Does buying a share on freetrade mean I can go to the company's AGM?

[Staple]

E.g. Debenhams or McDonald’s?

[Raul (Ann Onymuz)]

I think the rights associated with a share remain the same regardless of the broker you choose to use to buy the shares. So I would assume you could attend. Whether you would have voting rights or not…

More on this in the following link

Shareholders rights guide: rights of shareholders in a company

[Freetrade_Team1 (Freetrade_Team)]

As Raul says, owning these stocks would enable you to attend in theory. But I’m afraid you won’t be able to attend company’s AGMs at the moment, although we’ll consider enabling this sort of thing in the future. Unfortunately this requires a lot of administration so while we’re a small company, we’ll focus on prioritising other things instead. We’ve explained some of the challenges in more detail here -

@rob_h

For UK shares you’ll often need a personal shareholder voting card displaying your name and shareholding (rather than the nominee details). Extracting this document from the registrar is time consuming to the point you’re tempted to engage in a little creative photoshopping (just kidding Mr Compliance!). And again every company and process is different. Some require every little detail of your personal shareholding and you’re inside leg measurement others will let you walk into the meeting unchecked and eat the free food! If you intend to vote on the resolutions then you’ll usually need official documentation and this process can be a pain. For US (fractional or otherwise) the process is even more complex as the people in the chain are greater in number. You’d have to ask us, we’d have to ask our US custodian, they’d have to contact the registrar to find out the specifics and feedback. Any oddities in that process and I’d wager you’ll not have access to the company meeting until it’s been and gone. I’m all for shareholder rights and participation but it’s a balancing act between time, effort, cost and happy customers. You wonder why other brokers charge so much? This is (in part) why - hideous manual, time consuming processes that appeal to only a small portion of the overall user base.

[oxfordmark (Mark L)]

Hey

How do Shareholder vote and AGM attendance work with shares purchased through Freetrade?

Do you have to have x amount in order to be able to vote and attend AGM’s?

[Freetrade_Team1 (Freetrade_Team)]

Hey

We’ve shared some info about AGMs & voting in this topic so I’ve moved your post over. I hope that helps! Feel free to ask if you have any more questions

[Stewart]

On a similar note, are we able to get shareholder perks? For instance Fullers and Greene King have shareholder discount cards for large holdings. I believe it is up to the shareholder to contact the registrar to claim.

[Freetrade_Team1 (Freetrade_Team)]

Not at the moment I’m afraid -

@rob_h

My experience of passing company perks to nominee holders is best described as ‘messy’. Every company and registrar requires different information to validate the underlying holders ownership. This can involve several calls, letters, emails and bespoke ‘certificates’ for you to display at your local garden centre to get your free plant pot - or whatever it is your share ownership grants you. It’s far from impossible it’s just time inefficient. From that perspective it’s a prime example of an out dated process that needs a technological solution. On the other hand spare a thought for your friendly back office Freetrade elves who have to operate this antiquated system. It’s likely their time could be better spent. That said we clearly don’t want to disadvantage anyone…so… let’s look at it… but not as a priority. Fair?

[AchillesFirstStand]

My aim is to turn up to a big company like Coca Cola with my 0.001 fractional share displayed on my badge. Maybe veto some new drinks flavours as well.

[samlan (Sam Landsman)]

It could be an alpha perk, when holding>X

[cfbiehl]

Why is this marked as ‘Solution’? It is a reply, but a rather dissatisfying one.
As a shareholder one has voting rights, which is the core concept of share ownership.
The whole world is moving more towards active ownership and you are simply saying ‘no’ we are not doing it?

[SebReitz]

It’s marked as solution because it fully answers the initial question.
Most brokers do not offer this. Expecting it from a start-up in this phase of development is imho not realistic. It would be great to see it eventually though.

[cfbiehl]

It would have been nice to make this clear / more transparent. I had to dig through the forum to find the answer. There is nothing on the website or in the app.
I understand that it might be unrealistic to guarantee the rights attached to the share for every single one. But to say outright we are not interested and there are more important things is in my view problematic.
One could think about a solution where you could attend / vote on three holdings a year in the UK. It is a continuum and not black and white…

[JamieP]

Hey @cfbiehl, we have moved on slightly since this question was originally raised.

If you are looking to vote in a specific meeting or even attend, this can be arranged. I’m afraid there isn’t an in app automated solution available at the moment and this only applies to UK based stocks but we are looking at some options for this.

If there is a meeting you’d like to vote on, please send us a direct message via the in app chat.

You can also find some more information here:

Shareholder Perks

[cfbiehl]

Great thank you (y)

[teohhanhui]

Future customer (based in France) who would love to be able to attend a TSLA shareholder meeting one day.

[xnox (Dimitri John Ledkov)]

Why would you? It’s a waste of time, especially if one’s holdings are insignificant enough to cause the votes go the other way. It only starts to make sense if one has 5% stake in the company. Normally one wouldn’t be using retail brokers for that, and especially not the nominee accounts. Instead one would be operating CREST accounts in their own name. Or more likely via a family investment office.

More likely scenario is to submit votes by proxy. For example for Nationwide Building Society AGM I submit my votes electronically ahead of time by proxy, instead of wasting days trying to sort out attending the AGM in person.

[teohhanhui]

I don’t care about the votes. I just want to be there. It’s an experience. Call me a fanboy if you want. Haha…

With my current broker (DEGIRO) I have the option to pay 100 Euros for the right to attend a shareholder meeting. It’s expensive, but yeah, if you’re already planning a trip to the US where attending said event is part of the trip, that’s not that significant a cost, all things considered.

[SteveAvia]

Was a good networking opportunity, but fewer shareholders attend now. Also the chance to ask questions withiut these being screened beforehand

[xnox (Dimitri John Ledkov)]

Interesting. Tried spot checking and this popped up

The bank also said that the chair and CEO will not be giving speeches. UK bank HSBC has become the latest to announce that shareholders and “non-essential personnel” will be barred from attending its annual general meeting in person this year, due to the deadly coronavirus outbreak.