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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 ...

Long Serving Directors and Maven VCT

Post Date: April 19, 2021

I have long complained about directors serving on boards for longer than 9 years. The UK Corporate Governance Code (which you can easily find on the web) says any director who serves for more than 9 years cannot be considered “independent” and there should be a majority of independent directors. When the UK Corporate Governance Code was drafted, this principle of avoiding long-serving directors was introduced and I consider it a very sound principle. But investment trusts (including Venture Capital Trusts) continue ...

Platform Transfers – It’s Even Worse Than Thought

Post Date: April 16, 2021

I commented last month on an article in Investors Chronicle by Mary McDougall on the subject of platform transfers, and how they are inordinately slow. Despite past efforts by the FCA, the situation does not seem to be getting any better. My latest transfer, which was commenced on the 12th of January, is still not complete. The shareholdings have recently been transferred to the selected new platform but not the substantial cash holding in the portfolio. But according to the latest article ...

Comparison of Woodford Claims

Post Date: April 5, 2021

The Investors Chronicle have published on 30 March 2021 a useful table comparing the 4 ongoing Woodford Claims: (note, as at 10 June 2022, Leigh Day have >12,000 claimants and Harcus Parker c 7,500. ShareSoc do not know any more recent numbers for RGL and Slater & Gordon.) ShareSoc endorsed the Leigh Day Claim, in November 2020 on the basis of information available at that time. The table highlights that the Leigh Day claim and Harcus Parker claim are both against Link, both ...