Legitimate advice for legitimate directors

From: International Megatrust (San Serriffe) Inc
To: All nominee directors

Subject: Voting instructions recommendations briefing

Following the announcement that the UK business secretary is to review the use of so-called sham directors, it may no longer be possible for us to provide you with our normal level of advice before directors’ meetings.

You should also be aware these meetings may take up more time than usual; directors arriving for meetings at 10am should not make lunch reservations before 12.30pm unless they have fewer than 100 meetings to attend.

Directors are reminded they are responsible for the central management and control of the companies on whose boards they sit. This is the case even when the company is engaged in high-end medical research and the director’s knowledge of pharmaceuticals is limited to the ones he snorts up his nostrils.

Because of this, we cannot continue to give directors specific advice on how to vote, but the following general principles may be helpful.

1. You get what you pay for. So, if your UK company is being offered goods or services from an overseas group subsidiary, you should not be concerned if the price seems high. This simply means the quality is much better than cheaper alternatives from other, third-party, suppliers.

2. You might think that, if your company is making losses year after year, it might be wise to stop increasing its investment in the UK. This would be wrong: increasing losses are just a measure of how successful you will be in the future.

3. Places such as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Isle of Man are full of inventors. That’s why so much intellectual property is situated there.

4. The best way to capitalise a UK subsidiary is to borrow 99.99% of its capital from a Luxembourg-based group treasury company. Everyone else knows that; they will think you are very stupid and laugh at you if you question it.

5. Coffee tastes much better when it is bought in Switzerland and roasted in Amsterdam, even if it then has to be shipped thousands of miles to other countries before being used.

Keeping these points in mind when you vote at board meetings will be very beneficial to your health,  wealth and companies’ success.