Company News

Conviviality

It is a great name for a bar, but is a fancy name good for a quoted conglomerate plc? The shares were suspended on 14 March. The FCA and FRC need to look at this and asset managers need to think again why they missed the warning signs! Shares in the wholesaler and distributor of alcohol and impulse are now suspended as it considers the anticipated impact on its funding position of £30m due to HMRC. This business has looked questionable since ...

The Dangers of Share Tipping, Alliance Trust and AIM Regulation

Share tipping is a mug’s game. Both for the tipsters and their readers. More evidence of this was provided yesterday. Investors Chronicle issued their “Tips of the Week” via email during the day. It included a “BUY” recommendation on Conviviality (CVR). Unfortunately soon after, the company issued a trading statement which said the forecast EBITDA for the current year (ending 30th April) will be 20% below market expectations. Conviviality is a wholesaler, distributor and retailer of alcohol and it seems there was ...

It’s a Bleak Mid-Winter

It’s a bleak mid-winter, everybody is hunkering down against the icy winds, Royal Mail have given up delivering post even in the London suburbs, and retailers are suffering. Well no, actually it’s the second day of Spring but the first was the coldest one on record. But the stock market is drifting down and the news from many companies is dire. Let’s review some of those to start with. Note: I hold or have held some of the companies mentioned. Safestyle (SFE) sell ...

Running Out of Gas, and InvestorEase to Close

Media reports suggest that National Grid is running out of gas, and having to pay industrial users to stop consuming it. This is due to the exceptionally cold weather spell. But National Grid has also been running out of shareholders because of fears over possible nationalisation. The share price is down by 33% on its peak in 2016. As I have probably said before, the threat of nationalisation has undoubtedly spooked international investors who now dominate the holdings of UK public ...

Persimmon Pay and Rightmove Results

This morning the directors of Persimmon (PSN) gave in to demands to revise the benefits they would get from their LTIP scheme. This has drawn lots of criticism from investors, even institutional ones who voted for the scheme a few years back. They clearly either did not understand the workings of the scheme or did not understand the possible implications. I voted against it at the time as a holder of shares in this company, but then I do against most ...

Hargreaves Lansdown and Fund Charges

Phil Oakley of Sharescope wrote a good piece on Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) in his weekly roundup published on 16th February. Why are they so profitable a business when, as Terry Smith said, they seem to be in essence a “distributor” operating in a highly competitive field with few barriers to entry? The answer, apart from their high-quality customer service, is the level of charges they make on investment in funds (unit trusts and OEICS, not investment trusts which are treated as ...

Revenue Recognition, Patisserie Valerie, Utilitywise and Cryptocurrencies

Revenue recognition is a hot topic at present as folks have come to realise that this is a frequent cause of company accounts misrepresenting the true state of the business. Quindell and Blancco are two examples and I cover Utilitywise below. But first let me report on the Annual General Meeting of Patisserie Valerie (TIDM:CAKE) which I attended this morning (as a shareholder of course). The company operates a chain of cake+coffee shops under the company name but they also have several ...

The Market, Renishaw and ASOS

We seem to be in one of those markets where investors are nervous because of a few big failures, some market commentators being bearish and the uncertainties caused by Brexit. While some of the “hot” stocks continue to power upwards, and the overall market trend in the UK is still positive, it only takes the slightest ripple to cause some stocks to fall sharply. That particularly applies to those where prices seemed to have got ahead of fundamentals. Yesterday (25/1/2108) Renishaw (RSW) ...

Carillion Goes Into Liquidation

Carillion (CLLN) has gone into liquidation. No messing about with “administration” - it’s gone straight into liquidation with a receiver being appointed. The Government may apparently take over direct responsibility for some of the contracts that Carillion operated to provide public services, but it is unclear what will happen to the commercial contracts. Up to 43,000 jobs are at risk. In addition, many other companies are at risk who acted as suppliers to Carillion because as trade creditors they are likely ...

South African Politics, Pan African Resources and Mondi

The election of Cyril Ramaphosa as the President of the ANC suggests that the country may be taking a positive step forwards. Under Jacob Zuma South Africa has become riddled with corruption and “state capture” where assets are sold off to favoured parties. Whether Cyril Ramaphosa can become President of the country in due course remains to be seen but it is worth looking at his background. He has a legal qualification and became a trade union activist. After being active in ...

LSE General Meeting and Blancco AGM

I attended two company general meetings on the 19th December (I hold a trivial number of shares in each). Here’s a brief report on events, with the later one...

ADVFN AGM – How to Disenfranchise Shareholders, and OFCOM Interest

I was surprised yesterday to pick up an RNS Announcement from ADVFN Plc (AFN) stating that the company’s Annual General Meeting had taken place on that day and all resolutions were duly passed. I was surprised because as a shareholder in the company (and on the register), I had received no notification of the AGM and no proxy voting form either of course. In addition there is no notice of the AGM given in any RNS announcement, and there is no information ...