ON THE MONEY
STUART THEOBALD: Reserve Bank shareholders do not hold sway, but add a degree of transparency
"Their presence on the board is intended to infuse it with some insight from different economic role players and add transparency"
You may think being a shareholder of the Reserve Bank would give you the rights shareholders have in any other company. You would be very wrong. You would have no power to appoint the leadership of the Bank. The governor and the three deputy governors are appointed by the president. You’d have no control over how the profits are distributed. Shareholders get a legislated dividend of just 10c per share. With 2-million shares in issue, that’s a total annual dividend of R200,000. You, or collectively with your associates, would not be allowed to own more than 10,000 shares, or 0.5% of the bank, which is a legislated limit. Anyone can buy shares. They last traded for R3, and at that price, buying your full quota would cost you R30,000, though just one share would be enough to exercise most of the rights you get. You can acquire shares through a facility on the Reserve Bank’s website. But spending that money would get you no say in how the Bank conducts monetary policy or bank supervisio...
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