Kmflett's Blog

The politics of shareholding & Brewdog’s Equity for Punks

Shareholding obviously has a long history connected to the rise and persistence of market capitalism. Historically the investor class were known as coupon clippers. They could make a decent return off share dividends.

Margaret Thatcher in an attempt to popularise capitalism promoted the sale of shares in public utilities that her Governments privatised, British Gas and BT for example.

It may surprise some to learn that I am a shareholder. I have never been in the business of buying shares. Rather my employer, one of the UK’s largest private businesses, for many years handed them out to employees. The idea was that being a shareholder gave people a tangible stake in the success (or otherwise) of the Company.

I don’t know how many shares I own my view along with many of my colleagues being that a decent wage is what is required. That said I can of course check the share price and were I so minded sell the shares at an appropriate moment. It’s all highly regulated.

Then we come to Brewdog’s Equity for Punks crowdfunding schemes. I do know some EFP holders and I think their investment was mainly aimed at getting reduced price Brewdog beer and perhaps attending the AGM. Given the discounts that can be found on Brewdog beers in 2026 I’m not sure the attraction is still there and I understand the AGM is not what it was.

Some people clearly invested more than just the nominal sums required for a discount. The FT ran articles back in the day pointing out that if people were actually interested in investing in shares then the regulated Stock Market via a financial advisor was the way to go. Perhaps not many EFP investors read the FT.

With Brewdog now sold for a cut price (FT 3rd March) £33m there is no equity of note to distribute not even to TSG who have first preference let alone EFP holders.

Media reports suggest that James Watt’s alternative bid came in just £3m under the successful one and proposed a holding company where EFP holders would have had a 19.5% stake. Hmmm. Not sure that would ultimately have provided any payouts either but it does suggest that EFP people do have questions to ask

As has been pointed out on social media however, Watt aside, the EFP schemes could have been structured to at least potentially avoid what has happened. However Brewdog being punks broke all the rules..

A reminder that while sometimes tedious and bureaucratic rules do exist for a reason…

With Brewdog facing a sell off I’ve had a look at its pre-history.

One of the reasons it took off was because it won a craft beer competition organised by Tesco who were looking to get in early on the trend. A key reason Brewdog won was that they entered some great beers brewed by Martin Dickie.

Brewdog has almost twenty years now of a chequered history at best but many now active in indy beer have passed through its doors one way or another.

Martin Dickie was a co-founder of Brewdog but before that he was a brewer at Thornbridge. He was responsible along with Stefano Cossie for producing late in 2005 St Petersburg a Russian imperial stout.

Over twenty years on Thornbridge have rebrewed it at the original strength of 7.7% and having understandably swerved using the original name have brewed it on the Burton Union system, and produced a can conditioned beer.

One can only speculate what might have happened if Martin Dickie had stuck to brewing and not become a brewery owner…

https://thornbridgebrewery.co.uk/blogs/head-brewers-blog/imperial-stout

Above is an extract from The Times Editorial on the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor (20th February 2026).

The Times of course does not want to get rid of the Royals but it notes a moment of danger in particular around the obsessive secrecy of Royal affairs.

It notes that files relating to Mountbatten Windsor’s time as a trade envoy (2001-2011) are closed until 2065. It surely time to open the books. There may of course be passages that for one reason or another have to be redacted but this should be kept to a minimum. Mountbatten Windsor was performing a public role and in a democratic society the public must have a right to know what he was up to.

You can read far too much into local Council by-election results (the Council wide elections in May 2026 offer a slightly better perspective perhaps). Turn-out is often low and all kind of local factors are at play. For example in the Leicester result below OL is One Leicester a sort of Keith Vaz support group it appears..

All the data is from Election Maps on BlueSky. Of note is that until quite recently Reform was either winning or doing well in weekly by-elections. Here rather less so. Both Labour and Tory are doing badly but the winners are not Reform but the Greens, Plaid and the LibDems.

The results perhaps suggest a wider mood of stopping Reform but that mood is far from only electoral. Its roots like in political, community and union campaigning and organisation.

Stoneygate (Leicester) Council By-Election Result:

🌍 GRN: 30.4% (+22.9)
🌹 LAB: 27.7% (-12.8)
🏘️ OL: 16.2% (New)
🙋 Ind: 11.5% (New)
🌳 CON: 8.3% (-15.3)
➡️ RFM: 2.7% (New)
🔶 LDM: 1.6% (-5.9)
🙋 Ind: 1.6% (New)

No Ind (-21.0) as previous.

Green GAIN from Labour.
Changes w/ 2023.

Van (Caerphilly) Council By-Election Result:

🌼 PLC: 43.3% (-1.9)
➡️ RFM: 28.5% (New)
🌹 LAB: 26.8% (-28.0)
🔶 LDM: 1.4% (New)

Plaid Cymru GAIN from Labour.
Changes w/ 2022.

