For several days now, I’ve been thinking about how we - private investors - could better influence companies. So I’ve been considering this idea: (I know there’s a development ideas thread - but I believe this is a “bigger” proposal and needs broader discussion - this way, other smaller correction suggestions won’t be overshadowed, etc.). Inderes wants to make the Helsinki Stock Exchange a better place. Here’s a suggestion for just that.
Inderes could provide a service where we private investors could make our voices heard together alongside the big players. Inderes would develop some kind of online petition platform that we could join by logging in with online banking credentials or similar. (We’d need to verify that we are indeed owners of the respective shares).
Lately, there have been various happenings:
For example, in the Citycon thread, @Iiiks had a good proactive approach regarding Citycon’s rent collection in the current Corona crisis. Mikael also brought the matter up on his Twitter.
Sampo’s balancing act with solvency (regarding potential acquisitions) is concerning, even though hybrid bonds could be issued (this still ‘costs’). What if the company could gain more leeway by distributing its dividend in several installments?
Case Nokian Renkaat: This was a while ago, but many wondered why the stock price rose significantly differently from the market. It later emerged that Hille had been shouting her market views in some call to the big boys before the start of the ‘silent period’. This is in no way equal treatment for us private investors! In my opinion, there should have been some kind of uproar about this… The matter isn’t huge, but I still think it would be appropriate to remind people about it.
Case Wärtsilä: The CEO boasts about how cheap he thinks the stock is. A couple of weeks later, a negative profit warning came. No one would want a CEO to be shouting this kind of communication. The right way for Eskola to comment on Wärtsilä’s stock price at the time would have been to buy the company’s shares. Not by shouting.
Not everyone liked Fortum’s move to buy Uniper. Perhaps someone would want swifter solutions to Fortum’s emissions? WWF at least tried something.
Surely there are other targets - and definitely more in the future.
I believe that together, our opinions could even be listened to a bit, and we could at least get a more comprehensive answer to the matter from senior management. (Of course, there are a few positive exceptional companies that have representatives here on the Inderes forum). Additionally, we wouldn’t be “spamming” company employees’ emails. Which do you think would be more convincing - 100 investors separately or 100 investors together?
A few things I’ve thought about:
It should be possible to be for & against the issue.
Such a ‘feature’ would be used responsibly.
Unregistered users should also be able to participate.
It could give a more positive image of ‘popular capitalism’.
Not everyone can/dares to go to a noisy company meeting, and this would be available year-round.
In my opinion, Inderes and its community would be a good ‘platform’ for something like this.
So, what kind of opinions does this community proposal evoke? What kind of things would you like to add or remove from this development? I hope the Inderes guys will also comment on this, both as private individuals and as company representatives. Let’s brainstorm and develop this together into something desirable - if you support such a thing! (Think about it for a moment, and don’t just throw out some quick 3-word comment).
Does the idea make sense? Would you like to be able to influence company actions together?
Of course, the company itself could see each participant by their own name and share quantity. Could participants also generally see how many shares they participated with? We can’t beat someone like Gazit, but you never know, maybe some pension company would come to our aid, etc. At least we would have tried our best, and not just stood idly by.
Of course, one must always consider that the target company does not get into trouble - in this case, I believe we could slightly deviate from the dividend payment and reduce it.
Each “community address” would of course be different and always concern a specific matter! It must also be remembered that this should be used responsibly to make our voices heard, and not just to complain about everything.
Here’s a power of attorney to print out, and someone will call if the petition doesn’t work:
“Hey Pentti, I’m calling on behalf of the 900,000 share owner. We think the dividend payment should be postponed, what do you think?”
But of course, there were those petition types, for example, when that care company was delisted from the stock exchange. That British guy had gathered a few friends and sent everyone a message saying not to accept the offer. For us, this would be a pretty big deal if we could make a small voice heard with something like this. A great initiative.
