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ShareSoc Blog

The ShareSoc blog provides news and informal commentary from directors, members and other contributors. Entries reflect the personal views of the authors, which do not necessarily reflect ShareSoc’s formal position. Contributors may hold shares in the companies mentioned. Nothing in this blog should be viewed as financial advice. You may submit comments on blog posts, but ShareSoc reserves the right to remove or edit inappropriate or defamatory submissions.

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.

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Albion Capital Group LLP Partners’ 67% pay increase

Albion Capital Group LLP have recently disclosed their average pay per Partner for year end 31 March 2019 was £803,000, a whopping 67% increase on the previous year (£480,000)....

Winning The Loser’s Game – It’s Like Tennis

It’s that time of year when we review our investment performance over the last year and some of us realise that it would have been lot better if it...

Brydon Audit Review and FRC Update

Readers probably don’t need to be reminded of the poor reputation of auditors and accountants. The announcement yesterday from Staffline Group (STAF) reiterates the point. They note the latest...

Serco Charges, Unilever Trading and DotDigital AGM

I like to report on the latest evidence of fraudulent accounting just to remind folks how little one can trust the accounts of companies. I have not mentioned Serco...

RBS Shareholder Committee Campaign – Update 17

ShareSoc and UKSA have now paused this campaign, because RBS are now engaging better with shareholders and have announced a programme of 4 events a year specifically focussed on engagement with individual shareholders. See https://investors.rbs.com/shareholder-centre/shareholder-events.aspx, where you can also access a recording of RBS' successful virtual event on 25 Nov 2019. This has been a successful campaign. Notable achievements: We were able to successfully requisition 3 resolutions at two AGMs. Although we did not get shareholders to vote in favour of a ...

Northern VCTs and Mercia

The 3 Northern VCTs (Northern Venture Trust, Northern 2 VCT and Northern 3 VCT) are proposing to novate their management agreements with NVM Private Equity LLP in favour of...

LSE Consultation on Market Structure and Trading Hours

The London Stock Exchange launched a consultation last week on the subject topic. You can find this consultation here: https://www.londonstockexchange.com/traders-and-brokers/rules-regulations/change-and-updates/stock-exchange-notices/2019/n1819_attach1.pdf I will compile a response to this consultation for...

Edinburgh IT Fires Manager

The Edinburgh Investment Trust (EDIN) has fired fund manager Invesco. This company is an equity income trust focused primarily on the UK, although it also has an objective to...

FRC Fines Grant Thornton £650k, Ted Baker and Tullow

A ShareSoc member emailed us to give his view: This is terrible. Why wouldn’t the FRC name the partner and the company involved, especially when Grant Thornton has been...

Profit Warnings at XP Power and Ted Baker, plus Mercia Placing

A number of profit warnings this morning. The most interesting to me was at XP Power (XPP) although I do not hold it. It was interesting because as a...
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