ShareSoc News

VSA Capital Group delisting – some most peculiar events

PRESS RELEASE 46 (18/04/2013) On the 28th March, VSA Capital Group announced a proposed delisting from AIM, with a vote to be taken on the 17th April (yesterday). That was of course immediately before the Easter bank holiday, making it somewhat difficult for shareholders, particularly those in nominee accounts, to get their votes in on time. And so it turned out to be. A number of shareholders opposed the delisting, led by Nick Brown who set up a web site to co-ordinate ...

ShareSoc Calls for Revitalised AGMs

PRESS RELEASE 45 (11/04/2013) General meetings are one of the best opportunities for companies to communicate with their owners: the shareholders. But ShareSoc members often find that Annual General Meetings are not the lively and mutually informative occasions that they should be. With the main AGM season looming, ShareSoc has published a document explaining how they should be run. This 12-page note provides guidance on how to get the best out of such meetings, both for shareholders attending and those managing or ...

ShareSoc’s response to HM Treasury’s ISA Shares Consultation

ShareSoc’s response to HM Treasury’s ISA Shares Consultation (covering technical issues on the inclusion of AIM shares in ISAs among other matters) is present here: ISASharesConsultation

ShareSoc’s Response To The Statutory Audit Market Inquiry

Our response to the questions posed by the Competition Commission following their report on the market for Audit Services is contained in this document: Audit-Services

ShareSoc Recommends Voting Against Chairman Dick Olver, at the BAE Systems AGM

PRESS RELEASE 44 (31/03/2013) ShareSoc recommends shareholders vote against the re-election of Chairman Dick Olver at the BAE Systems AGM on the 8th May, and against the Remuneration Report and some of the other resolutions. See this note which we have sent to supporters of the ShareSoc campaign on BAE for more information: www.sharesoc.org/BAE_Newsletter_5.pdf ShareSoc has been campaigning for the removal of Mr Olver since the aborted merger with EADS. More information on our campaign is here: www.sharesoc.org/campaigns4.html For further information, please ...

ShareSoc celebrates second anniversary

PRESS RELEASE 43 (01/03/2013) In February 2010 the UK Individual Shareholders Society (ShareSoc) was launched as an organisation to represent private investors. Since then the Society has recruited over 2,500 members and has actively worked to promote their interests. ShareSoc has run a number of campaigns on companies where we identified significant issues of concern to shareholders including Rensburg AIM VCT, Graphite Enterprise, Intercede Group, Lighthouse Group and BAE Systems, and achieved significant share price performance improvement in the first two. Intercede ...

Test of “Proper Purpose” Company Law at Red Rock

PRESS RELEASE 42 (25/01/2013) Yesterday an initial hearing in the High Court took place on a challenge by the directors of Red Rock Resources Plc to a request for a copy of their share register by Gary Carp, a shareholder in the company. Since the 2006 Companies Act was introduced, any person requesting a copy of the share register of a company must have a “proper purpose”. This was designed to frustrate those who wanted to harass shareholders (such as animal rights ...

ShareSoc’s Response To The LSE’s Consultation On The Trading Of Smaller Equity Securities

ShareSoc submitted the following response to the consultation by the LSE on the trading of smaller equity securities: TradingSmallerEquities

ShareSoc’s Response to the New Capital Regime for Self-Invested Personal (SIPP) Consultation

ShareSoc responded to the consultation on the capital requirements of SIPP operators in this letter: SIPP_Response

ShareSoc’s Response to the Retail Prices Index Consultation

ShareSoc submitted this response to the consultation on possible changes to the Retail Prices Index (RPI): RPI_Response

ShareSoc Launches AIM Company Rating System

PRESS RELEASE 41 (26/11/2012) ShareSoc has been concerned for some time with the quality of companies on AIM. Private investors often get sucked into investing in companies with poor corporate governance, poor basic infrastructure, no track record, and with incompetent or untrustworthy directors. New AIM IPOs are particularly problematic with companies frequently failing or subsequently delisting. But how can investors sort the wheat from the chaff? ShareSoc has devised a simple tool to help investors differentiate between good companies and those that ...

ShareSoc and First Flight issue Recommended Code of Conduct for Non-Executive Directors

PRESS RELEASE 38 (7/11/2012) The importance of having active and competent Non-Executive Directors (including Chairmen) in public companies cannot be over emphasised. They can make all the difference between the long term success or failure of a business, and are crucial when a company faces short term difficulties. But many major corporate failures or near disasters such as RBS, BP, Northern Rock, AIG, Enron and more recently Olympus, News Corporation, Barclays etc have been assigned to an “inability of the Non-Execs to exercise influence ...