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Money – You Can’t Give It Away

Post Date: September 12, 2016

A momentous item of news last week (which arose while I was on holiday and hence the late post) was the astonishing fact that two public companies, Henkel and Sanofi, sold bonds with negative coupons. Yes the purchasers of their bonds are guaranteed to get back less than they paid for them in a few years time giving an effective return of minus 0.5%. In a normal financial world, you have to pay to borrow money you do not have. More recently ...

Micro Focus Takes On HPE Software

Post Date: September 11, 2016

The big deal last week (announced on 7/9/2016) was undoubtedly the acquisition by Micro Focus International (MCRO) of the software business of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). This is a deal valued at US$8.8 billion which will result in HPE shareholders owning 50.1% of the company and hence it is a reverse takeover. But the on-going business will be managed by Kevin Loosemore as Executive Chairman of Micro Focus and it will of course be registered and listed in the UK. It ...

Restoring Responsible Share Ownership

Post Date: September 7, 2016

Report on House of Commons event – Restoring responsible ownership: ending the ownerless Corporation and controlling executive pay on Monday 5th September 2016 Submitted by Cliff Weight Over 100...

Restoring Responsible Ownership

Post Date: September 1, 2016

"Restoring Responsible Ownership" is the title of a paper published today by Chris Philp, M.P., on the topic of "Ending the Ownerless Corporation and Controlling Executive Pay". Many people, including ShareSoc, have pointed out the problems in the current governance of public companies. Professor John Kay covered many of the issues in his admirable review of how the stock market operates in his Kay Review a few years ago. One of the symptoms has been rapidly rising director pay as institutions ...

Wealth Manager’s Charges Still High

Post Date: August 30, 2016

There were a couple of interesting articles in the FT over the weekend (27/8/2016) on the costs to investors of having someone else manage your portfolio. Data from Grant Thornton suggests that investors who buy investment advice and financial products from mass market investment groups are still paying 2.56% per annum on average. This is only down from 2.86% in 2012 when the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) which unbundled product commissions was expected to reduce them substantially. Indeed product costs may have ...