Small shareholders typically play second fiddle to the big institutions and investors when voting at company meetings, but they chalked up a rare victory yesterday.
The triumph came at an extraordinary general meeting of Sovereign Reversions, where a small army of individual shareholders, who control more than half the company’s shares, emerged in support of the home equity release group’s management.
Shareholders representing more than 75 per cent of the shares turned out to vote, with two thirds backing management, to thwart an attempt by a group of rebel investors to get rid of the present board, chaired by Paul Spencer, a former finance director of Royal & SunAlliance, appoint themselves and gradually wind up the company. The rebels, led by Harry Hill, chairman of Countrywide, the estate agency, and Peter Gordon, a former partner at 3i, the private equity investor, hold about 18 per cent of the group’s shares and were said to have the support of institutions.
John Gummer, the MP and former Tory minister, who serves as Sovereign’s non-executive independent director, said that he was delighted so many small shareholders had voted. The shares were unchanged at 150p.
Indian Energy fell ½p to 84½p on its debut as a listed company. The group, which raised almost £10 million on coming to the market, owns and operates a 24.8MW wind farm and aims to build a portfolio of wind power generating assets.
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Mwana Africa rose 0.64p to 7.64p after a promising intial resource estimate for its Zani-Kodo gold asset in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
IQE fell 1p to 15p as investors took profits after upbeat first-half results from the semiconducter wafer group.