Company News

Custodian Reit – It always pays to ask

A note from Mark Bentley: I have been a shareholder in the Custodian REIT (AIM:CREI) since its original flotation in March 2014. It has “done what it says on the tin”, investing in numerous small sized, high yielding commercial properties, to generate income, resulting in an attractive and growing dividend stream for investors. Given the low level of target gearing (25% of NAV), this is a low-risk strategy I find attractive, in this era of negligible interest rates. In January 2015 the ...
Post Date: May 28, 2015 Read more

Shareholder Friendly Approach from HarbourVest

For once it is good to see a company actively reach out to engage with its shareholders, something ShareSoc applauds and encourages. HarbourVest Global Private Equity (HVPE) is a Guernsey registered investment trust, which invests primarily in global private equity funds-of-funds, managed by an affiliate of Boston based HarbourVest Partners LLC. It is a substantial trust with a market cap. in excess of $1bn. It is currently listed on the specialist funds market of the LSE, but has been planning a move ...
Post Date: May 23, 2015 Read more

Rensburg AIM VCT Wind Up

Shareholders on the register of Rensburg AIM VCT will have received a letter from Bill Nixon of Maven Capital Partners. Maven are an experienced Venture Capital Fund manager and have experience of taking over the management of existing VCTs as the letter indicates. They are proposing to take over the management of the Rensburg AIM VCT instead of the company winding up as the board of directors has proposed. The company has previously announced that they propose to formally wind up via ...
Post Date: May 19, 2015 Read more

Alliance Trust Stocktrade Acquisition and Sexism in the City

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 ...
Post Date: May 15, 2015 Read more

Shareholder Action Group Launched for Alliance Trust

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 ...
Post Date: May 12, 2015 Read more

Who are the Election Winners and Losers?

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 ...
Post Date: May 8, 2015 Read more

Shareholder voting, remuneration and BG Group

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 ...
Post Date: May 6, 2015 Read more

Alliance Trust AGM – Will Dundee cake suffice?

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 ...
Post Date: April 30, 2015 Read more

Tesco Results and Elementis AGM

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 ...
Post Date: April 22, 2015 Read more

Change at the top at Rolls-Royce

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 ...
Post Date: April 22, 2015 Read more