Blogs

Latest Blogs

Top performing VCTs and performance fees.

Yesterday the AIC published a note on the “dividend stars” and “strongest performers” among Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) now that such companies have been in existence for 18 years. In terms of total dividends paid out since launch ProVen Growth & Income came top with Baronsmead VCT in second place. But investors should bear in mind that some VCTs pay dividends out of the capital of the trust which sometimes just means that investors are simply having the money they invested ...

Co-Operative Bank Recapitalisation

The Co-Operative Bank has announced details of their revised plans for “recapitalisation” of the bank, which is a euphemism for rescuing it from potential bankruptcy. In effect the previous capital of the bank has been wiped out by dodgy lending, by inept acquisitions such as that of the Britannia B.S. and write-offs of IT expenditure. The existing institutional debt holders will have their debt converted to equity, plus will subscribe additional capital. The Co-Operative Group will put in an additional £462m of ...

Great news – real company owners to be disclosed

The Prime Minister has announced that the details of who really owns and controls UK companies will be made publicly accessible. More details will be announced in early 2014,, but the key paragraph in the announcement from the BIS Department includes the statement that the Government will “………potentially use as a model the disclosure regime that currently applies in relation to disclosure of information on company shareholders. This would mean that companies would hold information on the names and addresses of ...

Bulletin boards and Globo

I was at the Annual General Meeting of Ideagen yesterday (a full report is here), and happened to talk to one of the advisors present about recent events at Globo, another software company. We agreed there was a problem with bulletin boards that should be tackled. As mentioned in a previous blog entry, Globo has come under attack in the last few days on a number of bulletin boards and financial blogs for the quality of its business and its accounts (more ...

Globo, RM and Tesla Motors – What’s the connection?

Globo, RM and Tesla – what’s the connection? You will see. Globo managed to get their name mentioned in the Financial Times yesterday as coming “under pressure after bloggers question cash flow”. This probably refers to comments from Paul Scott on Stockopedia where he writes a daily small cap report which covered Globo on the 17th October. Not only were those comments spread around on bulletin boards but he and other folks have said similar things in the past. In essence what he ...