Shares For Rights Scheme To Cost £1bn

The rather controversial “shares for rights” scheme was given the nod by UK Chancellor George Osborne recently. In a nutshell, the scheme facilitates employees to give up certain employee rights such as redundancy, unfair dismissal and flexible working (among others) in exchange for shares in the company which come with generous tax exemptions.

The shares for rights proposal was met with a tone of scepticism from business groups who outlined various short comings from the scheme – such as how and where the shares would be sold for cash, and how they would be valued in real time. BusinessZone also reveals that the scheme is set to cost the tax payer £1 billion.