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ShareSoc Blog

This blog gives you the latest topical news plus some informal comments on them from ShareSoc’s directors and other contributors. These are the personal comments of the authors and not necessarily the considered views of ShareSoc. The writers may hold shares in the companies mentioned. You can add your own comments on the blog posts, but note that ShareSoc reserves the right to remove or edit comments where they are inappropriate or defamatory.

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.

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Woodford Campaign Update 7
7 October 2021

1. Leigh Day achieved a significant legal milestone and submitted their court proceedings against Link on 27 September. 2. 942 people registered for ShareSoc’s “Woodford: What Happens Next” webinar with 684 attending. This was our biggest webinar ever and possibly the biggest webinar of its kind. 3. Exclusive Special Offer for Campaign members (which came with free ShareSoc Associate membership). You can now Upgrade to FULL Membership, allowing you to watch recordings of Woodford webinars including “What Happens Next” and “What Went Wrong”. ...

Improved Registration for ShareSoc Events

After many months of work behind the scenes, we are delighted to announce an improved and simplified process for registering for our online events. Whereas previously two steps were required to register, first registering via our website and then with Zoom, registration is now done in a single step. After submitting your details, you will automatically be registered with Zoom for the event you wish to attend. Zoom will then email you automatically with login details for the event. We recommend that ...

City of London Investment Trust Annual Report

I have been reading the City of London Investment Trust (CTY) annual report in advance of their AGM on the 28th of October. This is one of my oldest shareholdings – first purchased in 2011 with an annual total return since of 11.5% p.a. according to Sharescope. Historically it has been a good performer, if somewhat boring. That’s OK but last year was a disappointing one. Has Job Curtis, the long-time manager, lost his touch? Last year the trust supplied a share ...

ShareSoc Woodford Legal Claim Webinar

Former ShareSoc Chair Roger Lawson attended the Woodford Webinar and gives his view below. I watched the ShareSoc webinar last night covering the legal claims over the collapse of the Woodford Equity Income Fund (WEIF). I never personally held any of the Woodford funds but from past experience of other similar big legal claims it was of some interest. With as many as 270,000 investors in WEIF affected it must be one of the most discreditable events in the financial world in ...

Woodford: What Happens Next? – Webinar Report

This is an official ShareSoc News Item written by ShareSoc Director Cliff Weight. 942 registered for ShareSoc’s webinar with 684 attending. Wow! Our biggest webinar ever and possibly the biggest webinar of its kind. Also, we now have 1,465 members of our Woodford Campaign. With these sorts of numbers we can pack much more of a punch with the FCA, Government and Hargreaves Lansdown. The Campaign has socially responsible aims of making the investment world a better place. It very much fits in ...

Leigh Day issue court proceedings against Link

Leigh Day issued court proceedings against Link on Monday 27 September 2021.  This is a huge step forward in getting compensation for the many thousands of unfortunates who lost money in Woodford’s WEIF funds. Leigh Day’s issuing of proceedings is a big milestone. We are concerned, however, that roughly only 5-10% of the 270,000 or so investors seem to have joined any claim so far. We urge all WEIF investors to join a claim. We believe that Leigh Day are streets ahead of ...

Grant Thornton Fined Trivial Amount over Patisserie Valerie Audits

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. The interesting news today, at least for a former shareholder in Patisserie Holdings (CAKE) as I am, was the announcement by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) of fines on Grant Thornton and their Audit Partner over the defective audits of the company in financial years 2015, 2016 and 2017. The company subsequently collapsed in 2018 when it became apparent that the accounts were a work of fiction. This is ...

Dividend Yield vs Market Capitalisation

This article expresses the opinions and analysis of its author and does not necessarily reflect those of ShareSoc. The author accepts no liability for any errors in his analysis - readers should verify the analysis for themselves. There has recently been some discussion within ShareSoc and SIGnet about the construction of the SIGnet Investors' Index (SII). A point of debate was whether the SII was biased relative to more conventional and total return indexes because its small- and micro-cap weighting did not ...

ShareSoc response to Treasury UK Prospectus Regime Review Consultation

It looks like the €8m limit may be removed and also that it may become easier for individual investors to participate in fund raisings. In addition shareholder rights to prevent dilution will be strengthened. This consultation looks to be good news for individual investors. In our 10 page response to HM Treasury we said: We welcome this consultation paper. ShareSoc is a not-for-profit organisation with over 8,000 members. We represent the interests of 5 million individual shareholders and 12 million individual investors in the ...

DGE : Diageo – Company Information and Vote Guidance

by Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc. These are my personal views and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. I do not own shares in Diageo, but my wife does, in her ISA. She bought in 1998 at £7.16 and they are now £35. With sales of £12.7bn, their EV (Enterprise Value = market cap plus debt) of £95 bn is > six  times turnover and I don't see great barriers to entry at the global level or from supermarkets going direct to wine ...
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