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Speaker 1: the personal finance edition of merin Talks Money.
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Speaker 1: Podcasts, we talk about the best strategies for making the
Speaker 1: most of your money. I'm Merri in some set web
Speaker 1: and with me senior reporter and Money Distilled author John
Speaker 1: step Back, Hi, John, I'm in right. This week, we
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about something kind of really quite old fashioned, right,
Speaker 1: We wanted to talk.
Speaker 2: About, yeah, shareholder perks. Now.
Speaker 1: I think a lot, as you know, about ownership and
Speaker 1: about how we give people a sense of ownership when
Speaker 1: they hold equities. And this is something that most people
Speaker 1: don't have, right because they hold their acts very remotely.
Speaker 1: They hold them as a giant fund through their auto enrollment,
Speaker 1: or they hold their shares in a fund on a platform,
Speaker 1: and even if they hold their shares as a single share,
Speaker 1: they still hold them on a platforms. So there isn't
Speaker 1: a certificate, there isn't something to touch. And also people
Speaker 1: don't go to agms in the way they used to
Speaker 1: in the old days, so people don't have that sense
Speaker 1: of connection to the companies in which they invest. And
Speaker 1: that's as you're getting slightly worse, not better.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen this conversations underway at
Speaker 1: the moment too it maybe there might we might see
Speaker 1: an end to the physical agm. We might see an
Speaker 1: end to the way that individuals can vote on remuneration
Speaker 1: at agms, etc. And I'm really nervous about this because
Speaker 1: I really think the physical AGM should be compulsory. I
Speaker 1: think if you should be compulsory for all companies to
Speaker 1: have physical agms, I think they should also be forced
Speaker 1: to live stream them so that you can either watch
Speaker 1: them online or you can go to them. And I
Speaker 1: also absolutely believe that tea and biscuits should be compulsory
Speaker 1: at these physical agms and active I was going to
Speaker 1: go one step further and let me do that. I
Speaker 1: would say that lunch should be compulsory, Yes, lunch, and
Speaker 1: what's more, what's more, that the AGM should start at
Speaker 1: a time that allows older people to use their discounted
Speaker 1: travel documents to get there. That's maximum participation. I think
Speaker 1: this really matters. You're meant to be anti regulation and
Speaker 1: have anti regulation, but I'm proved somethings improve some things.
Speaker 1: I'm pro participation, I'm pro shareholder democracy, and I'm pro
Speaker 1: people feeling like they have a sense of ownership. And
Speaker 1: I think that we have possibly allowed companies to get
Speaker 1: away with not really treating their individual shareholders in the
Speaker 1: way that they should. You know, if you look at
Speaker 1: the look at the history of agms, right, these used
Speaker 1: to be so much more fun. I wrote about this
Speaker 1: in that book. I wrote Ages Ago Share Power, about
Speaker 1: people turning up there with some very famous nuns, right,
Speaker 1: who used to turn up all the time. In fact,
Speaker 1: they probably still do and engage with companies on anything
Speaker 1: that that bothered them. And long before that, there were
Speaker 1: I wrote about these brothers, the Gilbert brothers, who made
Speaker 1: a big fortune in the Californian gold Rush, and they
Speaker 1: moved all their money out of pick axes, pots and
Speaker 1: pans eventually into stock markets. And then they went to
Speaker 1: literally every single shareholder meeting and complained about everything, and
Speaker 1: when they didn't get the answers, they wanted to stand
Speaker 1: up and show you work for me, you work for me,
Speaker 1: And I thought that was great. Great, it's activism, and
Speaker 1: you know the world needs more Gilbert. I will just say,
Speaker 1: before I get on to what we're actually supposed to
Speaker 1: be talking about, I wanted to point out an article
Speaker 1: I read in one of the newspapers this weekend about
Speaker 1: an order of nuns in West London. In fact, I've
Speaker 1: walked past this convent quite a lot now I come
Speaker 1: to think about it, and they are doing exactly the same,
Speaker 1: taking on, taking on corporate America who are doing things
Speaker 1: they don't like. They've been running a lot campaign against
Speaker 1: City Bank about a fossil fuels and impact on Indigenous rights,
Speaker 1: and how you might feel about that is not really
Speaker 1: the point here.
