General News

AIM – Is Enough Being Done to Protect Investors?

Last night (27/9/2016) BBC Radio covered the topic of the AIM market and asked whether enough was being done to protect investors. See File on Four www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wby0z . Here's a brief summary of the contents with some comments. The BBC visited Hotel Chocolat, a recent AIM listing, and spoke to Angus Thirlwell, the CEO. He indicated they wanted "light touch regulation" so as to avoid a lot of paperwork and said it was one of the attractions of AIM. Comment: it seems ...

BBC Radio Programme on AIM

Are British investors being ripped off by unscrupulous businesses exploiting the AIM market? This is one of the questions being tackled on the BBC tomorrow night (27/9/2016) in a File on Four radio programme - BBC R4 at 8.00 pm - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wby0z It should make for interesting listening. It certainly came up as a topic of conversation in our meeting with LSE management today where we discussed the problems of AIM. More on that later and I hope to write a report ...

Autumn Mists, and Profit Warnings

Autumn, the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness to quote Keats, or in the case of small cap stocks the season for profit warnings it seems. As many companies have a December year end, this is the time of year when management come to realise that given the first half figures and current trading, they are not going to meet the optimistic plans they gave out at the start of the year. Here's just a few that have issued warnings or where ...

Tesco Fraud Charges, Cattles and Globo

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has charged three former managers of Tesco in relation to the overstatement of profits that occurred over several years and which came to light in 2014. The charges are fraud and false accounting and those charged are Carl Rogberg (finance director at the time), Christopher Bush (UK Managing Director) and John Scouler (UK Commercial Director). The former Chief Executive, Philip Clarke, has not been charged but is apparently still under investigation in relation to the offences. Neither ...

Money – You Can’t Give It Away

A momentous item of news last week (which arose while I was on holiday and hence the late post) was the astonishing fact that two public companies, Henkel and Sanofi, sold bonds with negative coupons. Yes the purchasers of their bonds are guaranteed to get back less than they paid for them in a few years time giving an effective return of minus 0.5%. In a normal financial world, you have to pay to borrow money you do not have. More recently ...

Restoring Responsible Ownership

"Restoring Responsible Ownership" is the title of a paper published today by Chris Philp, M.P., on the topic of "Ending the Ownerless Corporation and Controlling Executive Pay". Many people, including ShareSoc, have pointed out the problems in the current governance of public companies. Professor John Kay covered many of the issues in his admirable review of how the stock market operates in his Kay Review a few years ago. One of the symptoms has been rapidly rising director pay as institutions ...

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 ...

Youinvest Charges Postscript

I previously commented, both on this blog and in the ShareSoc Informer Newsletter, on the revised charges that Youinvest announced on the 9th August. The impact on SIPP investors with largish portfolios of direct investments (shares or investment trusts) seemed to be minimal. But the increase in custody charges on funds caused more than one ShareSoc member to complain. The introduction of a custody charge on holding shares, investment trusts, ETFs, gilts and bonds in SIPPs, ISAs and Direct Dealing accounts may ...

Companies House Records May Be Lost

The last ShareSoc Informer Newsletter contained an article on the ease with which one can look up the past history of company directors in the new free service provided...

Book Review – Invest In The Best

The book Invest In the Best, written by Keith Ashworth-Lord, has recently been published. I am familiar with Keith's work (he currently runs the Sanford DeLand UK Buffettology Fund which has been performing very well), because he presented at a ShareSoc Masterclass event. I also remember reading the Analyst publication many years ago to which he was a major contributor and which very much influenced my own investment style. The subtitle of this book is "Applying the principles of Warren Buffett for ...

Youinvest Revise Charges

AJBell Youinvest, one of the more popular low cost retail brokers, are revising their client charges. These might mean some substantial changes for some clients because of the introduction of a custody charge based on a percentage of investments held. However there is an upper limit of £25 per quarter for a SIPP or £7.50 for an ISA and the previous SIPP custody charge of £25 per quarter is being scrapped. There will also be a "tiered" custody charge for funds ...

Charles Stanley Halts Certificated Dealing

Charles Stanley, one of the larger traditional retail stockbrokers, has advised its clients that it will soon cease support of certificated trading. Those retaining paper share certificates because they appreciate the rights associated with being on the share register of a company will be moved into nominee accounts, unless they choose to transfer their business elsewhere. We have updated the page on the ShareSoc web site which lists alternative suppliers of certificated dealing and personal crest accounts which is here: brokers One advantage ...