has been contacted about comments made by us in a story dated 23 October concerning David Stonebanks' submission to Standard Life as part of a demutulisation bid that included provision for a £12,500 payout to him should the Standard Life demutulisation ever take place.
He felt that our comments did not tell the full story and, being unbiased advisers, we are more than happy to publish David's side of this part of the story. David Stonbanks is heading the bid to force Standard Life to demutualise and become a PLC. This would also mean that qualifying members may recieve a windfall payment. David said that he "had proposed that share allocations be proportional to members' asset shares with a minimum of shares worth approx £750. This minimum figuire is a little higher than at other demutualisations but not a long way over." And on the £12,500 payment he suggested that was only "0.5p/member to cover costs and as some reward for what will now be over a year's work. " This would hopefully cover the time, costs and hardwork that he has put in.
In addition, he added: "(a) it would have been one thousandth of the sum that Std Life spent last time from members' funds defending the mutual status, (b) it would have been two millionths of the value of StdLife plc (if that proves to be £6bn), (c) members would have voted on it, (d) I would have received it only if the vote had gone in favour of DM [demutualisation], (e) I would only have got it when the company floats - maybe two years time, (f) I thought it was fairer to ask all members for 0.5p each instead of a much larger sum from a few supporters."
Our view
David's comments are valid and we are very happy to publish them, although we do believe that members of his action group should make a contribution to his costs rather than all the qualifying members of any demutualisation windfall. If on average, as David suggests, each member's windfall would be £6,000 - then we believe £100 a head contribution from the 1,000 + petitioners would not seem unreasonable to cover the action groups costs.
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