Speaker 2: The point is that if you're a shareholder.
Speaker 1: You get the perk, You get the perk of being
Speaker 1: able to use your vote, go to the a GM,
Speaker 1: have your cake, make your voice known.
Speaker 2: And I think that's really important.
Speaker 3: No, that is important. It's all about ownership, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: It's one of the reasons we do have a lot
Speaker 3: of films we have at the moment is because people
Speaker 3: are either in a weird of or increasingly detached from
Speaker 3: that whole coincept.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and how do you get rid of that?
Speaker 1: How do you get rid of a distance between a
Speaker 1: person and an institution?
Speaker 2: In the UK?
Speaker 1: And you know the answer, and I know the answer,
Speaker 1: and I suspect that our listeners also know the answer.
Speaker 2: And the answer is discounted booze, isn't it though?
Speaker 3: I mean, isn't that the answer to everything? Let's be honest, Well,
Speaker 3: in the.
Speaker 1: UK, at least, I suspect that other countries have different dynamics,
Speaker 1: but here cheap booze it's the answer.
Speaker 2: And we're having this conversation.
Speaker 1: Because we noticed that Chapel Down is one of the
Speaker 1: few companies left that has a really great perk. If
Speaker 1: you're a shareholder in Chapel Down, what is it? Well,
Speaker 1: what's the discount job?
Speaker 3: Well, it's at least of when them with twenty five
Speaker 3: percent off of things what one share.
Speaker 2: Minimum shares needed one details.
Speaker 1: If you've got between one and one nine hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety nine shares, you are a silver shareholder and you
Speaker 1: got a twenty five cent diskind of you got two
Speaker 1: thousand or more shares, you're a Gold shareholder and you
Speaker 1: get discounts off all sorts of things.
Speaker 2: Under wine, there's a platinum shareholder.
Speaker 3: If you get more than ten thousand shares, you get
Speaker 3: thirty three percent of wine purchases and annual guided two
Speaker 3: vouchers for four running off at some restaurant and their shop,
Speaker 3: and various other little perks as well. So great, I mean,
Speaker 3: I actually be feeling in this neck of the woods.
Speaker 3: I actually know quite a lot of people who are
Speaker 3: fans of Chapel Down for various reasons. But barely. I
Speaker 3: mean that is the kind of thing where you would
Speaker 3: say there and you think, well, actually, if I drink
Speaker 3: any quantity of this way, and I thought, it probably
Speaker 3: is worth just owning shares purely for that.
Speaker 1: Share prices need thirty five p, right, thirty five p
Speaker 1: and you get an annual twenty five percent discount verge.
Speaker 3: I mean it's not bad, No, it's not. And I
Speaker 3: mean this, I mean, and this is the other thing
Speaker 3: that I was looking at. What is it Bloomsbury and
Speaker 3: Bloomsberry function GQ rulings publisher. I think they're still publisher.
Speaker 3: It's you get thirty five percent off the r RP
Speaker 3: of any of their books in print in one chair,
Speaker 3: which is you know, so you really think that shares
Speaker 3: like six point ten at the moment, So at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, if you don't have to buy
Speaker 3: very many hard back books to get the money off.
Speaker 3: And yes, by the way, it is the home of
Speaker 3: Harry Potter, very Potter.
Speaker 1: A lots of these things now and it used to
Speaker 1: be back in the older. Is that a lot of
Speaker 1: the discounts only came if you had an actual share
Speaker 1: typical Yeah, In fact, looking at the list, there are
Speaker 1: some that are still like that BT Group PLC discounts
Speaker 1: on a variety of products and services, but it's only
Speaker 1: avaiable to shareholders with this with a share certificate.
Speaker 2: But most of.
