Regulations and Law

Home REIT – A Personal Viewpoint

This article reflects the opinions of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. Initial Period  Home REIT (HOME) appeared to offer rather an attractive proposition. It was intended to purchase residential properties and lease them at affordable rents to charities and public bodies (“the tenants”) providing accommodation for the homeless. The rent was supposed to be covered by housing benefits paid directly to the tenants, i.e. fully government backed. Rental income was expected to be sufficient to support a dividend of at ...

KPMG settles with Carillion liquidators over £1.3bn audit negligence claim

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. Another fudge. No-one is going to jail for this disaster. Examples need to be set to deter, to stop this happening again.  I am appalled at the lack of transparency on the size of the settlement. The article mentions the contingent liabilities already disclosed in the KPMG accounts. We will eventually find out the size of the settlement when KPMG publishes its accounts for 2023, but ...

The Death of KIDs

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. HM Treasury have announced plans to revoke the PRIIPs regulations which will likely mean the death of KIDs (Key Information Documents). KIDs are imposed and regulated under the PRIIPs regulation as devised by the EU for packaged investment products, such as funds and trusts. KIDs give basic financial information, risk indicators and likely future performance based on past performance. Those who purchase investment trusts, for example, ...

Pension Fund Hedging and the Bond Market

The Bank of England had to step into purchase gilts yesterday (28th September) after the bond market looked like collapsing totally. Some £65 billion was spent to do it. This has created panic and uncertainty in the financial community and even affected equity markets. I will give my comments on these events although I certainly do not claim to have any knowledge of pension scheme management and bond markets. So please correct me if I get it wrong. Defined benefit pension schemes buy ...

Interest Rate Sanity and Chancellor’s Announcements

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. The Bank of England’s announcement of an increase in base rate to 2.25% was just one step in a return to sanity. With inflation nearing 10% why would any idiot lend money at 5% or less as many mortgage providers have been doing. In reality the last few years have seen lower interest rates than have been available for the last 5,000 years. This has been ...

Financial Ombudsman and FCA considered lacking, plus defective Insolvency Regime

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. The stock markets are in turmoil now everyone is back from their holidays and facing up to the realisation that with high inflation and looming recessions the stock market may not be the best place to be for investors. I have moved more into cash and more defensive shares but cash is not the place to be for very long when inflation is eroding its ...

Transparency Task Force Attacks FCA and Sophisticated Investor/HNWI Status

This article represents the views of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. Following on from the BBC Panorama programme on the Blackmore Bond scandal the Transparency Task Force have launched an attack on the competence of the Financial Conduct Authority – see https://www.transparencytaskforce.org/letters-to-mps-about-blackmore-bond/. It includes a letter you can send to your Member of Parliament asking for some reform. I agree with most of their recommendations on how matters can be improved. One issue I would also raise is that the Panorama ...

Panorama Attacks FCA over Mini-Bond Failures

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 ...

Gore Street Energy Fund Dividend Waiver and Directors’ Jobs

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 ...

Austin Review of Capital Raising and Dematerialisation

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 ...