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Alliance Trust Director Steps Down

It was announced this morning (27/11/2015) that Karin Forseke, Chair of Alliance Trust, will step down in January 2016. Gregor Stewart will take over as Chairman. Alliance Trust has been the focus of campaigns by Elliott Advisors and ShareSoc to get some changes made to this company so as to improve its performance (see https://www.sharesoc.org/alliance.html ) . Although the company has recently announced some changes, and has been furiously buying back shares – presumably in an attempt to close the discount to NAV, ...

The Truth about Executive Pay

The Financial Times has today published some extraordinarily revealing comments made by new Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan: “I have no idea why I was offered a contract with a...

Jim Slater – Obituary

Well known stock market investor and "asset stripper" Jim Slater has died aged 86. He first made a big name for himself as co-founder of Slater-Walker Securities in the 1960s - an investment company that specialised in rapid deal making. By acquiring companies, reorganising them and then disposing of them the company grew rapidly but built a reputation for "asset stripping" (a derogatory term for taking out the good parts of a business and dismantling the rest leaving workers out of ...

The HBOS Report – It’s Finally Here

The Prudential Regulatory Authority and the Bank of England today published the report of the inquiry into the failure of HBOS Plc. Those who were investors in the company at the time, or who suffered as a consequence of the bail-out of the company via a merger with LloydsTSB, will not need to be told what happened and why. This report does not add a lot to the story as the defects in the management of the HBOS are now well ...

Stockbroker Transfers – Why So Long?

  Why, oh why, do transfers between stockbrokers take so long? Having just suffered the second delay of three months or more to simply switch from using one stockbroker (or "investment platform" as some now prefer to call themselves) to another, I am now writing to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to demand some action on behalf of investors. Other ShareSoc Members have reported similar delays on a regular basis and I am building up a portfolio of cases to support our submission ...