Insolvency and Administration

Corporate Governance at Quindell, and news on Aero Inventory

I won't even attempt to discuss the past history of events at Quindell in this article. But recent ones suggest that it is likely to remain a controversial company. After the departure of founder and former Executive Chairman Rob Terry, Richard Rose has been appointed as Chairman and Jim Sutcliffe has been appointed as Deputy Chairman and Strategy Director. Shareholders no doubt welcomed these experienced hands to take charge of this company after past events. But there are a couple of problems ...

Changes to Company Regulations

Today on Bank Holiday Easter Monday, the Government announced some changes to company regulations. Does this show how they work all the days of the year to improve the UK business environment, or they thought it a good time to announce controversial proposals? You can judge for yourselves the answer to that question after reading what follows. But as most of the proposals were well flagged in advance by past public consultations, they may only be controversial to those companies who ...

Hibu, a most peculiar EGM, and RBS

In a previous blog post on the 28th Nov I discussed Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and the "unacceptable face of banking". It mentioned the case of HIBU, where RBS was one of the lenders, which had just been put into administration thereby apparently thwarting the calling of a General Meeting (EGM) by shareholders and the appointment of new directors. This was similar to the case of Torex retail some years before. In fact the HIBU EGM did actually take place but ...

RBS, Hibu and the unacceptable face of banking

There have been extensive media comments lately on the activities of the Royal Bank of Scotland in lending to smaller businesses, and what they did when those businesses got into financial difficulties. The articles printed focussed on two reports on the activities of RBS - a report commissioned by the bank by Sir Andrew Large, and one by Lawrence Tomlinson* who acts as a consultant to the BIS Department. Both reports, but particularly the latter one, were quite damning about the ...

Transparency and Trust – Consultation Response Submitted

ShareSoc is submitting a response to the BIS Discussion Paper on “Transparency & Trust” which can be read here:  www.sharesoc.org/Transparency_&_Trust_ShareSoc_Response.pdf . This wide ranging consultation is on a number of proposals to tackle many problems in the modern corporate scene, with a particular focus on tax avoidance and money laundering. Knowing who controls and owns companies is one of the concerns, but it also aims to tackle incompetent and fraudulent directors. A summary of the key points ShareSoc made in our ...

RSM Tenon Pre-Pack: an odd connection

ShareSoc has made many representations in the past about the abusive use of pre-pack administrations. In the case of publicly listed companies, they usually mean the ordinary shares become instantly worthless. The latest case of a pre-pack in a listed company is that of RSM Tenon. This company (an accountancy practice oddly enough) got into difficulty by taking on excessive debt for a growth strategy. Baker Tilly were negotiating to buy the business for a rock bottom price. But yesterday it ...