ShareSoc News

ShareSoc Launches new “Internet for Investors” Course

PRESS RELEASE 56 (19/05/2014) ShareSoc launches its First Educational Offer with a Course entitled “The Internet for Investors” The individual investor community is split. Some individual investors are highly “web-savvy” and benefit greatly from a range of news and information resources that can be used to improve investment performance. Others, however, are stuck in the web “dark ages” and lack the knowledge and confidence to take full advantage of these tools, putting them at a disadvantage. In line with our stated mission to improve ...

ShareSoc launches Group for concerned shareholders in Oxford Technology VCTs

PRESS RELEASE 55 (21/03/2014) The Oxford Technology VCT (OXT) and Oxford Technology 3 VCT (OTT) have announced that HMRC has withdrawn their VCT status. This has been done because one of the Venture Capital Trust rules is that no more than 15% of a fund can be invested in one company. Both these companies have a holding in Scancell, an AIM listed company, and the share price of Scancell rose rapidly so that the rule was inadvertently breached as a result of ...

Nominee system defeats shareholder voting

PRESS RELEASE 54 (30/01/2014) Nominee system defeats shareholder voting ShareSoc has recently issued a survey to our Members and the public covering their voting and attendance at General Meetings and the prevalence of the use of nominee accounts. The results demonstrate that the nominee account system undermines shareholders' ability to vote at the General Meetings of the companies they own.  Nominee accounts are now the commonest form in which investors hold shares in companies (89% of ShareSoc Members held some shares in a nominee ...

ShareSoc’s Response to the Response to Consultation on Fiduciary Duties of Intermediaries

The Law Commission have undertaken a public consultation on the "Fiduciary Duties of Investment Intermediaries". ShareSoc’s response is in this document: Fiduciary_Duties

Hargreaves Lansdown doubles charges for some investors

PRESS RELEASE 53 (17/01/2014) On the 15th January Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) announced new charges on its investment platform. The changes are no doubt provoked by the new rules whereby funds can no longer pass part of their charges back to HL. But the changes will mean that the annual charges paid by some investors will double. The reason why charges might double is that in future investment trust holdings will not be treated as being direct share investments, even though they are the ...

Hargreaves Lansdown backs down on investment trust charges

PRESS RELEASE 53 (17/01/2014) Hargreaves Lansdown doubles charges for some investors On the 15th January Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) announced new charges on its investment platform. The changes are no doubt provoked by the new rules whereby funds can no longer pass part of their charges back to HL. But the changes will mean that the annual charges paid by some investors will double. The reason why charges might double is that in future investment trust holdings will not be treated as being direct share ...

Collective Engagement – A New “City Club” for Institutions?

PRESS RELEASE 52 (20/12/2013) ShareSoc welcomed many of the proposals contained in the Kay Review, including the third key recommendation that "An investors’ forum should be established to facilitate collective engagement by investors in UK companies". Subsequently a Collective Engagement Working Group was formed to take this proposal forward and it has recently produced a report (see Note below). Unfortunately this report contains a number of major defects in our view and we will be making representations to the Government opposing the structure ...

ShareSoc’s Response to the FCA’s Consultation on Crowdfunding

Proposals to regulate Crowdfunding were the subject of this response to an FCA consultation: Crowdfunding

Great news – real company owners to be disclosed

PRESS RELEASE 51 (31/10/2013) The Prime Minister has announced that the details of who really owns and controls UK companies will be made publicly accessible. More information will be announced in early 2014, but the key paragraph in the announcement from the BIS Department includes the statement that the Government will “………potentially use as a model the disclosure regime that currently applies in relation to disclosure of information on company shareholders. This would mean that companies would hold information on the names and ...

Sharesoc response to consultation on Venture Capital Trust share buy-backs

ShareSoc submitted this response to the public consultation on Venture Capital Trust (VCT) buy-backs by HM Treasury: VCT_BuyBacks

Response to Consultation on Transparency & Trust Discussion Paper

ShareSoc has submitted this note in response to the BIS Dept’s Discussion Paper on "Transparency & Trust": TransparencyandTrust

Vodafone and Verizon – how will they use the cash?

PRESS RELEASE 50 (31/08/2013) ShareSoc welcomes the announcement that discussions on the disposal of Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless are being pursued. But our main concern is what the company will do with the cash they might receive (which may be over US$100bn). Vodafone is a company that favours market share buybacks, when most private investors do not. The company has spent £19.5 billion on buybacks in the last ten years (see below) plus £1 billion in the last quarter alone. ShareSoc prefers to ...