ShareSoc News

RBS AGM result and subsequent publicity

Paul Jackson wrote an in-depth analysis of the RBS Shareholder Committee campaign and the issues raised in the prestigious Investors Chronicle, 22 June 2018 issue, which is read by tens of thousands of investors. We are grateful to Paul and Investors Chronicle for giving us permission to reproduce this article. Click here: https://www.sharesoc.org/blog/shareholder-democracy/whose-company-is-it-anyway/ RBS AGM Result - Shareholder Committee Vote – We did well but it was a wasted opportunity UKGI Votes were 75.3% of those cast. So their vote decided the outcome. 7.8% of ...
Post Date: July 14, 2018 Read more

Warning to Beaufort Clients

It has come to ShareSoc’s attention that certain claims management companies (CMCs), may approach Beaufort clients, offering to help you recover your assets. We would advise extreme caution if you receive such an approach. The latest information from PwC, as agreed by the creditors’ committee, can be found here: https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/business-recovery/administrations/beaufort/latest-news-and-update.html As you can see from that statement (and the plan summary referred to by it), all bar fewer than 10 individuals with accounts that include cash in excess of £400,000, will have the costs ...
Post Date: July 6, 2018 Read more

Beaufort Client Campaign: Update 3

We are delighted to announce that PwC and the FSCS have substantially improved the plan for returning assets to clients of Beaufort Securities. Details of the new proposals can be found here: https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/business-recovery/administrations/beaufort/latest-news-and-update.html Whereas the original plan stated that the administration may take up to four years and that 700 accounts with a value > £150,000 could suffer losses of up to 40%, in order to fund administration costs PwC now state: "Fewer than ten retail clients will face any costs exposure at ...
Post Date: June 10, 2018 Read more

Access to Placings for Individual Investors

The FT, 7 June, publishes ShareSoc and the UK Shareholders' Association joint letter about placings which exclude individual investors. We continue to urge all companies and their brokers and Nomads to allow individual shareholders to participate in placings. The letter focussed on the recent placing by UKGI of RBS shares and was written by Cliff Weight and Peter Parry. It said: It is a public disgrace that individual investors have been excluded from the placing by UK Government Investments Limited ("UKGI") of RBS ...
Post Date: June 9, 2018 Read more

BEIS Consultation on Insolvency and Corporate Governance

We have submitted jointly with the UK Shareholders Association our response to the consultation on Insolvency and Corporate Governance. The response was written by  Cliff Weight - Director, UK Individual Shareholders Society (ShareSoc) and Peter Parry - Policy Director, UK Shareholders' Association. Click here to read it.
Post Date: June 8, 2018 Read more

ShareSoc and UKSA’s joint response to the BEIS Consultation on Insolvency and Corporate Governance

ShareSoc and UKSA’s joint response to the BEIS Consultation on Insolvency and Corporate Governance. Click here for our response.
Post Date: June 5, 2018 Read more

Act Now to Protect Your Assets!

We hope that, by now, you have read about the threat to all your broker accounts, including ISAs and SIPPs, that the events at Beaufort Securities exposes, which has been widely reported in the press (e.g. see this article in the Sunday Telegraph: www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/05/26/fbi-sting-picasso-scam-collapse-beaufort-could-destroy-trust/ ). If not, please visit our campaign page for a full explanation. Now is the time for you to act, to protect your own interests and remove the threat that an administrator could raid your accounts to recover ...
Post Date: May 28, 2018 Read more

Protect your rights, act now!

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to regain the rights and protections that you have lost as a result of the nominee account system. I urge you to act now by raising this issue at AGMs and writing to your MP, as suggested below. Probably the most important ShareSoc campaign is the Shareholder Rights campaign, launched in October 2014 to gain full rights for ALL shareholders. Individual shareholder rights have been eroded, particularly by the nominee account mechanism and the way that platforms and ...
Post Date: May 27, 2018 Read more

Beaufort Client Campaign: Update 2

Campaign co-ordinator Nandish Haria and ShareSoc Director Mark Lauber attended last week's meeting for creditors and clients of Beaufort Securities (BSL)and Beaufort Asset Clearing Services (BACSL). The meeting was organised by Administrators PwC and took place on May 10th. Nandish has prepared detailed notes of the meeting, which you can download here: Notes of Initial Beaufort Client_Creditor Meeting 180510 These notes contain important information for clients of Beaufort, which the administrator disclosed at the meeting. As disclosed in our campaign update 1, a key campaign ...
Post Date: May 19, 2018 Read more

Beaufort Client Campaign: Update 1

Campaign Status Our campaign was only launched one week ago, but has already generated a terrific response. We now have over 140 campaign members signed up. Unfortunately this has created a backlog of membership requests to process, so please bear with us if you have not yet heard back from us and accept our apologies for any delays. Thank you also for the generous donations to the fighting fund, which will help towards any legal costs that may be incurred defending Beaufort ...
Post Date: May 10, 2018 Read more