Shareholders' Alliance
Exploratory seed funding
Welcome. The UK needs private investors like never before. We need a dynamic, entrepreneurial, risk-taking economy and nowhere is this more crystallised than in the small-cap equity market, predominantly the Alternative Investment Market (AIM).
The Shareholders' Alliance will be a new not-for-profit 'social enterprise' to represent private retail shareholders to all the relevant touch-points:
Government: legislation and regulatory. We will build and deploy lobbying power and campaign for better rules and protection for private shareholders, especially surrounding the insolvency process.
Company Boards: We will facilitate the 'grouping together' of many private shareholders in a company under one umbrella, giving weight and voting power, while being compliant with rules and disclosure (such as 'acting in concert'). We will be a ready-made launchpad for concerned shareholders to access legal advice and assistance, for example calling a General Meeting.
Stock Exchanges: We will engage with stock exchanges, the very organisations who depend more and more on the liquidity that private investors bring, especially at the small-cap end.
Thank you for being here to read this. My name is Hugh Acland and I need your help to build the Shareholders' Alliance. I have been personally affected by appalling corporate governance and even worse regulation around, and misuse of, the insolvency process.
I want to put a stop to bad directors taking advantage of 'powerless' retail investors. I want to bring private retail investors together. To give them an easy, affordable, quick way to organise. I want to use the power of numbers to lobby for real change: better governance, better regulations and laws and to empower private retail investors to truly 'own' their companies.
Together we can do better. Better for private retail investors. And better for the UK equity markets which need liquidity for decent companies to prosper.
Please take a few minutes to read through why I am committed to setting up the Shareholders' Alliance, my vision for the Alliance and how your donations to this cause will be spent. I truly hope that you will be able to participate in this new social-enterprise venture. Thank you!
Bidstack Shareholders' Alliance
I was an investor in Bidstack Group PLC, first investing in 2020. In early 2024 the company was forced into administration through the greed of the executive directors and private investors lost their entire investment. The company did not have a debt problem; it had a short term cashflow problem which was the result of appalling mismanagement.
The executive directors satisfied their own greed rather than look after all shareholders fairly. They appointed administrators and agreed a 'pre-pack' administration without seeking other means to recapitalise the company, such as asking shareholders. The result: they walked off with all of the assets of the company, paying just £800k for what had taken £40m of shareholder funds to build. Before the administration they owned just 3% of the company between them.
I established the Bidstack Shareholders' Alliance (BSA) shortly after the company's assets were taken from us. The BSA set out to coordinate and explore legal avenues we could take, appointing two leading London law firms to act for us. This work continues and we are currently pursuing several avenues and I will be able to say more in due course.
We now have in excess of 400 Bidstack shareholders representing an aggregate of over 20% of the entire voting rights of the company.
I believe private investors in the UK equity markets need to form an Alliance to enable a multitude of small voices to become one strong voice. If the 400+ members of the BSA were already 'networked' together months before the administration we would have been able to take action. Unfortunately, we were not organised until it was too late.
It takes considerable effort and time for private retail investors to come together at a 'critical mass' to be able to take action. And unscrupulous directors know this, so too often they take advantage of retail shareholders' inertia.
I will continue to lead the work of the BSA while also establishing the Shareholders' Alliance. Effectively, the BSA will become the first 'case' for the Shareholders' Alliance. I have learned a great deal running the BSA and working with our legal teams. I believe that I have a duty to stop this sort of thing happening again. It is time to energise and organise retail shareholders in the UK, especially investors in small-cap companies where they often really do hold the balance of power.
Vision for the Shareholders' Alliance
The Shareholders' Alliance will be a not-for-profit social enterprise, incorporated to promote and protect the interests of private retail shareholders.
Depending on the vehicle of incorporation, we will have a governance board (or board of trustees) to oversee the Alliance, and would hope to attract some prominent figures from finance, politics and business.
The Alliance will make it possible for Groups of individual private investors to form a powerful caucus which will require the attention of a company's board in a way that institutional investors currently have, but retail does not. It is my vision that the Alliance will make situations like Bidstack much less likely. Upwards of 100 private investors in Bidstack were regularly communicating through social media but we did not take action that our collective shareholding could and should have enabled. Governance is a two way street, and shareholders shouldn't be passive - especially in micro-caps where combined they actually often do hold the balance of power.
Working with other organisations, such as The Engagement Appeal, we would first hope to foster positive investor relations with companies. While we would be set up to be 'activist', that would be a last resort. If the Alliance approached a company with a caucus of members holding 10% of the voting rights, the board would have to listen to their concerns.
We will 'speak softly but carry a big stick'.
We will lobby government, regulators and stock exchanges for positive change to investor relations between Boards and retail investors, and actively seek better rules and regulations around the administration process.
The Alliance will be funded through a combination of membership subscriptions, donations and grants, and sponsorships. I want membership to be as accessible as possible so early thoughts are to set the annual membership around £10, but this is subject to market research. By keeping the membership price accessible our aim would be to have tens-of-thousands of members over time.
