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Home > Blog > Company News
Alliance Trust Stocktrade Acquisition and Sexism in the City
Post Date: May 15, 2015
Yesterday (15/5/2015), Alliance Trust announced the acquisition of the Stocktrade service from Brewin Dolphin which will be integrated into the Alliance Trust Savings (ATS) subsidiary. The acquisition will cost ATS £14 million, and that cost plus an additional £8m of regulatory capital will be funded by the parent company with an injection of equity. This move will anger many shareholders of Alliance Trust who have expressed concerns about the expansion plans for the Alliance Trust subsidiaries, the capital required and the ...
Shareholder Action Group Launched for Alliance Trust
Post Date: May 12, 2015
Following the Annual General Meeting of Alliance Trust (ATST) where the Board conceded the appointment of new directors subsequent to the requisition by Elliott Advisors, ShareSoc has been encouraged by a number of private investors to support a shareholder action group to represent their interests. Many investors still have concerns about the strategy of the company and about some aspects of its operations.
A shareholder action group has therefore been launched and investors can register their interest on this web page: https://www.sharesoc.org/alliance.html
Roger ...
Who are the Election Winners and Losers?
Post Date: May 8, 2015
Who are the General Election winners and losers? Well most investors have benefited because the market as a whole has risen today after the election results gave the Conservatives an unexpected victory. Specific sectors that benefited were house builders and utility companies. House builders were generally up at the time of writing this note, with Berkeley Group in particular up 10% - no doubt investors being relieved there would be no mansion tax affecting expensive properties in London. Utility companies were ...
Shareholder voting, remuneration and BG Group
Post Date: May 6, 2015
Manifest, a proxy advisory service, have reported on the voting at Annual General Meetings recently. It was good to read that there was significant opposition to the change to 14 days notice at the General Meetings of both Arm and Anglo-American - 18% at the latter and even higher at the former. This commonly arises where there are substantial overseas holders who find difficulty in getting in their proxy votes in time because of the complexity of the voting chain. But ...
Alliance Trust AGM – Will Dundee cake suffice?
Post Date: April 30, 2015
These are some initial impressions of the Alliance Trust AGM in Dundee yesterday - a full report can be found here.
It was not quite as exciting as it might have been after the company conceded defeat the previous day and agreed to accept two of the new directors nominated by Elliott, who then withdrew their resolutions. Alliance said it was a "compromise" but most commentators saw it as a tactical withdrawal at best. All Alliance have got is a "non-disparagement" agreement ...
Tesco Results and Elementis AGM
Post Date: April 22, 2015
Tesco (TSCO) and Elementis (ELM) - two very different companies. The first announced their preliminary results this morning, and the second held their AGM today which I attended.
The opening line of the Tesco announcement says it all: "It's has been a very difficult year for Tesco". Although it said like-for-like sales volumes were up for the first time in four years, the rest of the commentary was pretty negative and of course there will be no final dividend.
Debts are rising, pension ...
Change at the top at Rolls-Royce
Post Date: April 22, 2015
Rolls-Royce (RR.) have announced the abrupt departure of CEO John Rishton, although apparently it was his desire to retire and "have a change of lifestyle" that prompted this rather than pressure from the board or from shareholders. It would appear he may not have been enjoying the job of late. After the dismal last set of results it is not a surprise. I commented then (in February) by saying "My view: it may be a great business with great products but ...
Governance in Investment Trusts – Alliance Trust, Baronsmead VCT 3 and the Core VCTs
Post Date: April 17, 2015
The battle for the soul of Alliance Trust continues - or so their Chairman would have it. But even institutional proxy advisors ISS and PIRC have now come out in support of Elliott Advisors and their resolutions to appoint three new directors at the AGM on the 29th April. Alliance have said they are looking for a new truly independent non-executive director, but will they be anyone who is likely to disagree with the existing board or take a contrary view? ...
Shell & BG Group Deal – Not Everyone’s Happy
Post Date: April 9, 2015
(Pay packages and short termism at BG Group and Amec Foster Wheeler)
Shareholders in BG Group should surely be happy. The offer from Shell values their shares at about £13.50 per share which is a premium of 50% to that which they have recently been trading. Although investors will get most of the value in Shell shares which means they will still be holding shares in the depressed oil and gas sector. An indication that perhaps not all investors are happy is ...
John Lee, WPP and Optimal Payments
Post Date: April 6, 2015
As usual there was a thought provoking article by John Lee in the FT Money edition on Saturday (4/4/2015). He discusses the "one that got away" in his past investment history, which was a small company called Wire and Plastic Products. He invested £9,000 in 1984 in this manufacturer of supermarket trolleys but sold his shares for £25,000 when an unknown person named Martin Sorrell bought a large stake and the shares rocketed. It went on to become WPP (market cap ...
An Analysis of the Alliance Trust Defence
Post Date: April 2, 2015
ShareSoc has now issued a fuller analysis of the case for change at Alliance Trust, and the defence notes issues by Alliance Trust. It is present in this document on our web site:
https://www.sharesoc.org/ShareSoc_Alliance_Trust_Analysis.pdf
This is what is said in the conclusion of that document: We think it was perfectly reasonable for Elliott Advisors to take up their worries with Alliance and propose directors if they considered the issues they have raised were not being dealt with. Requisitioning resolutions is simple democracy upon ...
Alliance Trust – ShareSoc Press Release
Post Date: March 24, 2015
ShareSoc has issued the following press release after talking to both representatives of Alliance Trust and Elliott Advisors. If you have any views on this matter please let us know, and we would particularly like to hear from any holders of Alliance Trust shares (for publication or privately if you prefer).
This is one company where private shareholders are in the majority but it will be interesting to see how many can and do vote. It may prove an interesting example of how ...
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