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ShareSoc News

Cable’s Pay Review – A good first step

Post Date: March 15, 2012
PRESS RELEASE 20 (15/03/2012) ShareSoc (the “UK Individual Shareholders Society”) welcomes the publication by Vince Cable’s B.I.S. Department of proposals for shareholders to have more say in the remuneration of public company directors. We believe that the proposals for a forward looking binding vote on pay are essential and that the level of support for such a vote should be increased from the normal 50% to 75%, i.e. it should be made a special resolution to bring it into line with other important ...
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ShareSoc Launches Attack on Unjustifiable LTIP Award at Intercede Group Plc

Post Date: March 12, 2012
PRESS RELEASE 19 (12/03/2012) ShareSoc (the “UK Individual Shareholders Society”), has launched a Shareholder Action Group in relation to Intercede Group Plc. Intercede announced a Long Term Incentive Plan (“LTIP”) in August 2011. In the view of ShareSoc, and the shareholders whom we represent, this LTIP demonstrates many of the aspects that are abhorrent in the current system of remuneration in public companies. The problems are: The award of nominal cost share options (effectively free shares) which simply transfers a part of the value ...
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Will Cameron Deliver on his Pay Promise?

Post Date: January 10, 2012
PRESS RELEASE 17 (10/01/2012) ShareSoc (the “UK Individual Shareholders Society”) welcomes the commitment from David Cameron last Sunday that the Government is to tackle the problem of excessive remuneration in UK public companies A summary of what he said is given at the end of this press release, but it included a commitment to a binding vote on pay by shareholders, better reporting of actual pay and reform of remuneration committees. These are all measures that ShareSoc has advocated recently so it is ...
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Conygar – A Good Example of What is Wrong with the Remuneration of Directors in Public Companies

Post Date: January 3, 2012
PRESS RELEASE 16 (03/01/2012) ShareSoc (the “UK Individual Shareholders Society”) has been campaigning since it was created for reformation of the way directors of public companies are remunerated and how their pay is set. A good example of how directors can exploit the opportunities implicit in the present system is that of Conygar, an AIM listed property company. This is a relatively small company (net assets £158m at September 2011 year end) but where the directors paid themselves a total of £3.5m in ...
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RBS Report – Not a Total Whitewash, But….

Post Date: December 12, 2011
PRESS RELEASE 15 (12/12/2011) ShareSoc (the UK Individual Shareholders Society) welcomes the long overdue publication of the FSA report on the failure of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). It does highlight many important issues, and we have summarised those in an Appendix to this press release. For example, it suggests that existing regulations are not tough enough to ensure proper stewardship of banks and suggests some changes (the report sees no prospect of penalties being imposed on the directors of RBS). But ...
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Getting Tough on Pay

Post Date: December 5, 2011
PRESS RELEASE 14 (05/12/2011) ShareSoc (the UK Individual Shareholders Society) welcomes Nick Clegg’s statement that the Government is to clamp down on excessive pay in public companies in the New Year. ShareSoc has been arguing for some time that pay is now out of control. In both large and small companies, there are examples of outrageous levels of pay, ridiculously generous “performance” schemes and over-complicated pay structures that serve to obfuscate what is happening. In our recent submission to the Executive Pay Discussion ...
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ShareSoc’s Response to “The Future of Narrative Reporting” Consultation

Post Date: November 22, 2011
We submitted the following response to the consultation by the BIS on "The Future of Narrative Reporting" which proposed substantial changes to the content of companys’ Annual Reports and other company reports: Future of Narrative Reporting Response
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No Tears for the Death of “Northern Rock”?

Post Date: November 18, 2011
PRESS RELEASE 13 (18/11/2011) No tears for the death of “Northern Rock” – at least not from the Government one presumes. Virgin Money have acquired the company and intend to phase out the brand as soon as possible. Virgin are paying £747m in cash immediately and up to £300m subsequently. Bearing in mind that the Government paid nothing for the equity of the company to the previous shareholders when they nationalised the company in early 2008, this is surely a good deal? ...
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The Kay Review: ShareSoc’s submission

Post Date: November 4, 2011
The Kay Review is a consultation on the operation of the UK equity markets and long-term decision making. We submitted this document to the initial call for evidence: Kay Review . See above for a subsequent response in addition.
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ShareSoc’s response to BIS “Executive Pay Discussion Paper”

Post Date: November 3, 2011
The BIS issued an "Executive Pay Discussion Paper" on the issue of excessive and growing pay - the ShareSoc response is in this document: Executive Pay . Postscript: we subsequently issued this note to answer some of the questions and comments that had arisen in public debate on this issue: Exec-Remuneration-2 . Also see above for our subsequent response to the Shareholder Voting Rights Consultation.
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ShareSoc Launches Campaign on Rensburg AIM VCT

Post Date: October 14, 2011
PRESS RELEASE 12 (14/10/2011) ShareSoc (The UK Individual Shareholders Society) has launched its first campaign to obtain changes in a specific company – namely Rensburg AIM VCT. Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) have major tax advantages, and some VCTs have been very successful with total returns (net asset value plus dividends) of over 5% p.a. since launch, ignoring tax reliefs. However there are many that have been very disappointing. One of these is Rensburg AIM VCT which has achieved a total return of -1% ...
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ShareSoc Launches a Proposal for Shareholder Committees In Response to Vince Cable’s Paper on Executive Remuneration

Post Date: September 20, 2011
PRESS RELEASE 08 (20/09/2011) Vince Cable yesterday proposed that one way to bring Executive Remuneration to heel is to “diversify” Remuneration Committees by introducing independent members. There are potential legal problems with doing this, and the UK Individual Shareholder Society (ShareSoc) suggests there is a much better solution that would also tackle a number of other issues with the governance of UK public companies. Our solution is the introduction of Shareholder Committees and we have today published a 17-page report on how they ...
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