Spencer is a high-profile figure in London’s financial industry and previously served as treasurer for Britain’s ruling Conservative party. REUTERS/Brendan McDermidĪ union of the two firms would enable investors to access cash and futures trading and over-the-counter services via one provider for the first time, improving access to markets, NEX’s founder and Chief Executive Michael Spencer said in a statement. Why not ask for disclosure of any spending that the company thinks falls within the wider definition of political expenditure? It might shake some interesting data out, and reveal things shareholders may be uncomfortable with.įinally, I can't help but notice that the chair of Nex Group is also a non-executive director of Caledonia Investments, which people may remember had a bit of history of this kind of thing which also ended badly.Men enter the CME Group offices in New York, U.S., October 18, 2017. More generally, perhaps it is time that shareholders toughened up on the issue of political spending overall. Companies rarely completely fold to campaigners' demands immediately, but the fact that the chair immediately agreed to pay the money back out of his own pocket makes me wonder if the board thinks they crossed a line.
But I wonder whether a shareholder could argue that this is actively misleading - I've seen cases taken over misleading IPO docs for example. But donations were made by Nex Group in any case (assuming Nex used the carried over ICAP authority).Īt the least this is a breach of investor trust, and I seriously question why any shareholder would vote for the resolution next week after this has happened. As you can see, ICAP strongly suggested this would be the case. When seeking these authorities companies typically explicitly state that the authority will not be used to make political donations. Many companies seek authority to make political donations, but do so to avoid being caught by a wider definition of "political expenditure" (paying for stands at conferences etc). There has been no expenditure under the corresponding authority obtained at the 2015 Of the broad definitions of political donations and political expenditure contained within the Act, the directors consider it prudent The directors have no present intention to make political donations but, because The Act contains restrictions on companies making donations to political organisations or incurring politicalĮxpenditure without prior shareholder approval. Its subsidiary companies of up to an aggregate amount of £100,000 in the period up to the Company’s annual general meeting Resolution 12 is to approve the making of political donations and incurring of political expenditure by the Company and any of Here's what it put in the notes to the resolutions (my emphasis added) in their notice of meeting:Īuthority to make political donations (resolution 12) But the forerunner company had sought shareholder approval at its AGM last year. This will be Nex Group's first AGM, so it had not sought prior approval as Nex Group. A PLC can't make donations without shareholder approval.
Because there is something pretty disturbing about this case. make political donations, and that a number of shareholders would indeed have voted against.Īnd they may still. In addition to the media coverage it was clear that various proxy advisers had recommended opposing the resolution at next week's AGM seeking authority to. This was literally a waste of money, since three of the Tory candidates lost.įollowing exposure of the donations by The Independent, backed up by a great comment piece, the company issued a statement that the donations were the initiative of the chairman, Charles Gregson, and that he would personally pay back the £25,000. The company has its AGM next Wednesday and disclosed in the notice of meeting that it had spent £25,000 funding five Conservative Party candidates facing Liberal Democrat challengers in the last election. Next Group, the successor company to ICAP, just managed to publicly humiliate itself by spending company funds on political campaigns.
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