Shareholder capitalism: why we must return power to listed companies’ ultimate owners

Under our system of shareholder capitalism it's not fund managers, it‘s the individual investors – the company's ultimate owners – who should be telling companies what kind of world we want, says Merryn Somerset Webb

Unilever advert for Dove Soap
Unilever: redefining beauty standards through soap
(Image credit: © Alamy)

Unilever has “lost the plot” – so says Terry Smith, the founder of Fundsmith. Smith is not exactly known for pulling his punches (The Times describes him this week as “famously pugnacious”), but he may well be saying something many others are already thinking.

Like big companies everywhere, Unilever appears to be obsessed with “publicly displaying its sustainability credentials” and with the odd idea that each of its brands should have a stated “purpose”. Knorr stock cubes’s purpose is to “reinvent food for humanity”. Sunsilk shampoo exists to improve the “life opportunities for young women in developing countries”. Dove soap’s purpose is to “redefine beauty standards”. Hellmann’s is to “inspire and enable 100 million consumers every year to be more resourceful with their food and waste less”.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.