ShareSoc News

Lord Lee asks Parliamentary Question about Capital Gains Tax

Baroness Penn, Treasury, has provided the following answer to the written parliamentary question (HL3755) from Lord Lee, Patron of ShareSoc: Question: To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of (1) the number of additional taxpayers who will have to complete Capital Gains tax returns as a result of the proposed reduction in threshold, (2) the amount of additional tax revenue that is likely to be raised, and (3) the extra cost of administration that will be required as a result of ...

If you are a shareholder in Purplebricks make sure your vote counts

Various publications have been reporting recently on plans by an activist investor, Lecram Holdings, to oust the present Chair of Purplebricks, Paul Pindar, after several years of value-destroying performance. A General Meeting to vote on the removal of the Chair and to vote onto the board a new director, Harry Hill (founder of Rightmove and ex CEO of Countrywide) will take place on the 19th December. The vote could be quite close and individual investors hold a significant proportion of the ...

Better Finance endorses ShareSoc Investing Basics

Better Finance, The European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users, has given a strong endorsement of ShareSoc Investing Basics, our recently launched educational video series: Aleksandra Mączyńska, Executive Director for BETTER FINANCE said : “I congratulate ShareSoc for this excellent initiative! ShareSoc Investing Basics and its investor education videos provide badly needed tools and information for all those people who are looking to invest but don’t know where to start. Individual investors need access to independent and clear information to empower them and help ...

Recovering the £½ Billion in unclaimed Child Trust Funds

One of the goals of ShareSoc Investing Basics is to raise awareness of the Child Trust Funds. You may recall Gordon Brown introduced Child Trust Funds in 2005 as explained in this article in This is Money, who are partnering with ShareSoc to help the Investing Basics videos reach as wide an audience as possible. Every child born in the UK between 1/9/2002 and 2/1/2011 was given £250, placed into a trust fund, for access at 18. With no other additional investment, the funds for ...

FCA Update

FCA Enforcement Actions Cliff Weight and Peter Parry met with Executives from the FCA Primary Markets and Secondary Markets teams on 28 October. We discussed a number of regulatory issues and shared various concerns. The nature of these meetings is that much is confidential and the FCA cannot comment on specific cases if that might be prejudicial to those being investigated, nor can they comment on cases that are not known to be in the public eye. I am pleased to report the ...

ShareSoc Investing Basics launch at London Stock Exchange

ShareSoc is delighted to announce the launch of the ShareSoc Investing Basics educational video series. The series is designed to engage and educate people of all ages about investing. Ten bite-sized episodes offer an irreverent, entertaining and surprisingly informative romp through the basics of investing. Unbiased knowledge, anytime, anywhere, for everyone. Presented by former BBC business correspondent turned full-time investor, Glen Goodman, with a phalanx of animated graphics to assist him, the series dismantles financial jargon into words anyone can understand, spelling out ...

FRC guidance on AGMs

FRC guidance on AGMs The FRC AGM Good Practice Guidance was published in July 2022. Cliff Weight and Peter Parry were members of the working party that helped develop the new guidance. Cliff said: “This new FRC Guidance is another important step on the journey to wider participation and better engagement between companies and investors. Of course, it does not deal with shareholders who hold their shares via platforms – that issue is being addressed by the BEIS, the Law Commission and most ...

FCA Annual Meeting 10am 15 September – Virtual Meeting

This meeting is open to all. You can register here: https://webinars.fca.org.uk/annual-public-meeting-2022 You can also submit questions if you wish. I have submitted a question on behalf of ShareSoc: ShareSoc, a not for profit independent organisation, dedicated to supporting individual investors, has made a considerable investment in producing an attractive video series, designed to help new investors. Will the FCA help to promote this series, to ensure that the general public is well informed about the basic principles of sound investment practice? Will you meet with ShareSoc ...

The value of the AIM market decreased by 30% in the first half of 2022

The value of the AIM market decreased by 30% in the first half of 2022, from £150 bn to £105 bn. The tech-heavy NASDAQ and the S&P have also suffered large declines. The FTSE 100 index is up by c 1% YTD.  Of course, investing in the NASDAQ or S&P over the long term (20/30+ years) would have hugely better returns than the FTSE 100. These figures highlight the importance of asset allocation. The severity of the AIM market decline was highlighted ...

Financial Reporting Council Consultation Response: Firm-level Audit Quality Indicators

On 18 August 2022, UKSA and ShareSoc submitted a joint response to the Financial Reporting Council with our comments on their consultation on firm-level Audit Quality Indicators (AQIs). We made the following key points: Definition of audit quality We understand from its various recent publications that the FRC has a definition of high quality audits as audits that: provide investors and other stakeholders with a high-level of assurance that financial statements give a true and fair view; comply with both the spirit and the ...

Representing, Lobbying and Campaigning – Progress Update 01 August 2022

Executive Summary We have focussed our resources mainly on the Woodford campaign, best practice guidance for AGMs, nominee accounts and pre-emption rights; and maintaining good relationships with the FCA, FRC, BEIS and Treasury. Activities relating to ShareSoc’s shortly to be launched Investing Basics Course have consumed much of our available resource and limited what can be done on campaigns. Nevertheless, we have made much progress. Since our last update of 4 April 2022 we have worked on: Consultation responses and government lobbying  ...

ShareSoc/UKSA Joint response to IFRS Foundation International Sustainability Standards Board Consultation

In a joint UKSA/ShareSoc response on 29 July 2022, we said We support the creation of the International Sustainability Standards Board and wish to see it succeed in its mission of developing high-quality global standards for sustainability reporting by companies, which should lead to mitigate against the confusion of the complex web of sustainability standards that currently exists. In order to succeed as global standards, the IFRS Sustainability Standards need to be adopted by the local authorities of countries and regions ...