Public Funding for Resolut Shareholder Services Ltd

Root is a UK-based fintech SME with a core project team of Frederick Fabian (CEO/Product Manager), Freddie Stretch (CFO/Project Manager) and Jude Otaibi (CMO/UX/UI Designer). UK trading platforms have experienced significant growth, creating a boom in the number of individuals investing directly into stocks and shares in the UK. However, only 8% of these retail-investors engage with the companies they own shares in, despite 86% expressing a desire to do so. Moreover, asset managers and publicly listed companies (PLCs) are now at an increased risk due to evolving fiduciary duty reporting requirements and insufficient information on retail customers. The short-term implication for retail-investors is a continued lack of representation in PLC decision making. Moreover, asset managers and PLCs will maintain high costs to keep up with the fast-growing retail-investor market and evolving fiduciary duty regulations. The long-term impact is a lack of environmental, social and governance action from PLCs, if asset managers and companies continue to not reflect the 80% of retail-investors that want sustainability considered in their investments. To address this challenge, Root is developing a digital Engagement Platform that will simplify the shareholder engagement process for its core end-users retail-investors, while encouraging collaboration with asset managers, PLCs and professional shareholder campaigners.