Imbalance of power: loyalty shares threaten ‘one share, one vote’
The rise of loyalty shares—conferring multiple voting rights—is disrupting the principle of fair and equal treatment of all shareholders in Europe and beyond.
Image: Optimarc/Shutterstock
One share, one vote. It’s a compelling premise for corporate governance, but it is being eroded by developments around the world, including in Europe. At LGIM, we are actively working to push back for equality.
If you bought one share in a company that had issued 100 shares, you would reasonably expect to control 1% of the voting rights in that company. If you bought more shares, you would also hope that your voting rights would increase correspondingly.
This, however, is increasingly not the case across Europe. One reason for this is the rise of so-called loyalty shares, which generally give their holders double or multiple voting ri
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