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Watch out FRC – there’s a new Guv’nor in town

Post Date: June 22, 2018

One of our members - Tony Johnson - who is a Chartered Secretary and longstanding member of ICSA, has brought to my attention ICSA’s planned rebranding to become “The Chartered Governance Institute”. See here for more details - https://www.icsa.org.uk/. ICSA or, should I say, CGI, appear to be positioning themselves as the “go-to” organisation for good corporate governance. Here’s what their President, David Vernon, had to say recently in his letter to members: “Over the last two years, your Council has been implementing ...

Update on Boardroom Battle at Petropavlovsk

Post Date: June 21, 2018

The deadline for voting at the Petropavlovsk AGM on the 29th June (proxy votes need to be in by 27th June) is approaching fast. For those of you who are shareholders and are still undecided on the boardroom tussle that is taking place, and if you haven’t already read the cases for and against, you may like to take a look at the following sources of information: Firstly, the arguments from the incumbent board headed by Chairman Ian Ashby are available here - Petropavlovsk ...

Boardroom Battle at Petropavlovsk

Post Date: June 19, 2018

Those of you who follow Petropavlosvk (POG) will be aware that a boardroom tussle for control is taking place. Two institutional holders, CABS Platform Limited and Slevin Ltd, have requisitioned resolutions to remove the whole of the present board, who have been in place since 2017, and replace them with 3 directors who were previous members of the board including the previous CEO, Dr Pavel Maslovskiy. The two requisitioners are supported by POG’s largest shareholder Fincraft. Proxy votes need to be in by ...

The Quindell Story and the FRC

Post Date: June 12, 2018

5 years on and the FRC has fined KPMG for its performance over Quindell. It has taken far too long. The settlement received a huge amount of coverage in the press, e.g. https://www.ft.com/content/e8ce1a30-6d3d-11e8-852d-d8b934ff5ffa The FRC's official announcement can be found here: https://www.frc.org.uk/news/june-2018/sanctions-in-relation-to-the-audit-of-quindell-plc The KPMG fine of £3.15 million is derisory. It is absurd when compared with the (£2bn) shareholder losses as a result of being misled by the accounts. The average KPMG partner was paid £519k in 2018, and many were paid more. To ...

BEIS Consultation on Insolvency and Corporate Governance

Post Date: June 8, 2018

We have submitted jointly with the UK Shareholders Association our response to the consultation on Insolvency and Corporate Governance. The response was written by Cliff Weight - Director, UK Individual Shareholders Society (ShareSoc) and Peter Parry - Policy Director, UK Shareholders' Association. Click here to read it.