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FT article on dematerialisation

The Financial Times published a long article by Jonathan Eley entitled “What price shareholder democracy?” on Saturday. It was in the FTMoney supplement and covered the issue of nominee accounts, dematerialisation and prospective EU legislation. Mr Eley covered most of the issues well but here’s a note I have sent him to explain a few points.Dear Jonathan,Regarding your article at the weekend on shareholder democracy and nominee accounts, which was generally very sound, a few points:1. Not all listed companies like ...

Vodafone deal details now available, and most are pleased

Vodafone have now published the details of the deal to sell their stake in Verizon. I won’t repeat the details here but most investors seem pleased with it. That includes ShareSoc director Stan Grierson who got a few seconds on BBC News explaining how we will now be able to afford more space on airlines for his long legs – you can see a more useful and longer video interview here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23936013 Although the deal is being applauded as a major cash ...

Vodafone and Verizon – how will they use the cash?

ShareSoc has issued a press release on the likely deal for Vodafone to sell its stake in Verizon Wireless (see www.sharesoc.org/pr50vodafone.html). This might realise over US$100bn in cash so the key question is what the company will do with it. Will it waste it on other acquisitions or return it to shareholders? And in the latter case in what form? Vodafone is a company that appears to love share buy-backs like many FTSE-100 companies. But ShareSoc suggests that it would be better ...

Dunedin Enterprise – Chairman stepping down

Dunedin Enterprise Investment Trust announced its half-year results this morning. They were unremarkable. But the good news in the announcement was the mention that David Gamble is retiring from the board, and hence as Chairman, at the next AGM. ShareSoc attacked this company for the introduction of a performance fee in October 2012, under Mr Gamble’s chairmanship. It seemed totally unnecessary to compensate the fund manager in the way chosen because of a change in investment policy, with the risk of substantially ...

EuroFinuse attacks lack of retail investor representation

Guillaume Prache of EuroFinuse (of which ShareSoc is a member) has been attacking the lack of adequate retail investor representation on European bodies that devise financial market regulations. Specifically he has attacked the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and its Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group where only a few of the 30 members on the committees are consumer advocates (i.e. retail investors). He complains the big banks are dominating policy development on European financial market regulations which of course now ...