Killik offers advisory clients greater access to company materials

Killik & Co, the wealth manager, has announced the completion of an electronic system that will entitle the firm’s clients to receive every communication sent by a UK company in which they are invested.

Through Killik’s Shareowner Service, advisory clients will be able to get electronic or hard copy communication, including the report and accounts of companies in which they are invested. Perhaps most significantly, they will also be entitled to vote electronically.

Paul Killik, a senior executive officer at Killik & Co, said the changes in law were long overdue. The only reason this was not introduced earlier, he notes, is because registrars were fearful for their business models and fought against it.

He said: ‘From the earliest days we felt that this was unjust and have campaigned for a change in the law or even a change in attitude as, with goodwill on all sides, the recognition of beneficial shareholders could have been brought about without a change in the law.’

The Shareowner Service – and similar systems by other wealth managers – were built in the wake of a legislative amendment in the House of Lords to the 2006 Companies Act. The changes, which came into effect in January 2008, have considerably enhanced the rights of beneficial shareholders.

Unlike before, wealth managers, brokerage firms and other nominees are now able to offer their clients direct shareholder material from companies in which they are invested, as opposed to doing it indirectly themselves. The latter option, of course, was prohibitive due to cost ineffectiveness.

Killik points out the legislative amendments were made on the back of enormous lobbying efforts and he hopes clients will take advantage of the new systems on offer, especially the chance to vote.

He said: ‘For too long, private investors have been dismissed by some of our largest companies as irrelevant. However, by exercising our democratic rights, I believe that we can become a force to be reckoned with again.'

Killik said it will be using nominations and proxy voting service of Broadbridge Financial Solutions.