Blog

ShareSoc Blog

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.

There is more news given in the News page of our web site and more analysis of news is provided in our monthly newsletter for members – see the Newsletters page.

If you would like to be notified about new posts to our blog you can opt-in to our Weekly Wrap-Up Email service. If you are a member of ShareSoc select the “Weekly Wrap-Up Email” option here. If you are not a member select the “Information and Education Services” option here.


Leigh Day issue court proceedings against Link

Leigh Day issued court proceedings against Link on Monday 27 September 2021.  This is a huge step forward in getting compensation for the many thousands of unfortunates who lost money in Woodford’s WEIF funds. Leigh Day’s issuing of proceedings is a big milestone. We are concerned, however, that roughly only 5-10% of the 270,000 or so investors seem to have joined any claim so far. We urge all WEIF investors to join a claim. We believe that Leigh Day are streets ahead of ...

Grant Thornton Fined Trivial Amount over Patisserie Valerie Audits

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. The interesting news today, at least for a former shareholder in Patisserie Holdings (CAKE) as I am, was the announcement by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) of fines on Grant Thornton and their Audit Partner over the defective audits of the company in financial years 2015, 2016 and 2017. The company subsequently collapsed in 2018 when it became apparent that the accounts were a work of fiction. This is ...

Dividend Yield vs Market Capitalisation

This article expresses the opinions and analysis of its author and does not necessarily reflect those of ShareSoc. The author accepts no liability for any errors in his analysis - readers should verify the analysis for themselves. There has recently been some discussion within ShareSoc and SIGnet about the construction of the SIGnet Investors' Index (SII). A point of debate was whether the SII was biased relative to more conventional and total return indexes because its small- and micro-cap weighting did not ...

ShareSoc response to Treasury UK Prospectus Regime Review Consultation

It looks like the €8m limit may be removed and also that it may become easier for individual investors to participate in fund raisings. In addition shareholder rights to prevent dilution will be strengthened. This consultation looks to be good news for individual investors. In our 10 page response to HM Treasury we said: We welcome this consultation paper. ShareSoc is a not-for-profit organisation with over 8,000 members. We represent the interests of 5 million individual shareholders and 12 million individual investors in the ...

DGE : Diageo – Company Information and Vote Guidance

by Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc. These are my personal views and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. I do not own shares in Diageo, but my wife does, in her ISA. She bought in 1998 at £7.16 and they are now £35. With sales of £12.7bn, their EV (Enterprise Value = market cap plus debt) of £95 bn is > six  times turnover and I don't see great barriers to entry at the global level or from supermarkets going direct to wine ...

The FCA awakes?

This is a personal blog by ShareSoc director Cliff Weight and does not necessarily reflect the views of ShareSoc. There is an excellent article in the Mail on Sunday today by Jeff Prestridge who is our key note speaker at the ShareSoc Woodford Webinar on 30 September - What happens next. click here to register  In today's article Jeff highlights that "the City regulator – the Financial Conduct Authority – has finally woken up from its lockdown slumber and decided to go all ...

Woodford – What Happens Next? 30 September 2021 – 5pm-6:30pm

Woodford Investors are flocking to ShareSoc’s What Happens Next event (30/09/21 at 5pm), headlined by Jeff Prestridge, Personal Finance editor of the Mail on Sunday. Tell your friends and family if they invested in a Woodford fund that they need to join them.       It’s time to update Woodford investors and ShareSoc Campaign members on progress to date. As well as update you on the prospects of you claiming back some of the losses and the potential timeline of when you might get ...

ShareSoc responds to Primary Markets Effectiveness Review

In our 9 page response we said: We welcome this consultation paper CP21/21. ShareSoc is a not-for-profit organisation with over 8,000 members. We represent the interests of 5 million individual shareholders and 12 million individual investors in the UK. We are members of Better Finance who, together with our sister organisations in other countries represent individual investors throughout Europe. We are also members of the World Federation of Investors. ShareSoc Chair, Mark Northway, is also Chair of the World Federation of Investors. Our members ...

Scrapping Share Certificates and Clive Sinclair Obituary

This article represents the views of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc The Government is to push ahead with the scrapping of paper share certificates. An announcement yesterday by Lord Frost included this in a bonfire of regulations which also included plans to scrap driving licences (i.e. making them digital only). The dematerialisation of shares was long ago committed to by an EU directive with no new paper certificates to be issued by 2023 and all existing ones replaced by ...

Dematerialisation of Shares – Certificates to be Abolished

There are in excess of 10 million investors who hold their shares in paper certificated form. So today's announcement by the Government is of interest. Lord Frost set out the below points about getting rid of paper share certificates today as part of a Brexit regulatory review. Dematerialisation of shares - Although the majority of shares are held in electronic form, a minority are held in paper form. It is more expensive and takes longer for holders of paper shares to trade them and there is ...
join ShareSoc