Speaker 1: Them now, if you get in touch with your platform,
Speaker 1: they're going to arrange for you to have proof of
Speaker 1: ownership so you can receive the perk.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and I mean I think I think that's
Speaker 3: one reason why, and I mean the promised Actually, I
Speaker 3: was just looking at some research and this, and the
Speaker 3: one thing that I couldn't really find out was I
Speaker 3: don't think there's an easy way to measure whether perks
Speaker 3: have gone down in either popularity or the number companies
Speaker 3: offering them. There's certainly a sense that they have, and
Speaker 3: I think if that's the case, it is partly because
Speaker 3: we had this transition from paper shares to you know,
Speaker 3: kind of like once well through nominee accounts, so it
Speaker 3: became much much harder and for the same reason sort
Speaker 3: of like people going to agms, actually in voting probably
Speaker 3: went down somewhat as well, because suddenly there was this
Speaker 3: kind of middle person between you and your shares. Where
Speaker 3: I think things have changed now though, has been with
Speaker 3: technology it's like I mean, for example, I have an
Speaker 3: account with one of the big platforms, and it's very
Speaker 3: good at nagging me you in the e GM when
Speaker 3: it's coming up, and so you think the trans feril
Speaker 3: mechanism new for for perks, I think is much much easier. Also,
Speaker 3: I think to be feeling the BT boys, I think
Speaker 3: those authors do going. I don't think it's just the
Speaker 3: certificated people, because I think that would be extremely old fashioned.
Speaker 1: Well that says on the Hardbridge Landstone website, which is
Speaker 1: where I just checked.
Speaker 3: I'd be surprised if that isn't a we put it there.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right now the best, the best ones. I'm
Speaker 1: looking down the list right, and the best ones seemed
Speaker 1: to be all about things that the Brits really like.
Speaker 2: Booze and holidays.
Speaker 3: Your boos and holidays, Reny.
Speaker 1: Sure you get discounts on package holidays books with the
Speaker 1: company's subsidiary, which in travel.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's the funniest one. That's going to be one
Speaker 3: of the funniest. It's like NI shows like this engineering
Speaker 3: group and you can get a discout in a package.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Norwegian Cruise Line on board credit that maybe people
Speaker 1: aren't thinking about cruis right now, Mitchell and Butler's twenty
Speaker 1: percent of total bill.
Speaker 2: Gosh, yes, no it is. It's basically all about It's
Speaker 2: all about.
Speaker 1: Smiths in turn a shareholder indulgent cord giving food to
Speaker 1: percent of food to drink, ten percent discount in the hotels, Carnival.
Speaker 3: What do you get on Carnival? I think you get
Speaker 3: some one of your cruise sorts of things. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: You know I was looking this up, John, because I
Speaker 1: was wondering when this all started. When did this idea
Speaker 1: come that you should give people some sense of excitement
Speaker 1: and something extra from holding shares. And do you know
Speaker 1: when you think back about the first thing that one
Speaker 1: of the first things that retail investors really went for.
Speaker 1: I always think of Foreign colonial the investment trust, right,
Speaker 1: And they had this great system back in the eighteen
Speaker 1: seventies where when you bought a certificate because we're not
Speaker 1: reading when shares and certificates that you bought it a
Speaker 1: account and then redeemed it past. You'd buy one for
Speaker 1: eighty five p and then when redemption date came along,
Speaker 1: you get one hundred backs. It were more like a
Speaker 1: bond than a share. But nonetheless, they had this lottery component,
Speaker 1: so all the certificates would be out there, and then
Speaker 1: every year they would have a random draw of the
Speaker 1: certificates and if you won, you got your money early,
Speaker 1: so you've effectively made your capital gain ages before anybody else,
Speaker 1: and then you could reinvest.
