Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-12-Speech-1-198"
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"en.20070312.23.1-198"2
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"According to this morning’s Dutch papers, ISS, the company we are talking about, is advising its customers to thwart the plan to pay out an extra loyalty dividend to the shareholders who leave their shares in that company for three years or more at the forthcoming shareholders’ meeting of DSM, a major Dutch multinational. I think this plan by DSM is, in fact, a fantastic idea to promote responsible shareholdership. Extra dividends could be a means to achieve this, but so could higher vote weighting, which could be another legitimate form. This is why I have always opposed those who persistently advocate what they call shareholder democracy on the ‘one share, one vote’ principle.
This was broached for the first time when we discussed the Take-Over Directive. The original intention of the thirteenth directive was certainly not to create the kingdom of corporate control by shareholders on earth, but simply to protect minority shareholders and allow for a decent buy-out. A handful of fanatic interested parties, however, managed to make this one share, one vote idea absolute, the key advocate being ISS. Not only based on ideological motives, but also because their trade simply consists in collecting voting rights and granting proxy services to shareholders.
With all due respect for the Commission’s statement, I consider it highly unusual that an inquiry should be launched within a party that is so outspokenly prejudiced and implicated. I have just been familiarising myself with the way the inquiry was conducted; I have seen the questionnaires that are still being circulated among investment companies on the one hand and companies on the other, in which companies are simply being asked whether they use certain Control Enhancing Mechanisms (CEMs), including pyramid structures, certification, gold shares, and suchlike, while investors are approached in a totally different way, being presented with a number of leading questions that gauge their views about all these bad measures. I can probably predict the outcome of this inquiry.
In a nutshell, I already have major reservations about the outcome of the inquiry and do not think it can be a sound basis for further conclusions and intentions, such as drafting recommendations. We should first of all look into the reasons why companies have these CEMs and why, in this day and age, in which shareholder activism on the part of hedge funds is rife, there is a renewed need for protection against short-term investment activity. A fundamental debate with this House will be needed before the Commission is ready to develop any measures or any further activity."@en1
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