Company News

Departures – AA and Blur

Yesterday was the start of many people’s holidays. But two company chief executives are going to be taking longer holidays than they expected. The Executive Chairman of the AA Plc (AA.) Bob Mackenzie has gone. The announcement from the company said he “has been removed by the board….for gross misconduct, with immediate effect”. According to press reports, this arose from a fracas in a bar, although there is also a suggestion that he may be suffering from a mental illness. Some newspapers ...

RBS Shareholder Event on 31 July

I am looking forward to the RBS Shareholder Event on Monday 31 July in London. RBS had dropped regular shareholder briefings, but, following our shareholder committee campaign, have now reinstated...

Property Companies and TR Property AGM

Yesterday I attended the Annual General Meeting of TR Property Investment Trust (TRY). I have held shares in this company for a long time, and it’s always useful to attend their AGM as you get a useful update on trends in the property market from the fund manager (Marcus Phayre-Mudge of late). As he mentioned, the fact that they hold property directly, as well as holding shares in property companies gives them a unique insight into the state of the market. Apart ...

National Grid and Electric Cars

National Grid (NG.) have published a paper entitled “Future Energy Scenarios” which spells out the impact of future trends in energy consumption, and by implication how it might affect their business. For example, the forecast demand for electric cars might add 30% to peak electric power demand, thus requiring the equivalent of five Hinkley Point C nuclear plants. Even if people only charge their electric cars in off-peak periods, the additional demand could be very substantial. If you live in London, you ...

Enormous Management Fees at British Smaller Companies VCT

British Smaller Companies VCT (BSV) has been one of the more successful Venture Capital Trusts in terms of fund performance – it is managed by YFM. The NAV Total Return has been 106.9 over the last ten years according to the AIC (i.e. investors have doubled their money), beating the sector performance for generalist VCTs of only 64. With high, tax-free dividends being paid, investors have probably been happy. But back in 2009 the managers performance incentive fee was changed to be ...

Levelling the Playing Field

One of ShareSoc's objects is "to ensure equal treatment for all shareholders". We are therefore rather disappointed when, as happens all too frequently, companies issue announcements like the one from Crest Nicholson today: http://www.investegate.co.uk/crest-nicholson-hdgs--crst-/rns/analyst---investor-day/201706270700022028J/ The announcement was issued at 7am this morning and announces an event for analysts and investors taking place on the same day. It is clear that this event is not open to ordinary individual shareholders. Selected analysts and favoured institutional shareholders will undoubtedly have been invited well in advance. ...

How To Make Money on Losers, and the Monitise Bid

After the takeover bid was announced yesterday for Monitise (MONI) at 2.9p per share (valuing the business at £70m when it was once worth £1 billion, I thought I...

Fusionex – Another AIM Company Disappears into the Night

In an announcement late Friday afternoon, after market close and just before the long weekend, AIM listed Fusionex announced that it will seek to delist from the AIM market. It’s not clear why this is good for private investors, the company is profitable and has no need to raise funds. The RNS says that a meeting will take place in Malaysia on 15 June to vote on the matter, and that all of the Directors representing 41.93% of shares are in ...

RBS Potential Settlement: Where’s the Justice?

It seems that the major players in the RBS Action Group have accepted the latest RBS offer. See http://files.constantcontact.com/2fe662f5101/de78446f-b327-4d5e-9eee-5fcd584c7e8c.pdf This has, in effect, enabled RBS to bully the small individual shareholders into also accepting the settlement. I say “bully” because RBS are threatening anyone who pursues the case to risk having costs awarded against them. So now the case will be settled. No-one will be found guilty. RBS will pay out £800 million (of shareholders’ money) to a group of its shareholders without ...

A tale of three AGMs

by Cliff Weight Last week I went to 3 AGMs. Aviva on Wednesday, 10 May in London and then Lloyds in the morning of the 11th and RBS in the afternoon, both in Edinburgh. Aviva was very well attended with about 600 people in the Queen Elizabeth Centre. There were plenty of displays of the Aviva products, lots of staff to explain them and deal with any customer issues or complaints. There were also stands explaining the business (noticeable by its absence was ...

BP PLC Remuneration Policy – ShareSoc’s comments prior to the AGM

In preparation to BP’s AGM tomorrow (17th May 2017), ShareSoc's Remuneration spokesman has prepared this post on the company’s remuneration policy and many other issues. Overall, the changes proposed by the Company,should be considered positive. The discontinuation of the matching share awards and simplification is particularly welcomed, as is the downward discretion applied by the remuneration committee during the year to reduce pay. However, even after the reduction Dudley’s aggregate incentive forward-looking opportunity could still be deemed to be excessive at 725% of ...

RBS, Akzo Nobel and Hornby

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) AGM is tomorrow and it will be interesting to see what excuses the board of directors give for rejecting the requisition of a resolution to establish a Shareholder Committee. ShareSoc believes the rejection has no sound legal basis and ShareSoc directors will raise this issue at the meeting. Another similar case is that of Akzo Nobel in Holland where Elliott Advisors have been pushing the board to consider a takeover offer from US company PPG Industries. ...