Speaker 3: I like that as well, because it's a bit of
Speaker 3: elaborate financial engineering and throwing that lottery element, and people
Speaker 3: just will pay for the lottery.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't actually understand why. I just put regulator reason,
Speaker 3: but I don't understand what companies should somehow figure it
Speaker 3: a way to make that gambling instinct. What can the
Speaker 3: cost of capital favor? Again? I feel, but not, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's very interesting. The other big one that
Speaker 3: I remember, there was legendaries that it was Eurotunnel. God, yes,
Speaker 3: when that first listed, I think if you were among
Speaker 3: the original shareholders, you basically got something like next to
Speaker 3: free travel on the euro on the Channel Tunnel, like
Speaker 3: for life. I think you did, and they did try.
Speaker 3: I think they tried to take it away, but it
Speaker 3: was legally challenged because obviously that went through a load
Speaker 3: of restructures and etcetera, et cetera. And I think the
Speaker 3: original shareolders still have that perk. I mean, I could
Speaker 3: be wrong, but I don't think. I think you had
Speaker 3: to be in the original batch.
Speaker 2: But anybody out.
Speaker 1: There who still has that, do write in and let
Speaker 1: us know. That will be fascinating. We'd also like to know,
Speaker 1: if you do have it, how often.
Speaker 3: You've used it. I remember working with some guys in
Speaker 3: the early two thousands who who had who had got it,
Speaker 3: and they were still using it, so it was it
Speaker 3: was sort of still legendary up until up until then
Speaker 3: at least.
Speaker 1: Oh we forgot to mention Melbury, we forgot to mention
Speaker 1: Margery exactly good. Yeah, Now you get a twenty percent discount.
Speaker 1: I think you have to have a certain number of
Speaker 1: shares for that. I don't think that comes easy, that one,
Speaker 1: because obviously the shares are quite high in absolute terms,
Speaker 1: well not that high, but here over a pound, and
Speaker 1: I think I can't remember how many you have to have,
Speaker 1: but slightly more than others.
Speaker 2: But then you get a twenty percent discount, which is
Speaker 2: surely worth.
Speaker 3: It if you any of your design the handbags.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And you know I think that when I
Speaker 1: think about perks, I think to myself, it's not really
Speaker 1: about the money, right, It's about the sense that you're
Speaker 1: part of a group that it sort of leaves you
Speaker 1: to the company and it gives you a great degree
Speaker 1: of corporate loyalty. But then I remember that whenever anyone
Speaker 1: says it's not about the money, it's about the principle.
Speaker 2: It's always about the money.
Speaker 1: And I guess if I was a big buyer of
Speaker 1: Mulberry handbags and I was a shelter, it would definitely
Speaker 1: be about the money.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, And the thing that's a good point because
Speaker 3: I was. I was certainly I was sort of like thinking, well,
Speaker 3: you know, especially you shouldn't late the text, do all
Speaker 3: wag the investment dog. But actually, if you can be
Speaker 3: bothered then and a lot of people can be bothered
Speaker 3: to other sort of you know, money saving expert type
Speaker 3: menu shy. So if you if you do go to
Speaker 3: a certain pub a lot and you can buy one
Speaker 3: share and get ten percent of all your bills, then
Speaker 3: I say, well, why wouldn't you do it? It's not
Speaker 3: as if you know you're going to recoup your initial
Speaker 3: investment very quickly.
Speaker 1: Well absolutely, I mean got a family wedding coming up
Speaker 1: at the end of this end of this year or
Speaker 1: over the summer hab some chapel down shares. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very compelling and I'm a big approval of this, John.
Speaker 1: What would you buy? What would you buy for the perks?
Speaker 1: I mean for the perks, I think give me as
Speaker 1: a cruiser.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say you want to know, we.
