Unhappy Shareholders at Sea Energy, Vislink and Blinkx

This blog gives you the latest topical news plus some informal comments on them from ShareSoc’s directors and other contributors. These are the personal comments of the authors and not necessarily the considered views of ShareSoc. The writers may hold shares in the companies mentioned. You can add your own comments on the blog posts, but note that ShareSoc reserves the right to remove or edit comments where they are inappropriate or defamatory.

Perhaps it was the hot weather, or that folks have more time to spare in the summer holiday season, but shareholders in three smaller companies have been stirred to complain about a variety of issues mainly focussed on pay and overhead costs.

Sea Energy

Stuart Stafford has formed a Shareholder Action Group for investors in Sea Energy. See this web site for more details and to register an interest: https://seashareholderactiongroup.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/action-group/

His main complaints are about 1) Exorbitant central costs which destroy shareholder value; 2) A layer of management that is not necessary for running the core subsidiary business of Return 2 Scene (R2S); and 3) A lack of focus on R2S.

Vislink

Shareholders in Vislink are concerned about a new management incentive scheme introduced by the Executive Chairman which will award a significant percentage of the company to executives based on fairly low achievements against hurdles. See this page for some comments on it: http://www.freesharedata.com/vislink-poll and you may care to add your own if you are an investor in this company. ShareSoc Director David Stredder is taking a particular interest in this matter.

Blinkx

Blinkx has been going through difficult times of late but that has not prevented the company awarding share options over 7 million shares to CEO Brian Mukherjee. The exercise price is 27.75p per share which is about the current share price but the stock price needs to reach 50p for them to be exercisable. However shareholders point out that the Blinkx share price was higher than this for long periods in the past and the company is very lowly rated by the market at present (market cap is only about one times revenue which is low for a technology company in a growth area even though profits are currently minimal). The company share price might soon bounce back up if the market perception of the company improves.

All three of the above examples are cases where remuneration in some smaller companies just seems totally unreal and unnecessary in relation to the size and profitability of the company. Shareholders are surely right to complain.

Roger Lawson

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