Look at a UK companies’ annual report today and you will find a lengthy tome more likely to resemble a doorstop than something to provoke interest or excitement from investors.

Much of this is the result of a vast expansion of corporate reporting requirements placed on businesses, starting with Labour’s Companies Act 2006 and pursued relentlessly by governments of all flavours since. Such behaviour by governments costs them little while imposing obligations on the private sector: politicians get to moralise whilst the burden falls elsewhere.

The annual report of Britain’s biggest supermarket, Tesco, fills a trolley at 250 pages with another 60-page volume solely on sustainability. Our largest bank, Barclays comfortably beats that at 536 pages and Astra Zeneca – whose listing is currently on the move to the lighter-regulated US stock market – publishes a total of ten different reports on the sustainability section of its website.

It’s no wonder then that the percentage of UK shares owned by individuals has collapsed from more than half to less than 10 per cent........

© City A.M.