Gregory Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-02-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many people owned shares in Royal Mail at (a) the launch of the share offer and (b) 1 January 2016.

Anna Soubry

At the time of Royal Mail Initial Public Offering (IPO) in October 2013, approximately 16% of the company was sold to 690,000 individual investors through a retail offer. A further 10% of the company was awarded to the company’s eligible UK employees with approximately 147,000 employees receiving shares.

Since the IPO, shareholders who purchased shares through the retail offer have been free to trade their shares. The Government does not hold records of these share dealings. Royal Mail has responsibility for maintaining a register of shareholdings in company.

The shares awarded to employees have been held in trust by Royal Mail’s Share Incentive Plan (SIP) to enable the employees to benefit from tax and national insurance advantages. Employees will be able to sell shares from October 2016. Eligible UK employees were also awarded a further 1% of the company’s shares in October 2015 and a further 1% award will be made later this year. These shares will also be held in the Royal Mail SIP for 3 years before they can be sold.