I propose an Inderes initiative award for Master Nyyb.K
This idea aligns with many of our operating principles and philosophy: democratization of the financial market, responsible ownership, impact through ownership, bringing out the voice of private investors, building a dialogue between companies and owners…
So these things are already under consideration and on the drawing board, it’s great to see that there is demand for them here too!
I think the decisive factor here is identified ownership: companies are really interested in hearing the views of owners (and due to the law, they are somewhat obliged to listen), but comments from nicknames on an online forum easily lose their value. Therefore, it is essential that we can identify shareholders and their voting power – fortunately, we have already developed and are continuing to develop technical solutions related to this and voting, mainly for general meetings. Shareholders could log into their own closed community, intended only for owners, perhaps here on the forum. The solution should be built to be scalable, so that it could be immediately deployed for all companies without a good idea failing due to manual processes (luckily @Yu_Gong codes anything for us).
If, by bringing small owners together, we can achieve a representative voting power of 5% or more, that community will already have weight in decisions. The purpose could be to ensure the rights of small owners, but also to promote societal issues related to responsible ownership (supporting long-term business). This would make it beneficial for companies because such a filter would condense the most essential wishes and thoughts from owners for the company, instead of the current fragmented information.
I have already discussed the matter more seriously with the board of one company. It’s funny that the topic was brought up here regardless. So there is reason to advance the topic once we resolve this general meeting hustle
Thanks for the good insight, Mikael! Personally, I would have thought there would be more smart ideas related to this, which is why I opened a separate thread for it
I completely agree, regarding this → Could something like this also be possible:
A forum user authenticates with strong authentication (bank IDs etc.) and if they post in a thread dedicated to a specific stock, then that username would have, for example, a IF they owned that stock? This way, other forum users would also see it. Of course, this could be toggled ON/OFF in the settings. (Of course, if the stocks are on Shareville, for example, where would the information come from then?)
Anyways, feel free to share your ideas for this and we might be able to speed up its production in the autumn I’ve already embarrassed myself with these ideas, so you don’t have to be ashamed!
I would envision the Inderes influencing channel to be similar to what is used with the familiar Citizen’s Initiative. The process could be as follows:
The company-specific pages on Inderes would show a “Company Initiatives” section (or similar), where open initiatives can be viewed and new ones created. Creating an initiative requires logging into Inderes. Let’s keep the threshold low here.
To get an initiative “through,” there is a time limit for the next stage, during which the initiative must receive support. Plus, Inderes staff approval, which filters out the worst drunken pranks in the early stages.
Once enough support is gathered within time X, the process moves to a stage requiring strong authentication, including signatures and collection of shareholdings.
I don’t know how share ownership would be identified, other than by using Euroclear’s interfaces. It would be necessary to separately identify holdings obtained through individuals and companies and aggregate them. If the system is to be scalable, this is, in my opinion, mandatory. Ideally, a real-time listing of how many shares are behind the initiative could even be collected.
Inderes would gain an interesting register from the data, so data protection issues would need to be considered carefully. And I don’t doubt that this is already being done!
Such a stream of consciousness for a Friday pastime.
Inspired by the coffee room discussion, I dug up this thread. Is some kind of online address still part of Inderes’ future plans?
When you look at Solteq’s share price reaction to a single post, it’s clear there’s muscle here to influence at least small companies. If we go as far as unlisted companies, that 5% voting power can be reached easily. I could imagine it would be possible to influence even larger domestic companies. A Sampo representative is already actively responding in their own thread.
It would also be really nice to know how much voting power the forum has in, for example, Smart Eye.
This is still very much in the ideation and drawing board phase; we haven’t had time for practical promotion yet. A small step, of course, is authentication for company representatives and a “badge” on the forum. Connecting to owner registers is a bit more complicated, but there seems to be a clear demand for this kind of thing.
I haven’t followed the Sievi + Boreo discussion closely, but it seems that many people want their voices heard. There are occasional special events like these, for example, the Ahlström-Munksjö case.
