| ISA Curtain rises Just
before netPEP’s First Birthday the
Chancellor, Gordon Brown, confirmed the start in
April 1999 of the Individual Savings Account
(ISA), the Labour Party’s official
replacement of PEPs. In response to this netPEP
has launched the First ISA website http://www.netisa.co.uk
specifically for PEP investors. This aims to help
PEP investors to find out what will happen to
PEPs after April next year and to invite
questions and comments from everyone about what
ISAs will mean to them.
It is still early days but we have had many
visitors and questions from worried PEP
investors. If you have any questions please visit
netISA.
The next most important item on the ISA
timetable is the publication by the Inland
Revenue of the ‘White Paper’ which will
carry this new and exciting savings product onto
the statute books before April 1999. This will
provide much more detail as to what exactly you
will be able to hold in an ISA and soon we will
be launching ISAselector to help investors to
pick their way through the various ISA products
as the managers start to publish details.
Voting Rights for all
The second ‘FIRST’ from netPEP
could, given time, have a profound effect on the
way small investors have their voice heard in the
Boardrooms around Britain.
The rights of small shareholders to vote at
company meetings are lost in the quagmire of
paperwork and administration. Whether a unit
trust, PEP or even direct investor, the nightmare
of administration prevents you from exercising
your shareholder rights and vote at AGMs. Voting
is therefore left to the big institutions and
their opinions may be different to yours. But the
Internet can revolutionise the way things have
been done in the past. It can quickly and easily
give back your voting rights just by the click of
the mouse.
netPEP has pioneered the first voting service
and it was put to the test for the first time at
the end of April at the Annual General Meeting of
SmithKline Beecham p.l.c.. We issued an email
alert to netPEP investors as soon as our
attention was drawn by one of our investors to a
contentious issue. The resolutions to be proposed
at the AGM were posted to the site and investors
were asked to click FOR or AGAINST, enter their
Usernames and Passwords (which proves their
entitlement to vote) and then click VOTE NOW.
Hardly the administration nightmare of the
past.
We must, of course, keep this development in
perspective and admit that the votes cast are
unlikely to change the course of history
immediately but we hope that it is an initiative
which other Unit Trust and PEP/ISA managers will
follow in the future. With over £165 billion
currently under management in Unit Trusts, small
investors could make a difference in the future.
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