ShareSoc News Archives

Firmer, faster, more transparent action needed by FRC, we tell Kingman

UKSA and ShareSoc responded jointly to Sir John Kingman’s review of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). We summarised our assessment of the FRC’s current strengths and weaknesses and made suggestions for addressing the weaknesses. The main points we made were: Our main desired outcome is firmer and faster action against those who violate the integrity of reporting standards. It seems to us (and to the general public) that in practically every financial scandal or financial crisis, the FRC seems to have taken ...

12th August 2018 Read more

Beaufort Client Campaign: Update 4

Following much hard work by the creditors' committee, PwC has now drafted an official distribution plan, in line with our previously stated understanding. Full details of the plan can be found here: https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/business-recovery/administrations/beaufort/distributions.html It was approved by the creditors' committee on 13th July and by the Court on 26th July. I attended the court hearing - more on that later. It is anticipated that the vast majority of client assets will be transferred to another broker in September, without loss or costs payable by ...

10th August 2018 Read more

Dowd Report On Cost Of Guarantees Linked To Equity Release Mortgages

Press Release 105 - Joint Press Release from UKSA and ShareSoc on behalf of individual investors Dowd Report On Cost Of Guarantees Linked To Equity Release Mortgages UKSA-ShareSoc welcome the publication of Professor Kevin Dowd's report on the valuation of embedded guarantees in equity release mortgages, which raises troubling questions about the quality and transparency of corporate reporting. It also raises concerns about the opaque relationship between regulators and regulated firms. Equity release mortgages allow people over the age of 55 to borrow a proportion of ...

7th August 2018 Read more

RBS AGM result and subsequent publicity

Paul Jackson wrote an in-depth analysis of the RBS Shareholder Committee campaign and the issues raised in the prestigious Investors Chronicle, 22 June 2018 issue, which is read by tens of thousands of investors. We are grateful to Paul and Investors Chronicle for giving us permission to reproduce this article. Click here: https://www.sharesoc.org/blog/shareholder-democracy/whose-company-is-it-anyway/ RBS AGM Result - Shareholder Committee Vote – We did well but it was a wasted opportunity UKGI Votes were 75.3% of those cast. So their vote decided the outcome. 7.8% of ...

14th July 2018 Read more

Warning to Beaufort Clients

It has come to ShareSoc’s attention that certain claims management companies (CMCs), may approach Beaufort clients, offering to help you recover your assets. We would advise extreme caution if you receive such an approach. The latest information from PwC, as agreed by the creditors’ committee, can be found here: https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/business-recovery/administrations/beaufort/latest-news-and-update.html As you can see from that statement (and the plan summary referred to by it), all bar fewer than 10 individuals with accounts that include cash in excess of £400,000, will have the costs ...

6th July 2018 Read more

Beaufort Client Campaign: Update 3

We are delighted to announce that PwC and the FSCS have substantially improved the plan for returning assets to clients of Beaufort Securities. Details of the new proposals can be found here: https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/business-recovery/administrations/beaufort/latest-news-and-update.html Whereas the original plan stated that the administration may take up to four years and that 700 accounts with a value > £150,000 could suffer losses of up to 40%, in order to fund administration costs PwC now state: "Fewer than ten retail clients will face any costs exposure at ...

10th June 2018 Read more

Access to Placings for Individual Investors

The FT, 7 June, publishes ShareSoc and the UK Shareholders' Association joint letter about placings which exclude individual investors. We continue to urge all companies and their brokers and Nomads to allow individual shareholders to participate in placings. The letter focussed on the recent placing by UKGI of RBS shares and was written by Cliff Weight and Peter Parry. It said: It is a public disgrace that individual investors have been excluded from the placing by UK Government Investments Limited ("UKGI") of RBS ...

9th June 2018 Read more

BEIS Consultation on Insolvency and Corporate Governance

We have submitted jointly with the UK Shareholders Association our response to the consultation on Insolvency and Corporate Governance. The response was written by Cliff Weight - Director, UK Individual Shareholders Society (ShareSoc) and Peter Parry - Policy Director, UK Shareholders' Association. Click here to read it.

8th June 2018 Read more

Act Now to Protect Your Assets!

We hope that, by now, you have read about the threat to all your broker accounts, including ISAs and SIPPs, that the events at Beaufort Securities exposes, which has been widely reported in the press (e.g. see this article in the Sunday Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/05/26/fbi-sting-picasso-scam-collapse-beaufort-could-destroy-trust/ ). If not, please visit our campaign page for a full explanation. Now is the time for you to act, to protect your own interests and remove the threat that an administrator could raid your accounts to recover ...

28th May 2018 Read more

Protect your rights, act now!

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to regain the rights and protections that you have lost as a result of the nominee account system. I urge you to act now by raising this issue at AGMs and writing to your MP, as suggested below. Probably the most important ShareSoc campaign is the Shareholder Rights campaign, launched in October 2014 to gain full rights for ALL shareholders. Individual shareholder rights have been eroded, particularly by the nominee account mechanism and the way that platforms and ...

27th May 2018 Read more