The European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users - BETTER FINANCE, which unites over 5 million individual investors from 70 national shareholder and investor associations, including the founding member VZMD, has published an important presentation to understand the rights and significant role of European shareholders. They emphasize that the shares of small shareholders are not just their financial assets or investment products but also their voice in the companies they have invested in. The European Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD II) encourages small shareholders to actively participate in corporate governance, and ensures and protects their rights.
Annual General Meetings of public companies should represent the backbone of shareholder or economic democracy, and SRD II ensures that shareholders can participate - either directly or through proxies. Nevertheless, BETTER FINANCE, along with the German Association of Investors (DSW), which conducted an extensive pan-European survey including the VZMD, is appalled to find that 48% of European shareholders are unable to exercise their voting rights cross-border due to inadequate procedures, with 63% viewing the process as challenging due to complicated or insufficient notifications from their financial intermediaries. Additionally, 64% of shareholders who managed to exercise their cross-border voting rights had to pay high fees to financial intermediaries to participate or vote at the meetings!
National associations within BETTER FINANCE have been helping each other for many years - since the former successful EuroVote project established in 2011 at the initiative of DSW and VZMD (VIDEO: https://youtu.be/pfU2XWZ8FN4) - through mutual intermediation of proxies for representation at meetings. The European Federation of Investors reiterates that individual investors and households in the EU deserve an efficient and transparent process that ensures an appropriate and fair way of exercising rights and shareholder participation in European companies.
Other Related Activities:
BRUSSELS – three high-profile international conferences with active participation of the VZMD - 18.04.2024
www.vzmd.si – More on the VZMD – PanSlovenian Investors & Stakeholders Association
www.vzmd.tv and www.investo.tv – Over 300 videos from VZMD.TV and investo.tv
www.investo.si – More on the investo.si – Invest to Slovenia Program
www.investo.international – More on the network of 75 national organizations of shareholders and investors
