Public register

The Public Register is the world’s first register tracking shareholder dissent at listed companies. The Register details companies in the UK FTSE All Share that have received significant opposition by shareholders to a resolution (written statements by a company’s board of directors detailing a binding corporate action), or any resolution withdrawn before a shareholder vote. 

In doing so, it helps to identify which companies are acknowledging shareholder dissent and how they are addressing their shareholders’ concerns.

We included the idea of setting up a Public Register of shareholder votes in our response to the Government’s Green Paper on Corporate Governance Reform in 2017. In its final response in August 2017, the Government asked the IA to develop and maintain the Register, which includes:

• key details about the resolution (title, meeting date etc)
• results of the shareholder vote (percentage of votes cast for and against, number of votes withheld, and percentage of the issued share capital voted)
• a link to the AGM/GM results, including any statement made by the Board in response to the significant vote against at the time of the meeting – as required under provision E.2.2. of the UK Corporate Governance Code
• a link to any further announcements by the company in response to the dissent, including shareholder views and what the company has done or plans to do.

The new UK Corporate Governance Code requires an update statement within six months of the shareholder meeting. To help companies, we’ve produced guidance setting out what investors would like to see from these update statements. You can find this guidance here.

We also track companies appearing on the Public Register for consecutive years. Our Repeated Dissent list captures all companies appearing on the Register for two consecutive years, for the same resolution. Investors consider this shows a company is not responding adequately to investor views or engaging with them effectively.

You can find more details about the approach on the methodology page. For any further questions email [email protected]. For media enquiries email [email protected]

Last Updated: 31 October 2019