ShareSoc News

ShareSoc Management Changes

In recent months ShareSoc began the process of transformation to appeal to a wider circle of investors and stakeholders and to accelerate our growth. This revealed fundamental differences of opinion within the board about ShareSoc's purpose and governance, and in particular its role as a campaigning organisation. As a result of those differences several ShareSoc board members have chosen to step down. The Board thanks Sheryl Cuisia, Karin Schulte, Chris Spencer-Phillips for their service and support and wishes them well in their ...

Policy and Campaigns – Progress Update 04 April 2022

Policy and Campaigns – Progress Update 4 April 2022 Since our last update in November 2021 (see page 16 here), we have worked on: 1. Consultation responses and government lobbying 2. Woodford Campaign 3. Voting Guidance and Shareholder Engagement 4. Shareholder Rights/Nominees 5. SVS/ITI 6. FCA liaison 7. FRC, BEIS, etc liaison 8. Campaigns 9. AIM regulation 1. Consultation responses and government lobbying. This continues to be a major area of work, where ShareSoc represents the interests of individual investors. We have submitted responses to: • FRC Endorsement Board – Draft Endorsement Criteria ...

Woodford Campaign Update 8 – 31 March 2022

1.     Leigh Day achieved a significant legal milestone and submitted their court proceedings against Link on 27 September. Leigh Day will shortly be submitting their particulars of claim, which is the next key milestone in the legal process. 2.     ShareSoc is planning a free webinar “Woodford – Real Progress” to update everyone on the latest progress on the claim, and news about regulation, retribution and redress. Please reserve the date - 28 June at 6pm. Further details will be sent out in ...

Former Redcentric Directors Jailed

After a 3 month trial, verdicts have been reached in the prosecution of former Redcentric directors by the FCA. The FCA announced that the former Redcentric CFO had been sentenced to 5½ years imprisonment for two offences of making false and misleading statements to the market, and three offences of false accounting. In addition, the former Finance Director who had pled guilty was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment on charges of making false statements and false accounting. These former directors will also ...

ShareSoc response to FRC Endorsement Board – Draft Endorsement Criteria Assessment: IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts

In a joint UKSA/ShareSoc response on 4 Feb 2022, we said we do not agree with your overall tentative conclusion that IFRS 17 meets the criteria of understandability, relevance, reliability and comparability required of the financial information needed for making economic decisions and assessing the stewardship of management. The consultation paper can be read here: https://assets-eu-01.kc-usercontent.com/99102f2b-dbd8-0186-f681-303b06237bb2/2994263f-e03c-45d4-9fcd-933f0b19cb56/UKEB%20IFRS%2017%20DECA.pdf Our full response can be read here UKEB-Invitation-to-Comment-IFRS-17-ECA-UKSA-ShareSoc-response by Cliff Weight, Policy Director, ShareSoc 

Better Finance finds that commission-based distribution models cost individual investors up to 15% of their investments in sales commissions

ShareSoc is a member of BETTER FINANCE, who represent c. 28 European shareholder organisations. Better Finance have just issued a report that finds that commission-based distribution models cost individual investors up to 15% of their investments in sales commissions and generate conflicts of interest which severely hurt their performance. Click here to read the full press release and access the full report.

ShareSoc response to FCA Consultation CP21/36: A New Consumer Duty

In a detailed 12 page response to the FCA Consultation, ShareSoc made the following key points: We welcome consultation paper CP21/36 and its proposed new Consumer Duty, which we believe will set clearer and higher standards. We believe that the proposal should be labelled as a Duty of Care. We do not understand why the FCA has not done this. We also believe it is not clear whether the FCA’s central proposal is intended to create a duty of care. We ...

ShareSoc Informer #119 – Out now!

We're delighted to present our first ShareSoc Informer issue for 2022.   We lead with an introduction to our new Chair, Sheryl Cuisia, who took over the role from Mark Northway at the beginning of the year and who is spearheading an executive-led transformation process to prepare ShareSoc for its next phase of development.   Faith Glasgow looks at the rising spectre of inflation and examines the tools available to closed-end funds for combatting rising consumer prices.     The Informer is a great way to catch up with what ShareSoc has ...

Enabling investment in productive finance – Consultation Response

On 17 January 2022, ShareSoc and UKSA submitted a joint response to the Department for Work & Pensions November 2021 consultation "Enabling investment in productive finance - proposals to remove performance-based fees from the charge cap" where we made these points: We would like to register our deep concern about the suggestions in this consultation paper. We are seriously concerned that the DWP has failed to think these proposals through. The Ministerial Foreword says, for example, “In the last few months, the government, alongside ...

Policy and Campaigns – Progress Update 20 Dec 2021

Since Oct 12 (see previous update here), we have worked on: Audit and Governance reform: many members have told us of their concerns about the disasters at Carillion and many others. We view the audit and governance reforms as crucial and have pressed for these to be moved forward as quickly as possible. We are concerned about lobbying to slow down this progress and co-signed a letter to the FT which was published on 12 Nov. 21. Woodford Campaign: ...

Sirius Minerals Update #15

Following the update in May, the Sirius Claim Group has been working with potential legal partners to consider potential claims. There are a number of different claims that are being considered but, in all cases, they must pass the significant challenge of not only being considered technically viable by both legal and financial partners but also, that any derived awards/damages/compensation must substantiate the time, effort and risk of pursuing.  It follows therefore, that reviewing potential claims is a time consuming and very detailed piece of ...

We’re hiring! Can you help us to recruit a General Manager?

Having reached our 10 year anniversary in 2021, we are excited to enter a new era of our organisation in 2022 to be even more inclusive of investors from...