ShareSoc News

Flint Interim Report: A Betrayal?

Background ShareSoc’s Shareholder Rights Campaign has been one of our longest running and most important campaigns. The reason it is so important is that current deficiencies in the rights of beneficial shareholders severely hamper our ability, and that of shareholder action groups generally, to hold company managements to account. This impacts the effectiveness of many of our other campaigns. Visit the campaign page for further details and further explanation of the issues. Since we launched the campaign in 2014, we have made considerable ...

Corporate Reporting and Audit Regulations

Further to our response to a BEIS consultation, the government has now published new draft regulations concerning corporate reporting, including measures that companies are taking to detect and prevent fraud.  The draft regulations are expected to be debated in parliament this autumn. If approved by Parliament, the Regulations will come into force on 1st January 2025.  The draft regulations implement the following four new reporting requirements for very large companies that were consulted on in the 2021 White Paper on ‘Restoring Trust in ...

SIGnet Launches new London Investor Group

SIGnet is excited to announce the launch of a new in-person, evening group, for members in the London area. You are invited: to an initial online meeting to explain more about the group, meet other investors, and confirm the details of the in-person group meetings. This launch meeting will be held on Zoom at 7pm on 30th August and is expected to last approximately 90 minutes. It is open to all investors with an interest in our new group, but you will ...

VOD – Vodafone Group plc Information and Vote Guidance 2023

AGM:  25 July 2023 Proxy deadline:  21 July 2023   ShareSoc provide this added value voting information service for Full Members only, providing background information on leading companies and AGM vote guidance. Below are links to the: 1. Stockopedia summary report. 2. Minerva Vote recommendations for the 25 July 2023 AGM based on their standard template. 3. Minerva detailed research report for the AGM. Summary of voting issues at this year’s AGM  The Minerva report highlights various issues and recommends voting against four of the resolutions. Readers should make their own ...

ShareSoc 2023 AGM: resolutions passed

ShareSoc (UK Individual Shareholders Society), the not-for-profit membership organisation representing the rights of individual shareholders, is pleased to announce that all resolutions proposed to members at the AGM, held on 28th June, were duly passed.   The results are as follows:      For  Against   Abstain  Total  Resolution 1: To receive the Report and Accounts of the Board of Directors for the year ended 31st December 2022.  44  2  1  47  Resolution 2: To re-elect as a member of the Board Ms. Jema Janet Elspeth Mary Arnold (appointed 06/02/2023).  38  4  3  45  Resolution 3: To re-elect as a member ...

EXPN – Experian plc Information and Vote Guidance 2023

AGM:  19 July 2023 Proxy deadline:  17 July 2023 ShareSoc provide this added value voting information service for Full Members only, providing background information on leading companies and AGM vote guidance. Below are links to the: 1. Stockopedia summary report. 2. Minerva Vote recommendations for the 19 July 2023 AGM based on their standard template. 3. Minerva detailed research report for the AGM. Summary of voting issues at this year’s AGM  The Minerva report highlights various issues and recommends voting against one of the resolutions. Readers should make their own ...

SSE – SSE plc Information and Vote Guidance 2023

AGM:  20 July 2023 Proxy deadline:  18 July 2023 ShareSoc provide this added value voting information service for Full Members only, providing background information on leading companies and AGM vote guidance. Below are links to the: 1. Stockopedia summary report. 2. Minerva Vote recommendations for the 20 July 2023 AGM based on their standard template. 3. Minerva detailed research report for the AGM. Summary of voting issues at this year’s AGM  The Minerva report highlights various issues and recommends voting against three of the resolutions. Readers should make their own ...

NG. – National Grid plc Information and Vote Guidance 2023

AGM:  10 July 2023 Proxy deadline:  6 July 2023 ShareSoc provide this added value voting information service for Full Members only, providing background information on leading companies and AGM vote guidance. Below are links to the: 1. Stockopedia summary report. 2. Minerva Vote recommendations for the 10 July 2023 AGM based on their standard template. 3. Minerva detailed research report for the AGM. Summary of voting issues at this year’s AGM  The Minerva report highlights various issues and recommends voting against one of the resolutions. Readers should make their own ...

0.5% Stamp Tax on UK shares – consultation response

Abolish Stamp Duty Tax or reduce it to 0.05%  In a short, 4-page response, to the HMRC Consultation, we re-emphasised the points we made in our 2020 consultation response. Our key points were:   This consultation is fundamentally flawed. It does not discuss the rate of taxation on UK shares, which is currently 0.5% and is hugely uncompetitive with the US, which is the largest securities market in the world.  Our analysis is that:    The original rationale for stamp duty (cost of wax seal ...

WOODFORD UPDATE 12

Recent announcements relating to Woodford Equity Income Fund (WEIF) warrant close attention: The FCA has announced a potential £235 million settlement with Link Financial Services (LFS) The settlement, if approved by WEIF investors, will be used to pay redress The scheme, if approved, will protect LFS from further claims The FCA is effectively urging investors to approve the scheme and is stating that legal redress claims promise an unrealistic return since FSCS compensation would not cover investment losses. This statement is confusing, since redress claims ...