Representing, Lobbying and Campaigning – Progress Update 01 August 2022

Executive Summary

We have focussed our resources mainly on the Woodford campaign, best practice guidance for AGMs, nominee accounts and pre-emption rights; and maintaining good relationships with the FCA, FRC, BEIS and Treasury. Activities relating to ShareSoc’s shortly to be launched Investing Basics Course have consumed much of our available resource and limited what can be done on campaigns. Nevertheless, we have made much progress.

Since our last update of 4 April 2022 we have worked on:

Consultation responses and government lobbying
Shareholder Rights/Nominee Accounts
Woodford Campaign
Voting Guidance and Shareholder Engagement
FCA liaison
FRC, BEIS, etc liaison
Campaigns
AIM regulation

1. Consultation responses and government lobbying.

This continues to be a major area of work, where ShareSoc represents the interests of individual investors.

Secondary Markets fund raising review: This was published on 26 July and has recommended significant changes to the nominee system and dematerialisation, which we lobbied for and are very pleased with. We are also hopeful individual investors will gain access to all placings on fair terms.
Prospectus regime/crowdfunding interactions: We have been asked to meet HM Treasury to put forward the views of individual investors.
We responded jointly with UKSA to proposals from the new International Sustainability Standards Board – ISSB IFRS S1 and S2 EDs consultation response

2. Shareholder Rights/Nominees

Sir Douglas Flint has been appointed by the Chancellor to head the Digitisation Taskforce. We are very pleased at this progress. As noted above in 1., the Secondary Markets fund raising review recommended significant changes to the nominee system and dematerialisation, which we lobbied for during this review and previously to BEIS, the Law Commission and others. After years of disenfranchisement of individual investors who beneficially own shares via nominees, real progress is looking much more likely.

3. Woodford Campaign

We currently have >1,800 members supporting the ShareSoc Woodford Campaign and are working to increase this hugely. The Webinar on 19 July was very well received. Group Litigation Order agreed.

Over the next 6/12 months, there will be a big push to recruit people to the claims (currently only 10% have joined a claim) as the deadline to claim will probably be early/mid 2023. We aim to ensure that as many as possible of those that are eligible to claim redress do so.

4. Voting Guidance and Shareholder Engagement

We continue to test our new ideas with a pilot study of FTSE30 companies. This is a major exercise and reports have been published for c20 companies. There is relatively little activity this time of year. Reports have been done for Tesco and Unilever.

See https://www.sharesoc.org/category/vci/ for more information.

5. FCA

We continue to liaise positively with the FCA over numerous issues that we think are important to individual investors and ensure that the FCA give due regard to the views of individual investors. We met with the FCA Primary Markets Team on 3 March and need to schedule the next quarterly meeting. We have emailed to ask to schedule a meeting with the funds team, who we have not met since July 2021. We asked the FCA Chair for help in publicising the Investor Basics Videos and the FCA have offered to put forward a speaker at a launch conference/webinar.

6. FRC, BEIS, etc.

We also meet regularly with FRC, BEIS and other key influencers to present to them the views of individual investors.

We met with the FRC on 20 April, and on 25 July.
We provided strong input to the FRC report on AGMs and shareholder engagement, which was published at the end of July. We think this offers some useful guidelines in respect of individual investors, especially re engagements and company meetings.
We met BEIS on 7 July and a meeting with the Minister Lord Callanan should occur.
We are concerned about accounting provisions for legal class actions and raised a question at the TESCO AGM. We intend to write to the FRC as a next step.

7. Campaigns/Problem cases

Sirius. We, led by Paul Anscombe, are still working on this but currently have nothing further to report.
We have been asked to look at 4D Pharma (DDDD) and Scirocco and have provided some assistance to concerned investors.

8. AIM regulation:

AIM is regulated by the LSE itself. We remain very concerned about what are, in our opinion, inappropriate and irregular (more than just questionable) practices, that may occur in some AIM companies from time to time. We frequently report such cases to the FCA and LSE/AIM. Please alert us if you are concerned about malpractice.

Cliff saw Marcus Stuttard at the UKSA AGM and agreed to fix a date to meet up in September.

9. Our Mission

We clarified how policy, campaigning, lobbying and representing fitted into ShareSoc’s mission of championing and empowering individual investors in a recent news item, viz

One of ShareSoc’s primary functions is to represent individual investors. To do this we lobby Government and Regulators about individual investor needs, and campaign for change from government, regulators and financial service providers.

Alongside this, we network, inform and educate investors though events, company presentations, SIGnet groups, educational content, newsletter, blogs, tweets and emails. These elements combine to make the investing experience better for our members.

