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Modernisation of Stamp Duty

HMRC have announced a “Call for Evidence” on the “Modernisation of Stamp Taxes on Shares Framework”. If you deal mainly in the shares of public companies you may not know much about this subject – I certainly don’t. But the consultation document is very enlightening – see link below. That’s if you can understand it because this tax seems to be like capital gains tax – horribly complicated as it has been built up over many years and with a large ...

Lessons From a Failed Investment

This is a premium article, available to ShareSoc full members and SIGnet members. Recent troubles at the AA (AA.) and Petropavlovsk (POG) brought to mind another problematic investment that I am more familiar with and which shares some characteristics of those companies. That investment is Gulf Marine Services (GMS). IPOs by Private Equity Vendors Like the AA, GMS was floated by its original private equity owners, with a premium listing on the LSE main market, in March 2014. GMS is a relatively straightforward business: ...

Victoria and Downing One VCT Annual Reports, and Rio Tinto Mea Culpa

With it being all quiet on the financial front, with a lot of people on holiday, I had the time to read a couple of Annual Reports over the weekend. First came Victoria (VCP), a producer of flooring products (carpets and tiles) in which I have a relatively small holding. Chairman Geoff Wilding always has some interesting things to say and their Annual Report is an exemplary model of shareholder enlightenment. He commences with this statement: “There is an old Yiddish adage ...

Blancco Campaign Update #4

Campaign members will recall that the restatements of the Blancco accounts for year ending June 2016 and other accounting corrections led to a loss of over £135 million in shareholder value. The previous CEO exercised Stock Appreciation Rights prior to the disclosure of these restatements. ShareSoc referred these issues to the Financial Conduct Authority in January 2018 and, as far as the audit by KPMG was concerned to the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England & Wales (ICAEW) in February 2018. ICAEW ...

Shenanigans in Siberia: the Petropavlovsk Saga and Why Retail Investors Matter

One of ShareSoc’s key beliefs is that private investors are important and their voice needs to be heard. The current, for want of a better word, shenanigans, at Petropavlovsk (POG) gives private investors a key role in determining the future of a company. Background Books could be written about POG, and probably deserve to be. It is a gold miner in Siberia, whose shares rose to above £5 in 2011, before collapsing under the weight of debt and being rescued by an emergency ...