Announcement to members of Charter European Trust plc


 
TIDMCPE 
 
Midas Investment Management Limited 
 
        Response to the announcement of 26 October 2011 by the board of 
 
              Charter European Trust plc ("CPE" or the "Company") 
 
Midas announces that it has today written to CPE Shareholders in response to 
the content of the letter issued by the Board of CPE on 26 October 2011, in 
particular the following point: 
 
"Your Board has been advised that the proxy forms which have been pre-completed 
by Midas are invalid so any such forms that are received will be disregarded." 
 
In a world which should encourage shareholder democracy, transparency and 
decent corporate governance, this is quite extraordinary. 
 
In response, we would like make the following points to our fellow CPE 
Shareholders: 
 
 1. The shareholders are the owners of the Company. 
 
 2. The directors are agents of the Company. 
 
 3. In this case, the directors have decided that they would prefer to IGNORE 
    the express wishes of certain shareholders. In other words, your board is 
    telling those shareholders who have indicated quite clearly how they would 
    like to vote that in fact they will decide not to count those votes. How 
    does that make you feel as an owner? 
 
 4. We can see no legitimate reason why your proxy should be invalid and do not 
    understand how a board of directors could decide that it was appropriate to 
    discount perfectly valid voting instructions of some of its owners. Perhaps 
    it is linked to the reluctance of the board to uphold the principle of one 
    vote for one share? 
 
 5. We hope that you can see this conduct is "telling". Namely the board is 
    taking steps designed to frustrate the democratic shareholder process and 
    deny you the chance, as an owner, to express your views as you should be 
    perfectly entitled to do. 
 
 6. We have received legal advice that your proxies are in fact perfectly 
    capable of being valid (the articles provide that even if your proxy is 
    unusual in form (which it isn't as we copied the Company's own form and 
    inserted a cross for those shareholders who wanted to submit it in that 
    way) the directors can perfectly well allow them.) So it is entirely clear 
    that the directors are deliberately taking steps to disallow your votes. 
 
 7. We strongly believe that the current structure of the inequitable voting 
    scheme associated with the Company's share saving scheme operated through 
    Alliance Trust Savings Limited ("ATS") is potentially very unfair to 
    shareholders. 
 
We do not accept that the board would be entitled to disallow your proxies as 
indicated. However in the time frame allowed we have no choice but to ask them 
to reconsider their stance and separately we have therefore enclosed an 
incomplete new form of proxy for your attention and would again seek your 
support in voting FOR our special resolution. 
 
If you have already voted using our form of proxy or have not received the 
Circular with its enclosed Form of Proxy and want to vote in respect of the 
resolution, you can complete the enclosed form of proxy and send it to: 
 
Capita Registrars Limited, 
PXS, 
The Registry, 
34 Beckenham Road, 
Beckenham, 
Kent, BR3 4TU. 
 
Completed forms of proxy sent to the above address should be received by 10.30 
a.m. on Friday 4 November 2011. 
 
For further information, please contact: 
 
Midas Investment Management Limited 
Tel: 0161 242 2895 
27 October 2011 
 
 
 
END

Charter Pan-european Trust (LSE:CPE)
Graphique Historique de l'Action
De Nov 2024 à Déc 2024