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Broker Charges, Proven VCT Performance Fee and LoopUp Seminar

The Share Centre are the latest stockbroker to increase their fees. The monthly fee for an ISA account is going up by 4.2% to £5.00 per month with increases on ordinary share accounts and SIPPs also. This is the latest of a number of fee increases among stockbrokers and retail investor platforms. The Share Centre blame the required investment in technology development and “an increasing burden of financial regulation”. The latter is undoubtedly the result of such regulations as MIFID II ...

Amati AIM VCT AGM and Retailers

Amati AIM VCT is one of those peculiar beasts – a Venture Capital Trust. Yesterday I attended their annual general meeting and here are some general comments on the company and the meeting: Amati AIM VCT (AMAT) is the result a merger of the two Amati VCTs. They had very similar portfolios so this made a lot of sense, and the result is a large VCT with total assets of £147 million. This figure was also boosted by excellent performance last year ...

LoopUp, Audioboom, Social Media Abuse and a VCT AGM

LoopUp (LOOP), a small AIM listed company that provides audio conferencing and in which I have a small holding, have announced a proposed acquisition of a company in the same business – MeetingZone Group. This will more than double the size of LoopUp so it constitutes a reverse takeover. As they are paying cash for MeetingZone it will be financed by a term loan and a large placing. The placing will be at 400p per share, when the share price last ...

National Grid, Johnston Press, Crown Place VCT, Lloyds Bank and LoopUp

I had a busy day yesterday, but let me first comment on the news today. National Grid (NG.) published their half year results this morning. They reported “Adjusted operating profit, excluding timing up 4%....” but statutory earnings per share were down by 12%. What exactly does “adjusted for timing” mean? I have no idea because the announcement does not explain it in any sensible way. For example, it says under “UK Timing”: “Revenues will be impacted by timing of recoveries including ...