ShareSoc has been working hard for many years to improve its relationships, networking and influence with the FRC, BEIS, FCA and many other organisations. Much of this work we do jointly with UKSA, the UK Shareholders Association. The FRC and others now routinely seek the views of individual investors before making their decisions.

More volunteers or donations (which enable us to recruit more paid staff) are necessary to enable ShareSoc to do more work to representmembers’ interests. All offers of help are warmly received.

Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc

1 August 2022

Post Date: August 9, 2022

Group description:	All levels of experience welcome. A typical meeting agenda includes: – Macro Environment – Trades: Members review existing positions and identify securities with promising TA entry patterns or setups and with suitable risk/reward. Any security, long, short, futures, options may be considered. The convener takes actual positions in trades and maintains his own detailed ledger, accurately measuring performance of individual securities and cumulative activity. Members are notified by e-mail prior to the entries or exits that are decided upon. Following each meeting an updated copy of the ledger is circulated together with the next meeting agenda. Members may wish to maintain similar ledgers of their own but there is no obligation to do so. – Technical Analysis: Techniques and systems used in trades. Members can request discussion of particular aspects of TA.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Online via Zoom
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	The first Tuesday of every month from 7 to 9pm

Group description:	Following the launch of the SIGnet Technical Traders groups, it was identified that there were a number of members who use fundamental and other information as their main source of choosing companies to invest in, who would find some understanding of technical analysis helpful to identify good entry and exit points for their investments. This new SIGnet Technical Analysis in Support of Investing group is therefore being launched and we welcome members of all levels of experience to join.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Online via Zoom
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	There will be an initial Zoom meeting on Monday 29th April at 7pm to launch this group, please email info@sharesoc.org if you are interested in joining.

Group description:	A new in person group coming soon! Keep and eye on our Events page to register for the launch meeting.
Meeting Type/Venue:	In person
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	TBC

Group description:	Open to all investors / people with an interest in investing. Typical meeting will involve members talking about recent purchases, successes, failures and possible future purchases. Also with occasional visiting speakers or members making presentations on a topic of interest.
Meeting Type/Venue:	We aim to meet on the last Tuesday of each month in a private room at a pub in Playhatch. Start time 7pm with members encouraged to meet up around 6pm for a bite to eat / drink before hand, if their diaries allow.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	7pm on the last Tuesday of the month. Meetings likely to last about two hours but with informal ‘overspill’ before / after.

Group description:	This group was set up as a forum to discuss companies in detail, each company is introduced by a member and discussion may last one or two hours. Membership is by invitation only and is for experienced investors.
Meeting Type/Venue:	The group meets at a venue in Waterloo, London.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	Meetings are on Tuesday mornings at two month intervals.

Group description:	Our group is a broad church that contains investors of varying age and experience. We discuss stocks and investment trusts that we have bought, sold or are interested in and the reasons behind our decisions, and try to make sense of the ever changing investment environment. Our members backgrounds are diverse and include corporate banking, engineering, teaching and the leisure industry. Discussions are robust and challenging but tend to be to be informal, and do not generally involve agendas, presentations or detailed preparation. We are a friendly and approachable group who welcome investors of all levels – we just ask that you contribute, at whatever level you can.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Our meetings are held in a very nice pub near to South Ealing tube station (Piccadilly Line), not far from Ealing Broadway (District, Central and Elizabeth Line). Group numbers permitting (and assuming members are happy to purchase food and drink from the bar), we may also have access to a private room in the pub.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	We meet every 2 months, usually on a Wednesday morning at 11am.

Group description:	An online group for those who are new to investing. Including topics such as how to buy and sell shares, unit trusts, investment trusts, exchange traded funds and diversification, tax and how to save it, pensions, portfolio management and research tools, other asset classes and basic technical analysis.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Online using Zoom.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	Meetings are usually held on the 1st Monday of the month at 7:15pm.

Group description:	Group focused on active investing, primarily in small / medium cap UK equities.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Regular Zoom meetings interspersed with occasional face to face meetings and social activities in the North West.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	Monthly on Saturdays at 10am.

Group description:	Our group covers a wide spectrum of mainly stock market investing and trading from equities – which include shares, ETF’s Investment and Unit Trusts. We normally rotate the meeting chairperson (responsible for creating, with member’s help, suitable agendas) and a meeting presenter (members take it in turns to provide a 15 to 45 minute presentation on a subject of their choice). Various investing topics of interest are regularly discussed such as software, brokers, investing categories and markets and any related topics of interest.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Meetings will be returning to in-person in a private room at a West London golf club, close to an underground station. In the meantime monthly video calls and an in-between meeting email group will continue.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	In-person meetings will be held on the second Wednesday of each month in the afternoons, following a golf club one course lunch.