Zetland (Redcar & Cleveland) Council By-Election Result:

🔶 LDM: 50.5% (+15.2)
🌹 LAB: 21.6% (-25.2)
➡️ RFM: 13.5% (New)
🌍 GRN: 7.4% (New)
🌳 CON: 7.0% (-10.9)

Liberal Democrat GAIN from Labour.
Changes w/ 2023.

2026 is the first season of the cricket Hundred, played in August each year, to operate under a franchise system where private consortium’s have a significant stake and control, albeit the overall stewardship of the competition remains with the ECB who run English and Welsh cricket.

Its in the news because the auction to pick players for the 2026 season is due to be held in early March.

Reports have suggested that the four Hundred franchises that are owned by Indian Premier League teams (IPL) will not feature any players from Pakistan. Such discrimination on political and religious grounds is of course unacceptable in a competition that claims to welcome all. It is however hardly a surprise since such discrimination has been in place for IPL teams in the Indian competition for some time. The situation appears to be broadly replicated where IPL teams play in other countries such as South Africa.

The sun has long set on the days when cricket was in effect run from Lords cricket ground. These days the ICC with a very significant Indian influence is responsible. It’s where the big crowds and the big money is.

Reports seem to suggest that the ECB did know about the issue but failed to grapple with it. Given that investigations have highlighted discrimination in domestic cricket and the need to attract more interest from South Asian cricket fans in the UK (probably the biggest fan base for cricket here) something needs to happen and happen quite quickly. The alternative may place the future of the Hundred in some danger which won’t of course worry everyone

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/cx2gnv5w091o

The picture shows Andrew Mountbatten Windsor leaving a police station where he had been helping police of their investigations.

The impact on both the Royal Family and the political establishment should be considerable. As the Daily Telegraph noted it is a seismic moment.

That depends a lot more on what happens from below rather than from above.

Farage so far appears to have said nothing but those who have marched and protested in their hundreds of thousands for Palestine since October 2023 should see this as a moment of reckoning with a ruling class. It should be the end of the affair.

Andrew Mountbatten Windsor was 66 on 19th February. He spent much of the day in police custody but he faced an even greater humiliation. He was left out of The Times birthday list a sign of his official excommunication from the ruling class.

Hopefully further humiliations will follow…

With the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, King Charles English Civil War obsession can be understood.

Andrew Mountbatten Windsor was arrested on 19^th February, his 66^th birthday, reportedly on matters related to alleged misconduct in public office.

The last senior Royal to be arrested was King Charles 1^st

King Charles and Camilla have long been obsessed with the English Civil War. It’s fair to say that they are not fans of Cromwell and perhaps that can be understood given that King Charles 1st was arrested by Parliament in January 1647 and mislaid his head in Whitehall on 30th January 1649.

The King’s obsession however seems to be extending further.

The British Hen Welfare Association looks to re-home hens at the end of their laying life rather than sending them off to be despatched. The King has agreed to house some at his Gloucestershire residence, Highgrove.

He has named one hen Henrietta, after Henrietta Maria of France who was Queen’s Consort to Charles 1st from 1625 to 1649.(Times 24th August 2024).

The death penalty no longer exists and Andrew Mountbatten Windsor so far faces no charges but the arrest of a senior Royal for the first time in 379 years is as the Daily Telegraph (19^th February 2026) seismic

Jeremy Corbyn was a participant in an on-line meeting on Wednesday (on YouTube-Google for the link, it doesn’t copy). It was partly related to the campaign for his For the Many slate in the current Your Party CEC election, and Laura Smith (former Labour MP for Crewe and Nantwich also spoke(very well btw) It was chaired by Bradford Councillor Ismail Uddin. My political sympathies lie with another slate but this post is about one of the main themes of the meeting.

Jeremy Corbyn has been around long enough to know that meetings about election slates are niche, particularly when so much needs to be done in respect of practical campaigning.

A key focus was on Palantir and its efforts to get access to NHS patient records. Palantir is a highly unethical US based company but when Peter Mandelson was still UK Ambassador to the US, Starmer accompanied him to a meeting with Palantir in Washington. Mandelson was previously a key figure in a consultancy with links to Palantir. As Corbyn rightly noted there is much campaigning work needed to stop Palantir getting access to local NHS patient records.

However he also touched on the history of Mandelson, Blair and Starmer. He echoed Tony Benn’s views of Mandelson in the 1980s. He went on to note that when he became Labour leader in 2015 Labour HQ advised him to use Mandelson and Alistair Campbell as comms and PR people. He firmly declined.

Moving on to Mandelson’s appointment as Ambassador Corbyn noted that while the Foreign Office always preferred career diplomats for such a role their briefings to politicians were invariably well researched and thorough. It seems inconceivable that Starmer was not aware of Mandelson’s Epstein links at this point, even if a lot more has come out more recently with the release of some of the Epstein files in the US.

Corbyn was circumspect about the Government’s decision (eventually) to release all the papers related to Mandelson to the Commons Security Committee but did not rule out pressing for and possibly organising an independent inquiry.

Important points but possibly not ones that will get reported in the mainstream media…