FT

FT, 03 June 2022, Antidotes to pessimism in the UK’s audit reforms

Click here to read the article ShareSoc director Cliff Weight co-signed a letter published in the FT.  "In a perfect world for users of company accounts, reform of the UK’s audit and corporate governance regime would include a UK version of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This US law requires chief executives and finance directors to sign up to the truthfulness of material facts, and external audit of the effectiveness of internal controls. As your report notes (“Audit regulation shake-up to be diluted”, Report, May ...
Post Date: June 3, 2022 Read more

FT, 13 May 2022, Don’t dismiss Aviva’s sexist AGM as a one-off

Click here to read the article The FT covers the unacceptable behaviour of a wayward attendee at the Aviva AGM and quotes ShareSoc's Director Cliff Weight. ShareSoc is appalled at the misogynistic comments directed at the Aviva CEO, Amanda Blanc, but is concerned that a narrative may being created that could result in the lessening of individual investors key role in holding Boards to account at AGMs. The vast majority of individual investors attending AGMs do nor behave like this. We do however, ...
Post Date: May 13, 2022 Read more

FT, 17 Nov 2021, Scaled back UK audit reforms attract investor anger

Click here to read the article ShareSoc has been mentioned in the Financial Times on 17/11/21. The article focusses on how investors and audit groups have urged the UK government to rethink plans to scale back corporate governance and audit reforms, arguing that any watering down of the proposals would risk further corporate scandals.   Investor groups also expressed their alarm. In a joint letter last week to the FT, CFA UK, Corporate Reporting Users’ Forum, UK Shareholders’ Association and ShareSoc also criticised plans to ...
Post Date: November 17, 2021 Read more

FT, 22 Oct 2021, Getting heard on climate: small investors take on big companies

Click here to read the article Alice Ross, FT Deputy Editor, has written a major article about how "Retail shareholders can get organised and can push for change if they band together". The article focusses on the successes of the pressure group ShareAction who have successfully used their AGM Army to ask questions at AGMs and lobby for change. However, Cliff Weight and ShareSoc are also quoted at some length.   One problem for retail investor engagement, however, is that the vast majority remain uninvolved. ...
Post Date: October 23, 2021 Read more

FT, 4 March 2021
Private investors lose out in corporate bids

A ShareSoc news item by Cliff Weight, Director Private investors lose out in corporate bids- Takeover Panel must change rules to compel companies to disclose acquisition approaches sooner ShareSoc Patron Lord Lee is campaigning for better disclosure in relation to takeover bids and has written this excellent detailed article in the Financial Times. There have been a number of occasions when individual investors have lost money by buying or selling shares when they were not privy to information which arguably should have been disclosed to ...
Post Date: March 4, 2021 Read more

Why Institutions Cannot Control Pay

An interesting recent article in the Financial Times FTfm supplement helped to explain why pay is so out of control in public companies. In an interview with Rakhi Kumar of State Street Global Advisors, she made it plain what the problem is. State Street may not be a household name in the UK, but they are one of the world’s largest fund managers. Fourth in size behind only Blackrock, Vanguard and UBS according to Wikipedia. Last year State Street had more than ...
Post Date: August 10, 2017 Read more

Interesting FT Articles on Fund Performance , Nick Train and Executive Pay

There have been some very interesting articles in the FT in the last few days. On the 25th February John Authers discussed market timing and passive versus active management. He quoted consumer research group Dalbar who have compared active and passive funds. Although passive funds have beaten active funds in the long term, because of their lower costs, investors in active funds have received higher returns in the last 15 years. How can that be? It's because to quote: "Holders of ...
Post Date: February 28, 2017 Read more

Do Active Funds Underperform? But Costs are the Real Problem

On the 24 October the Financial Times FTfm supplement led with a front page article that was headlined "99% of Active US equity funds underperform". It also had a sub heading of "Almost all UK, global and EM funds have failed to outperform since 2006". So I sent a letter to the Editor which said the following, much of which they have published today (31/10/2016) plus letters from other writers making the same point. This is what my letter said: "Your headline in ...
Post Date: October 31, 2016 Read more

Wealth Manager’s Charges Still High

There were a couple of interesting articles in the FT over the weekend (27/8/2016) on the costs to investors of having someone else manage your portfolio. Data from Grant Thornton suggests that investors who buy investment advice and financial products from mass market investment groups are still paying 2.56% per annum on average. This is only down from 2.86% in 2012 when the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) which unbundled product commissions was expected to reduce them substantially. Indeed product costs may have ...
Post Date: August 30, 2016 Read more

The Financial Times, religion and Brexit

Has the FT developed an interest in religious affairs? On Friday (11/3/2016), they reported on two matters. First was the revelation that to become a saint, you need strong financial backing. Apparently the Pope is cracking down on financial abuses in the sainthood business. It can cost as much as £750,000 to get a person promoted to sainthood and paying more speeds up the process. Second was their reporting of Archbishop Justin Welby's views on Brexit as published in the parliamentary magazine ...
Post Date: March 13, 2016 Read more