Company News

Can you make money in the FTSE100?

Can you make money by investing in the FTSE100? This thought came to mind when looking at some of the recent market statistics. It's quite an important question because most stock market investors are heavily biased to that segment of the market (as opposed to FTSE250, small cap or AIM stocks) simply because the market cap of the FTSE100 is a very high proportion of the overall UK market. For example, it's about 80% of the FTSE AllShare. So if you ...

Alliance Trust Announcement and ATSAG Response

Alliance Trust Plc have today announced a number of changes "to enhance shareholder value" as they put it. It includes a more focussed investment mandate, a reduction in costs, a commitment to narrowing the discount, a revised dividend policy and a simplification of the corporate structure. The Alliance Trust Shareholder Action Group (ATSAG), supported by ShareSoc, has generally welcomed the changes. You can read the full comments issued by ATSAG in this press release: https://www.sharesoc.org/pr70alliancenews.html Roger Lawson

Quindell law suit, and Camkids

Many private investors lost money on their investments in Quindell. It was one of the most highly traded stocks on the market. Now a legal action has been launched by law firm "Your Legal Friend" on the basis of misleading statements being issued by the company during 2013 and 2014. To quote from the lawyers web site, where you can register your interest (see https://www.yourlegalfriend.com/types-of-claim/public-incidents/quindell-investment-claims ): "We have been contacted by many such investors who relied on a range of positive statements issued ...

Glencore Placing Attacked

In a previous blog post I said that Glencore's plans to cut its debt and strengthen its balance sheet by disposals and a new share issue were "just what the doctor ordered". But it turns out that the detail of the prescription was not to everyone's liking. Institutional fund managers have rightly deplored the fact that the equity issue was a "placing", i.e. not a rights issue that is subject to the normal pre-emption rules. In other words, existing shareholders were ...

Elliott Raises Stake in Alliance Trust

Elliott Advisors have raised their stake in Alliance Trust to 14%. After a battle before the last Annual General Meeting of Alliance, the company effectively conceded defeat by appointing two new non-executive directors as suggested by Elliott. But the issues raised by Elliott of a high share price discount to net asset value, and long-standing poor performance have not gone away – the discount currently stands at about 12%, much higher than most generalist investment trusts. Indeed many trusts are now ...

Hargreaves Lansdown and opaque accounts

Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.), who claim to be the largest UK investment platform, announced their Preliminary Results yesterday (9/9/2015). I have made some comments recently about the benefits stockbrokers receive from client cash funds, and in particular the fact that dividends received by holders of nominee accounts are received and retained by the broker unless asked for, instead of being paid direct to the shareholder as happens when you are on the share register. So I thought it useful to look at ...

Amlin and Glencore – Market surprises, but not at Berkeley

This morning a takeover bid for insurer Amlin was announced by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance. A cash offer of 670p which represents a premium of 34.5% to last nights closing price. With Amlin having been warning for some time about increased competition in the catastrophe insurance sector, this is surely a done deal assuming they can get over any regulatory hurdles. I was going to write that unlike many mega deals the news seemed not to have leaked out in advance, but it's ...

Natural resource companies – only themselves to blame? And BHP Billiton results.

I believe John Redwood recently said that it was odd that commodity prices have been falling while Chinese demand has been steadily rising as forecast. As their economy turns more to retail consumption, the demand for consumer products and energy which drive the commodity markets has been rising as China is definitely the elephant in the room in terms of its influence on global demand. An article in the Daily Telegraph by Ian McVeigh on Friday (28/8/2015) explains this conundrum, with a ...

Dunedin Enterprise and High Discounts

If Alliance Trust shareholders might be concerned about the high discount to NAV their shares trade at, then that's nothing in comparison with the position of investors in Dunedin Enterprise Trust. At the time of writing it is trading on a discount of 38%! On Friday (28/8/2015), they reported results for the half year ending June - and it was another very disappointing set of figures. Net asset value total return was -0.1% for the half year and over three years they ...

Rensburg AIM VCT AGM and Blinkx AGM

Did the directors postpone the Rensburg AIM VCT AGM, originally scheduled for the 22nd July, as they knew the votes? And even more importantly, what is the future for AIM VCTs? These were some of the questions that arose at the Rensburg AIM VCT AGM yesterday (on the 25th August). No answer was obtained to the first question, but there was coverage of the second question which may interest anyone who invests in VCTs. All the resolutions were passed, but all three ...