Activists plan to intimidate shareholders in companies that use animal testing, says Paul Slade SMALL investors were this week told by animal rights campaigners to sell their shares in a Cambridgeshire drug testing firm or face protesters picketing their homes.

The threat came from a group of radical animal welfare activists, dubbed the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection Reform Group. In a letter to 1,700 shareholders in Huntingdon Life Sciences, the Group promises "surprise 24-hour protests outside the homes of those currently holding HLS shares".

The letter goes on: "To ensure that our files are up to date when we decide which addresses to select for our protests, please forward us a copy of your contract note when you sell your shares. . . I am afraid we will need to be in receipt of your contract note at the above address by Monday, April 3 as the protest tour commences two days later."

Some of the shareholders have been scared by the letters, others merely angered. Andrew Gay, HLS marketing director, says: "There was a lady on the phone yesterday who was 75, worked here 20 years ago, and was given 10 shares.

"She received a letter, and she is frightened. The other extreme is people phoning up and saying 'if they come to this bloody farm, I'll shoot the bastards'. Some people are extremely bullish, but obviously the intimidatory tactics are working with others."

If HLS's share price is anything to go buy, the scared group seem to be in the majority. The company's shares stood at 20p on Monday, March 27, the day before the BUAVRG letter story was first reported. At market close on Friday they had fallen to just 12.5p.

This is not the first time animal rights groups have targeted HLS investors and the institutions managing their money. On February 8, Phillips & Drew sold an 11 per cent stake in HLS at what Gay claims was a knockdown price after an Animal Liberation Front bomb threat forced the fund manager to evacuate its City of London offices.

Those shares were held in a number of Phillips & Drew pension funds. The price of HLS shares fluctuated between 1p and 5p on the day of the Phillips & Drew sale.

But there is no reason to think that investor protests will stop at HLS. All UK pharmaceutical companies are obliged by law to subject their products to animal safety testing before they can sell them for human use. Chemical and agrochemical companies must also use animal testing.

The most vulnerable investors are those who hold their shares directly, rather than as part of a pooled investment product such as a unit trust or a pension fund. If you hold direct equities and use paper certificates to record your holdings, then your name and address will appear on a publicly available shareholder register at Companies House.

Companies House confirms that there is nothing to stop shareholders filing a mailing address, such as a post office box, for their shareholder register entry. In practice, though, most small shareholders simply give their home address and think no more of it. This seems the most likely source for the BUAVRG's mailing information.

But Gay says: "Why should people not put their home address? They are investing in a company that is entirely legitimate and is doing things which the Government insists on."

Another way of avoiding your home address appearing on Companies House records when you buy a controversial share is to use an electronic nominee account. These accounts, operated by the broker who buys shares on your behalf, replace your paper certificates with a computer record of your holdings. In the case of nominee accounts, the name and address which appears on the company's register is not yours, but that of the broker company.

Framlington's £120 million Health Fund unit trust has no shares in HLS, and no plans to buy any. But the fund does specialise in the shares of drug, medical and biotechnology companies, many of which will inevitably be involved in animal testing.

Unlike a direct equity holding, however, owning shares via a unit trust does not mean your name will appear on the company's shareholder register. The register will show only the name of the company which acts as the fund manager's trustee and the name of the fund.

Neville Vyas, Framlington spokesman, says: "Traceability for the unit-trust holder will stop here - it's not like a public share register. You are a lot safer with a unit trust than having shares on the public register."

Unlike unit trusts, investment trusts are companies in their own right, and must also file shareholder details at Companies House. In theory, this means an investment trust equivalent of Framlington Health may list individual shareholder's names and home addresses on its register if investors use paper certificates.

Fortunately, most individual investors buy their investment trust shares through packaged products such as regular savings schemes or Isas, in which case only the company managing the fund's name and address would appear. In the case of pension-fund shares, the company's shareholder register carries only the name and address of the pension company or the outside management company running the fund. Individual pension holders are listed only as an anonymous account number.

Mainstream animal rights groups have been quick to distance themselves from the BUAVRG's tactics.