Alliance members' identities will be known to the Alliance, but they will have the option of being anonymous to other members. However, our hope would be for members to be 'known' to all.
The Alliance will provide members the ability to discuss governance and investor relations issues about companies, but it is NOT intended to be a place for share tips or investment advice etc. There are plenty of places where that can already happen.
Members will have access to a web-portal where they can register their investments against a list of companies and form a Group. The aggregate total percentage of the Group of Members for a company will be visible.
The Alliance may also buy shares in a company to facilitate communications between the Group and the company and potentially to act as a proxy at AGMs etc.
The Alliance will provide free legal guides on shareholder rights and the duties and requirements of Boards. We will keep this current as underlying legislation and regulation changes.
A Group will be able to access legal advice if they have concerns about the governance of their company and the Alliance will provide support and assistance should the Group need to call a General Meeting or take legal action. This support will include the paperwork, such as co-ordinating investors' 'letters of representation' from their nominee brokers, tallying the total number of shares held, calling the General Meeting, and ensuring all matters are compliant with law surrounding 'acting in concert'.
The Alliance will provide a ready-made platform for reaching out to private investors to join an action. This will include PR contacts, journalists etc and social media tools. We will also be able to approach institutional investors in a company and discuss combined action with them.
The Shareholders' Alliance will be a 'clearing house' for private retail investors to organise, collaborate and effect change in their companies before it is too late.
Fund raising target and how it will be spent
I am hoping to commit to this project full time over 3-6 months, depending on how much seed funding
I can raise. I will draw a personal income at the rate of £15 an hour, with a maximum per month of £2,600 and will
pay self-employed tax on it.
The main other cost will likely be legal advice on the best incorporation structure to pursue and how to navigate the law on 'acting in concert'. There will also be miscellaneous costs such as affordable branding, basic IT (Google account), website hosting and potentially some travel costs to visit advisors etc.
I have therefore set the target at £20,000 for this initial phase of establishing the Shareholders' Alliance.
Deliverables from the use of this seed funding
Continue the work of the Bidstack Shareholders' Alliance, feeding experience gained back into planning the Shareholders' Alliance.
Document the story of Bidstack as a showcase of how the current insolvency process can easily be abused, and how vital it is for shareholders to engage together early when poor governance is detected.
Potentially work with a filmmaker to produce a professional-quality documentary film to highlight both the absurd insolvency process and how it can be so easily abused, and also the importance of shareholders being much more prepared to hold their board to account. (A member of the BSA has offered his expertise to this end).
Explore appropriate structure and incorporation vehicle to achieve the aims while maintaining the ethos of being 'not-for-profit'.
Undertake market research through polls and questionnaires to determine how retail investors feel about governance and how they would engage with the Shareholders' Alliance.
Write business plan, marketing plan & delivery strategy.
Generate positive pre-launch PR using social media and known media contacts.
Explore and enumerate long-term funding avenues.
Design and build a website/web-app with basic functionality and provide a feature roadmap. Release as 'beta' to gain acceptance testing and feedback. I have all the skills necessary to achieve this.
The ultimate deliverable is to be in a position to incorporate the Shareholder's Alliance in an appropriate vehicle and be able to obtain further funding to make this a reality.
Governance and communication on progress
I am extremely mindful that raising funds in this way is asking the public to put their trust in me to deliver
what I have set out to achieve. It would be deeply awful and ironic if I raise funds to help tackle poor corporate governance
only to fall short myself.
To that end I give my commitment to:
Publish a roadmap of deliverables, within one week of first drawing down funds from GoFundMe.
Publish a progress update on the roadmap, at least once a month.
Publish monthly accounts detailing funds received, funds remaining and expenses incurred, with receipts where appropriate.
Send a monthly detailed newsletter and/or publish a video-log on YouTube with a more in depth report.
Make available all written deliverables (business plan, incorporation plan etc) at the conclusion of the project.
Reply to emails from donors within a timely manner.
Be broadly available for phone and/or video calls for donors, within reason.
Maintain a register of donors, for those donors who wish to be 'known' rather than anonymous.
In case, for whatever reason, I am unable to complete this project, I will return a pro-rata amount of the remaining funds to those donors who have expressly requested and are on the register of donors. Any final funds will be donated to Macmillan Cancer Support charity. A receipt of which will be published.
Donate now on Go Fund Me
Thank you so much for reading and learning about my plans for the Shareholders' Alliance. Please drop me a line on the email address below if you want anything clarified, or just to offer support!
Finally, if you share my vision PLEASE donate to make this a reality! And then PLEASE share this far and wide!
CLICK HERE TO DONATE
About Hugh Acland
I am an experienced software architect and project manager having managed international teams of software engineers on large, complex projects. I have been writing software for over 20 years. In the late '90s and early '00s I worked in 'The City' for various banks, building pricing systems for the fixed-income traders. My wife and I live in Chichester, in beautiful West Sussex. I am a long-time and passionate season-ticket supporter of Southampton FC (donations from Pompey fans happily accepted :), and I serve on the PCC (think, charity trustee) of our parish church.
