Who Owns IQE? Nominees And Shareholder Rights. IQE Short update

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IQE is one of the most shorted shares on the stock market, so it is quite important to know who owns the shares and who is short.

However, individual shareholders’ rights are lost via the nominee system. IQE reporting is an example. Hargreaves Lansdown, Interactive Investor and Barclays own 6.5%, 4% and 4% respectively of IQE (i.e. 15% in total), according to Cannacord Genuity, who provide the data for the IQE annual report, which states:

Substantial interests in shares

As at 28 February 2018 the company had been notified pursuant to the Companies Act of the following substantial interests in the shares of the company as defined by the Listing Rules in addition to those disclosed for the directors:

T Rowe Price International

9.28%

OppenheimerFunds

6.61%

Hargreaves Lansdown Asset Mgt

6.54%

Interactive Investor

4.44%

Barclays Wealth

4.16%

Schroder Investment Mgt

3.90%

Dr Andrew W Nelson

3.90%

T Rowe Price

3.35%

Shareholder analysis by Canaccord Genuity

Under company law the directors must not approve the financial statements unless they are satisfied that they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Group and parent Company and of their profit or loss for that period.

Does this incorrect reporting matter? An intelligent and knowledgeable reader can probably guess, for example, that it is not Barclays Wealth but Barclays Nominees who are shown on the shareholder register and that the end investors are individual investors who use the Barclays platform to hold their investments.

In a way, this type of disclosure could be viewed as helpful, as it indicates how important the individual investors are collectively in this company.

IQE Short update

Since 28 Feb 2018, T Rowe have increased their holding, now 15.27% from 15.02%, https://polaris.brighterir.com/public/iqe/news/rns/story/w1qz34x and Goldman Sachs have bought in http://www.iqep.com/investors/regulatory-news/. I follow shorttracker https://shorttracker.co.uk/company/GB0009619924/ which gives real-time updates but does not show a Goldman short position.

So it looks like Goldman have bet on a positive future for IQE. I think this is good news because I’m long and would prefer to be on the same side as Goldman Sachs. However, there is a risk that they may have bought them on behalf of someone else.

There is a company trading update due soon, which might provide more transparency on what is really happening.

I own shares in IQE and watch with interest what is going on.

For more information on shorting see https://www.sharesoc.org/blog/general-news/shorting-shares-radio-4-programme/

Cliff Weight
Director – ShareSoc

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