ShareSoc Blog
The ShareSoc blog provides news and informal commentary from directors, members and other contributors. Entries reflect the personal views of the authors, which do not necessarily reflect ShareSoc’s formal position. Contributors may hold shares in the companies mentioned. Nothing in this blog should be viewed as financial advice. You may submit comments on blog posts, but ShareSoc reserves the right to remove or edit inappropriate or defamatory submissions.
There is more news given in the News page of our web site and more analysis of news is provided in our monthly newsletter for members – see the Newsletters page.
If you would like to be notified about new posts to our blog you can opt-in to our Weekly Wrap-Up Email service. If you are a member of ShareSoc select the “Weekly Wrap-Up Email” option here. If you are not a member select the “Information and Education Services” option here.
This article represents the views of its author and not necessarily those of Sharesoc.
The BBC’s Panorama programme last night (on 16/8/2022) did a good job of pointing out the failure of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to prevent fraud on investors in “mini-bonds”. In this case the focus was on the collapse of Blackmore Bond where 2,000 people lost £46m when the company collapsed. But there have been several other similar cases.
Mini-bonds are unregulated investments so should only be sold to ...
The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
It has been suggested by articles in Investors Chronicle that now might be the time to venture back into the small cap market after a big fall in the share prices of such companies in the last year (the FTSE-AIM index is down by 27%). But investors in Treatt (TET) might not agree. After a profit warning this morning (15th August 2022) the share price ...
The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
At the forthcoming Annual General Meeting of Gore Street Energy Storage Fund (GSF) in addition to the usual resolutions shareholders are asked to approve a whitewash of the illegal past payments of dividends (resolution 15). This regularly happens when a company fails to file a statement of distributable reserves at Companies House showing it has sufficient reserves to cover the dividend. It seems to happen ...
Executive Summary
We have focussed our resources mainly on the Woodford campaign, best practice guidance for AGMs, nominee accounts and pre-emption rights; and maintaining good relationships with the FCA, FRC, BEIS and Treasury. Activities relating to ShareSoc’s shortly to be launched Investing Basics Course have consumed much of our available resource and limited what can be done on campaigns. Nevertheless, we have made much progress.
Since our last update of 4 April 2022 we have worked on:
Consultation responses and government lobbying
...
This article represents the views of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
It’s the mid-summer doldrums in the stock market and with investors having more time on their hands, what better time to issue a 265 page document entitled “UK Secondary Capital Raising Review” (see link below). This document covers a number of very important issues to investors after a review by Mark Austin as Chair of a committee that has looked at the way the UK stock market operates ...
In a joint UKSA/ShareSoc response on 29 July 2022, we said
We support the creation of the International Sustainability Standards Board and wish to see it succeed in its mission of developing high-quality global standards for sustainability reporting by companies, which should lead to mitigate against the confusion of the complex web of sustainability standards that currently exists. In order to succeed as global standards, the IFRS Sustainability Standards need to be adopted by the local authorities of countries and regions ...
This article represents the views of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
The Government has published how it proposes to reform the Prospectus Regime. Among the welcome changes are the ability to omit a prospectus when shares are being issued to those who already hold equity securities in the offering company, subject to certain conditions, including that the offer is made pro-rata to a person's existing holding.
The need for a prospectus introduced a costly barrier to the issue of shares ...
We received very strongly positive feedback from the 832 registrants to this webinar. A recording of the webinar is available here.
The Missing 90%
The webinar highlighted the Enigma of the missing 90% of claimants. We think up to 270,000 investors have yet to claim and we plan to issue a press release highlighting this and some of the points below:
Nearly 300,000 investors lost money in the Woodford Equity Income Fund (WEIF)and now have an opportunity to claim compensation, but so far ...
The views expressed in this article are those of its author and don't necessarily reflect those of ShareSoc.
Abcam Delisting from AIM
Biotechnology company Abcam (ABC) is one of the largest AIM listed companies (market cap £2.7 billion). Yesterday (20/7/2022) they included in a trading update a statement that they are planning to cancel the admission of their shares on AIM. They previously moved to list their shares also on Nasdaq so they are currently dual-listed. This means they have already lost the ...
ShareSoc and the UK Shareholders’ Association, who represent individual investors in the UK, welcome the Treasury Report on Secondary Market Placings.
The recommendations, when implemented, will help to create a more level playing field for individual investors.
The report also highlights the problems of disenfranchisement faced by retail shareholders in nominee accounts and proposes new systems which will allow retail investors to participate on fair terms in placings and fund raisings.
The UK Shareholders' Association said:
“The UK Shareholders' Association fully supports ...
