Further developments in the ongoing saga between the carpetbagger David Stonebanks and Standard Life have emerged. After Mr Stonebanks had submitted well in excess of the required number of resolutions to Standard Life, they were assessed and rejected for being invalid. After the resolutions were rejected, Mr Stonebanks told Standard Life that he would not force them into an Extraordinary General Meeting again on the issue of demutualisation, if they would look at and approve his resolutions for it in advance. If Standard Life was prepared to approve the resolutions from Mr Stonebanks, he was prepared to wait until the insurers scheduled Annual General Meeting in April 2004. The proposals from Mr Stonebanks were put to Standard Life's board at the end of August but the outcome obviously wasn't what he wanted. Standard's view was that it would be unreasonable to help drafting proposals that could be damaging to the company.
Our View:
Standard Life does have a point here. If they fundamentally believe that the company would be better off as a mutual and not a PLC, why would they help someone with opposite views to their own? Mr Stonebanks and all other policyholders do have the right to question whether Standard would be better as a PLC. However, if enough people want to change the status of the company, Standard will have to let them. With Mr Stonebanks' resolutions rejected as invalid, the question regarding what would be valid is still unanswered. In the eyes of some, this could be seen as Standard running scared from the probability of forced demutualisation.