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Shareholder rights, letters to MPs and questions at AGMs – An Update

Post Date: August 17, 2018
Over 20 members have to my knowledge written to their MPs (as we requested) and a number of members have asked questions at AGMs. We have certainly raised the issue. The Minister (or most likely his civil servants) have produced what looks like a standard response which is being sent to those MPs who contacted Greg Clarke MP, the Secretary of State. Their response argues that the UK does not have to follow the intent of the EU Shareholder Rights Directive and ...
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Clarification re Stock Lending and platform pooled nominee accounts

Post Date: August 10, 2018
Kevin Taylor, a ShareSoc member, has pointed out to me in relation to my article page 12 of ShareSoc’s August newsletter, that stock-lending simply does not (should not under FCA rules) take place from standard pooled nominee accounts, the likes of which most retail investors would use.  The FCA’s rules could not be more explicit in this area: “A firm must not undertake or otherwise engage in stock lending activity with or for a customer unless … the firm has obtained the consent ...
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8pm Tuesday, 7 August, the BBC Radio 4 documentary ‘The Equity Release Trap’.

Post Date: August 6, 2018
Make a date in your diary for 8pm Tuesday, 7 August, for the BBC Radio 4 documentary ‘The Equity Release Trap’. The documentary investigates the claims of Professor Kevin Dowd, professor of finance and economics at the University of Durham, that the equity release sector has been seriously under-valuing embedded guarantees, and that the regulator, the Prudential Regulation Authority, has only made half-hearted attempts to address these under-valuations while permitting them anyway. The implications for some of the firms involved could ...
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Premier Foods, stock lending, custodians, shareholder rights and nominee accounts

Post Date: July 25, 2018
The background to my comments is below: KATE BURGESS in the FT on 15 July 2018 reported that accusations of empty voting — where investors borrow voting shares for short periods to swing the outcome at meetings —reverberated around the market ahead of Premier Food’s shareholder meeting next week. They were sparked when Oasis Management , the Hong Kong activist hoping to unseat Premier’s chief executive Gavin Darby, said it had increased its stake in the owner of Angel Delight from 9 to ...
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Royal Mail Remuneration

Post Date: July 25, 2018
I always thought that being a Chief Executive and being paid millions was a 24/7 job. I am amazed the Royal Mail could not recruit somebody from the millions of people who live in the UK. I am very angry that the details of Mr Back's £5.8million payout were buried in note 26 on page 144 of the company's annual report and not explained in the first paragraph of the Remuneration Committee Chair's statement. Hiding the pay of the new Chief ...
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