges. But, at the same time, EFI is concerned that by legitimately trying to ease venture capital funding for SMEs, the EC may be lowering the investors’ protection level.

Position paper:
EFI reply to EC consultation A new European regime for Venture Capital1322648214.pdf