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BP Shareholder Meeting 19 April 2023 – Report

This article reflects the opinions of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. I attended the BP shareholder meeting on 19 April, held at the BP Head Office 1 St James’s Square, along with about 60 - 70 other shareholders. The meeting was organised by UKSA and ShareSoc members were also invited to attend.   The case for investing in BP shares is clear. They plan to grow ROACE to 18% with careful and limited capex split 50/50 between transition (green) energy ...

Home REIT – A Personal Viewpoint

This article reflects the opinions of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. Initial Period  Home REIT (HOME) appeared to offer rather an attractive proposition. It was intended to purchase residential properties and lease them at affordable rents to charities and public bodies (“the tenants”) providing accommodation for the homeless. The rent was supposed to be covered by housing benefits paid directly to the tenants, i.e. fully government backed. Rental income was expected to be sufficient to support a dividend of at ...

KPMG settles with Carillion liquidators over £1.3bn audit negligence claim

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. Another fudge. No-one is going to jail for this disaster. Examples need to be set to deter, to stop this happening again.  I am appalled at the lack of transparency on the size of the settlement. The article mentions the contingent liabilities already disclosed in the KPMG accounts. We will eventually find out the size of the settlement when KPMG publishes its accounts for 2023, but ...

Proposals on Limiting ISAs

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. The Resolution Foundation has released a report looking at “the Government’s policies to encourage household saving”, it particularly focuses on ISAs and notes that capping ISAs could raise £1bn in tax for the Treasury.   https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/isa-isa-baby/  The report proposes a cap on ISAs of £100k but is unclear if that’s a cap on total contributions or a cap on the total value of an ISA.  At one point ...

The New Realities and Private Healthcare

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. The editorial in this week’s Investors' Chronicle was full of doom and gloom. Under the headline “Facing up to new realities” the editor said “The threats identified by the WEF (World Economic Forum at Davos) include climate change, the cost of living crisis, geopolitical confrontation, high debt levels, recession, low growth, social unrest and cyber crime. These crises are converging, it says, to shape a ...