With this online petition, I am specifically looking for that “platform” that Inderes could implement, and I would like as many people as possible to freely express their own views here on what kind of arrangement each would see as best That’s why I actually created this thread, so it doesn’t just get mixed up in the “development idea” thread.
Could the Finnish Shareholders’ Association (Suomen Osakesäästäjät) also be linked to this somehow? @Victor_Snellman The association doesn’t want to take any stance for or against, but an example like this would certainly apply;
As stated in the Shareholders’ Association’s statement on 26.8.2021, there must be an opportunity for advance voting in an extraordinary general meeting. This way, the will of the shareholders can be determined and the rights of minority shareholders can be ensured without the need to collect proxies. Advance voting was successfully used, for example, in the extraordinary general meetings concerning the merger of Valmet and Neles.
Mikael has also pondered on Twitter that discussing with owners is still difficult. Could this online petition basis also be utilized in the company’s communication?
Anyways, Inderes, as a newly listed company, can very well “practice” in secret how to build such a petition exemplary, as it is already in the position of a listed company
I would just hope for more bold views on the matter!
Here’s a nice boost for my quiet suggestion thread
With the Finnish Shareholders Federation’s Shareholder Initiative service, you have the opportunity to influence the operations of Finnish listed companies.
Through the service, you can submit and support initiatives for Finnish listed companies. Topics for initiatives can include, for example:
Share issues carried out by the company
The company's dividend policy
General Meeting matters
Activities of the Board of Directors and the CEO
Redemption procedures
Changes in the company's strategy and restructuring
A shareholder initiative can be submitted by a company shareholder who is a member of the Finnish Shareholders Federation (Suomen Osakesäästäjät). Open initiatives can be supported by all shareholders of the company through strong authentication. Supporting an initiative does not require membership in the Finnish Shareholders Federation.
Submitted shareholder initiatives are processed and approved by the board of the Finnish Shareholders Federation before publication. After the initiative expires, the Finnish Shareholders Federation delivers the initiative to the company or for notice to the General Meeting.
Edit: Would it be good to create some open initiatives here that have already been approved by the board of the Shareholders Federation? One could then “join in” with just strong authentication? A bit like you see in a Citizens’ Initiative (Kansalaisaloite), how many people support it etc..
For this kind of “whining” channel to work, and for it to have even a theoretical impact on a listed company’s operations, a clear “if you don’t like it, then…” clause would be needed.
A listed company will indeed listen, but it won’t act if the “complaint” petition focuses only on grumbling.
If, in addition to the grumbling, the consequences of what happens if the company does not visibly and operationally respond to the demand are also stated, the matter gains weight from the company’s perspective. The greater the weight, the better for the one making the demand.
E.g., a hypothetical situation:
Kesko lowers the producer prices for Finnish agricultural producers. It is clear that this move will lead to a loss of food self-sufficiency through bankruptcies and the closure of farms.
Let’s put out a petition:
“We owners truly hope that producers will be paid fair compensation. Thank you for reading and have a nice day.”
Or
“We demand that domestic producers be paid a price for food production that covers costs and rewards the producer of domestic clean food so that it is possible to generate a healthy margin (15%) in addition to the cost price.
If the matter is not publicly addressed and a viable solution is not presented by June 1st, we shareholders will stop using K-Group’s services and take the matter public.”
Everyone understands that there is no need to react to the first one at all, but the latter will make them shake in their boots.
But of course, there were those petition types, for example, when that care company was delisted from the stock exchange. That British guy had gathered a few friends and sent everyone a message saying not to accept the offer. For us, this would be a pretty big deal if we could make a small voice heard with something like this. A great initiative.
IF they owned that stock? This way, other forum users would also see it. Of course, this could be toggled ON/OFF in the settings. (Of course, if the stocks are on Shareville, for example, where would the information come from then?)
I’ve already embarrassed myself with these ideas, so you don’t have to be ashamed!
