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.
We (Boz Michalowska from Leigh Day and me) met with the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) on 7th May. They have received 549 claims so far relating to Woodford, Link, Hargreaves and IFAs. They have resolved 3 at final decision stage and these were simple cases against IFAs. We were given no evidence to suggest that the FOS route is likely to have a quick nor successful resolution. ShareSoc cannot give financial advice and individuals must of course make their own decisions.
ShareSoc ...
1. Leigh Day, whose claim ShareSoc has endorsed, submitted their Letter Before Action (LBA) to Link in March and are still awaiting a response. Leigh Day are preparing assiduously for all eventualities re claim vs Link.
2. We urge everyone to tell their Friends and Family about the Campaign, Leigh Day Claim and the webinar. Around 500,000 may be eligible to claim, but so far less than 5% have done so. Please spread the word! Potentially claimants can recover up to 70% ...
News Item Sirius Minerals:
Following the update in December, the Sirius Claim Group has continued its work to collate and present information to support any potential claim(s).
This reached an initial conclusion and since April we have been engaged with a legal firm to review the potential. This process involves a number of stages and will naturally take an amount of time. It may also require us to review the information with more than one legal firm to achieve the desired outcome which ...
Greggs (GRG) held their Annual General Meeting today. This was a “closed” meeting but with no electronic access provided. Bearing in mind the size of the company, it seems unreasonable that they could not have provided shareholder access.
But I note that the votes reported show that several directors received substantial votes against. For example Ian Durant at 4.8% and Sandra Turner at 7.7%. I wonder why? There were also substantial numbers of votes withheld but no explanation has been given.
One advantage ...
by Cliff Weight, Sharesoc Director.
Allenby have just published this very informative review of AIM: http://www.allenbycapital.com/research_1214_2120899233.pdf which contains many interesting statistics.
The AIM market is at the same level it was 20 years ago, but the journey between has been very volatile. However the last 5 years, with the exception of last March's blip, has been most encouraging. It may be that fewer scandals than in the past have occurred. However ShareSoc is still campaigning hard to get better regulation of the AIM ...
As it’s Friday afternoon with not much happening, and I have completed my latest complaint about the time it’s taking to complete a SIPP platform transfer, I decided to have a look at the public consultation on “Restoring Trust in Audit and Corporate Governance” from the BEIS Department.
This is a quite horrendous consultation on the Government’s proposals to improve audit standards and director behaviour as foretold in the Kingman and Brydon reviews, with proposals for a new regulatory body (ARGA). That’s ...
In April 2021, we worked on:
Woodford Campaign: Leigh Day are the only claim with insurance and funding in place. Harcus Parker have funding but do not have ATE insurance. RGL have neither insurance nor funding (other than funding for an initial step). Leigh Day (whose claim ShareSoc have endorsed) now have c 10,000 claimants registered and are the leading claim.
Sirius Minerals Shareholder Group, Sirius Claim Group: A 20 page review of the evidence was finalised in April ...
The Daily Mail quoted ShareSoc Director Cliff Weight in its 2 May Aviva article https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-9535371/Aviva-faces-investor-revolt-preference-shares-scandal.html
Aviva faces an investor revolt this week after angering shareholders by deciding not to claw back fees from directors who oversaw a preference shares scandal.
The insurer was rocked in 2018 when it said it was considering buying back shares marketed as 'irredeemable' for less than they were trading at.
It reneged on the announcement days later, by which time the shares had tumbled.
It was forced to compensate investors. ...
The SFO has recently been in touch with registered shareholders of Patisserie Valerie (CAKE). But if, like most shareholders, your shares were held in a nominee account, they probably won't have been able to contact you.
They are asking for shareholders to complete a questionnaire to assist them with their enquiries into allegations of fraud at that company. You can find full details and the questionnaire here: https://www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/patisserie-holdings-plc/
Mark Bentley, Director, ShareSoc
It is now more than a year since we released a major upgrade to ShareSoc's website, fully described here: https://www.sharesoc.org/sharesoc-news/sharesoc-website-upgrade/. A key aspect of this upgrade was the integration of forum functionality previously provided by our separate members' network website. That website is based on the Ning software service.
As our new forums have now been operating successfully for more than a year, we intend to discontinue the old Ning site within the next month. Before the transition recent/important content was migrated ...
