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Restoring Trust in Audit and Corporate Governance

Post Date: May 9, 2021

As it’s Friday afternoon with not much happening, and I have completed my latest complaint about the time it’s taking to complete a SIPP platform transfer, I decided to have a look at the public consultation on “Restoring Trust in Audit and Corporate Governance” from the BEIS Department. This is a quite horrendous consultation on the Government’s proposals to improve audit standards and director behaviour as foretold in the Kingman and Brydon reviews, with proposals for a new regulatory body (ARGA). That’s ...

Daily Mail, 2 May 2021, Aviva Investor Revolt

Post Date: May 2, 2021

The Daily Mail quoted ShareSoc Director Cliff Weight in its 2 May Aviva article https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-9535371/Aviva-faces-investor-revolt-preference-shares-scandal.html Aviva faces an investor revolt this week after angering shareholders by deciding not to claw back fees from directors who oversaw a preference shares scandal. The insurer was rocked in 2018 when it said it was considering buying back shares marketed as 'irredeemable' for less than they were trading at. It reneged on the announcement days later, by which time the shares had tumbled. It was forced to compensate investors. ...

New Pre-Pack Rules

Post Date: April 24, 2021

Pre-pack administrations, where a company is sold within hours with no publicity, and often to “connected” persons (e.g. existing management) has been widely criticised. It’s often a simple way for companies to dump their liabilities and yet continue in business. This is what I said in the case of the pre-pack at House of Fraser: “There can be a number of reasons for doing so but in essence it’s very typical of what happens with pre-packs where the rush to complete ...

Accessing Virtual Shareholder Meetings

Post Date: April 21, 2021

It is an unfortunate feature of Covid regulations that many companies have used the waivers contained in those regs to avoid meeting with their shareholders at AGMs. It is therefore gratifying to see that some companies are at least making some effort to provide a virtual forum to meet investors. Two companies that I follow which have offered such forums are the RIT Capital Partners investment trust (RCP) and AstraZeneca (AZN). Unfortunately, however, there is a snag. RCP say: You will be able to ...

DDDD – 4D Pharma placing with no Primary Bid individual offer

Post Date: April 19, 2021

By Cliff Weight, ShareSoc Director. I hold shares in DDDD. I am not sure if I am happy or angry with 4D Pharma. Duncan Peyton (Chief Executive Officer) and Alex Stevenson (Chief Scientific Officer) have each subscribed £725,000 for shares in the placing, which in total raised £20m at a price of 110p. Their commitment and increased skin in the game is excellent and praiseworthy. The share price this morning is 118p. So those who invested at 110p have a modest gain of 7%. However ...