Speaker 3: Just cruise totally. The women in my family quite often
Speaker 3: shop next for stuff, So it's just you know, I
Speaker 3: think you get twenty five percent off once a year
Speaker 3: if you have enough shares. There links one hundred shares,
Speaker 3: and I mean, I know that's not terribly exciting, but
Speaker 3: the I think some of the smaller companies haven't looked
Speaker 3: into this properly. But some one of our correspondents on
Speaker 3: Twitter was mentioning a kind of a booze company on
Speaker 3: Aim that had entered at least I think it was
Speaker 3: perhaps maybe this was a one off thing, but basically
Speaker 3: got a bottle of twenty one year old whiskey as
Speaker 3: long as you bought shares at a certain time and
Speaker 3: had held them for this seven length of time and
Speaker 3: that sort of thing. I actually think, I think your
Speaker 3: point of ownership is actually really important on this, and
Speaker 3: it was something that I hadn't kind of considered. But
Speaker 3: can you imagine if everyone and an also enrollment pension
Speaker 3: who owned a foot say one hundred tracker, got a
Speaker 3: twenty five percent discount voucher from next every year as
Speaker 3: part of their pension statement. And because that's I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm assuming that the majority of these would
Speaker 3: actually qualify for it. Now, whether you know, let's well, yeah,
Speaker 3: because of the perks may explode if that happened. But
Speaker 3: I think that's quite an interesting thing to think about
Speaker 3: because it goes back to this thing and getting people
Speaker 3: excited and interested in and understanding, because then you would know,
Speaker 3: you know, all right, I actually owned shares and I
Speaker 3: didn't know that my auto enrolled pension was actually end
Speaker 3: this or you know what the other footally one hundred
Speaker 3: companies that still offer perks.
Speaker 1: And we've talked a lot over the years about look
Speaker 1: through voting and how people should be able to use
Speaker 1: their votes even if their shares are held inside a
Speaker 1: track of fund or an active fund or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: that you should be able to still influence how your
Speaker 1: vote is used, and look through perks seemed like an
Speaker 1: excellent idea as well. Look through perks look through tea
Speaker 1: and biscuits, look through lunch.
Speaker 3: Maybe what we could do is we could say the
Speaker 3: companies all day, you will let you off with a
Speaker 3: lunch and not the tea and biscuits, but we'll let
Speaker 3: you offer the lunch as long as you offer an
Speaker 3: actual perk to shareholders that is on a look through basis,
Speaker 3: and then they have an incentive to avoid the kind
Speaker 3: of hassle at the AGM by making sure they offer
Speaker 3: the half decent perk.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm good with that, as long as anyone
Speaker 1: who goes to the AGM is guaranteed tail coffee, at
Speaker 1: least two biscuits and a branded pen. Yep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's okay. I think I think we can shake
Speaker 3: hands on that ideal.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's a deal. I will add one thing to that,
Speaker 2: is it.
Speaker 1: Back when I was writing that book share Power, I
Speaker 1: looked at an SEA report that came out that was
Speaker 1: looking at how people feel about investing ETCTERA, and one
Speaker 1: of the things that came up very clearly was that
Speaker 1: new investors really enjoyed the status of feeling that they
Speaker 1: were owners. Yeah, and if we can give everybody that
Speaker 1: feeling of status with a little look through perk, three
Speaker 1: pen and a biscuit. I think we will really be
Speaker 1: improving matters in the UK, or certainly improving matters around
Speaker 1: the stock market.
Speaker 3: The genuine I genuinely think that's a great idea, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, if there's a company out there are the
Speaker 3: things actually, yeah, that is something that we could and
Speaker 3: should do, then maybe maybe it should. Maybe we can
Speaker 3: start at the end.
Speaker 1: Get in touch, let us know what perk you're prepared
Speaker 1: to offer, and John and I will let you know
Speaker 1: if we approve. Thanks John, Thanks Will, Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to this week's Marin Drugs Your Money. If you like
Speaker 1: our show, rate review, and subscribe wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: podcasts also be showed. Follow me and John on ex
Speaker 1: or Twitter at marinas w and John Underscore Stepic. This
Speaker 1: episode was produced by Summersadi and Moses and I'm sound
Speaker 1: designed by.
Speaker 2: Blake Mabeleson Aaron Kasper.
Speaker 1: Questions and comments on this show and all our shows
Speaker 1: are always welcome. Our show email is Merror Money at
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