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.
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The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
I have been a shareholder of DotDigital for 8 years now and I was appalled by the manner in which the virtual AGM that I have just attended was conducted.
Shareholders were advised that in person attendance would not be possible, so a virtual AGM would be provided via the Investor-Meet-Company (IMC) platform. I duly completed the necessary formalities and looked forward to asking my questions ...
Following the update in May, the Sirius Claim Group has been working with potential legal partners to consider potential claims.
There are a number of different claims that are being considered but, in all cases, they must pass the significant challenge of not only being considered technically viable by both legal and financial partners but also, that any derived awards/damages/compensation must substantiate the time, effort and risk of pursuing. It follows therefore, that reviewing potential claims is a time consuming and very detailed piece of ...
The views expressed in this article are those of its author, not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
It’s that time of year when share tipsters start to issue their bets for the New Year. But the collapse of on-line grocer Farmdrop and recent profit warning from Boohoo (BOO) prompts me to think that one thing I will be avoiding next year is on-line retailers apart possibly from the gorillas already in that space.
Unlisted Farmdrop went out of business a few days ago so ...
The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
Northern Venture Trust (NVT) recently published their Annual Report. It shows that the manager (now Mercia) collected a performance fee of £2.5 million which on my calculation raised the overall fees and expenses as a percentage of closing net asset value to 4.5%.
This is way too high in my opinion even allowing for the work involved in managing a portfolio of small, unlisted investments. When ...
Having reached our 10 year anniversary in 2021, we are excited to enter a new era of our organisation in 2022 to be even more inclusive of investors from...
Harcus Parker (HP) has been investigating claims against fund managers and others for closet tracking: the practice of describing a fund as actively managed and charging for that service but in fact merely tracking an index or constraining performance.
HP are currently focussing investigations on two subsidiaries of Lloyds Banking Group, Scottish Widows and the Halifax. HP have now identified that the Halifax UK Growth Fund appears to be managed in exactly the same manner as the Scottish Widows UK Growth Fund, ...
The views expressed in this article represent those of the author, not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
As a small shareholder in BHP Group (BHP) I have just received a heavyweight document (285 pages) explaining the proposed unification of the company. This proposal is to remove the dual listed structure of the Australian and UK companies and the complex corporate structure associated with that.
For UK shareholders of BHP Group Plc this will mean, if it is voted through, that you will have your ...
It is some time since ShareSoc mentioned the Core VCTs in 2015, https://www.sharesoc.org/blog/company-news/governance-in-investment-trusts-alliance-trust-baronsmead-vct-3-and-the-core-vcts/ but due to the hard work behind the scenes by Nigel Sommerville, Tim Grattan, Robin Goodfellow and others, it looks like progress is about to happen.
Nigel has written up the latest developments with ShareProphets click here to read (it is free - outside their paywall) https://www.shareprophets.com/views/59458/core-vcts-a-vote-is-called-if-you-or-someone-you-know-held-these-then-please-read
The Times wrote about Core on 7 Dec https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/investor-sues-over-cheap-asset-sales-n0wkxqk3f (behind a paywall).
Cliff Weight, ShareSoc, Director
DISCLOSURE: I have never owned shares in Core. I have ...
This article represents the views of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
Interactive Investor have announced that they are being acquired by Abrdn (fka Aberdeen Standard Life), reportedly for £1.5 billion. Interactive Investor have been providing a popular and low-cost share dealing platform for private investors and have been owned by JC Flowers recently. Interactive acquired The Share Centre a few months back and now have about 400,000 clients.
At least it looks like Interactive Investor clients won’t have to learn ...
If a parent, grandparent or guardian had invested a one-off £1,000 in the average investment company for a child 18 years ago, it would now be worth an impressive £7,740 (a 674% return), or annualised return of 12.0%.
This performance data, for the average investment company, is the % share price total return for the weighted average investment company (excluding VCTs). Ten-year performance is from 27/11/2011 to 26/11/2021. Eighteen-year performance is from 27/11/2003 to 26/11/2021. Source: AIC/Morningstar.
These are the key points ...
