Shareholders, eh? They’re just one long list of problems. They interfere, they don’t understand the business, they can’t be bothered to engage properly, and half of them are conspiring with activists who are plotting against the management. This, apparently — according to a new report* — is the considered view of chairmen of a third of the FTSE 100 companies.
Mostly, these miscreants are not real shareholders, in the sense that they have invested their own money in a business. Like the chairmen themselves, they are the hired hands of 21st- century capitalism, running other people’s money and often getting rich in the process.
