ShareSoc News

Hargreaves Lansdown backs down on investment trust charges

PRESS RELEASE 53 (17/01/2014) Hargreaves Lansdown doubles charges for some investors On the 15th January Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) announced new charges on its investment platform. The changes are no doubt provoked by the new rules whereby funds can no longer pass part of their charges back to HL. But the changes will mean that the annual charges paid by some investors will double. The reason why charges might double is that in future investment trust holdings will not be treated as being direct share ...

Collective Engagement – A New “City Club” for Institutions?

PRESS RELEASE 52 (20/12/2013) ShareSoc welcomed many of the proposals contained in the Kay Review, including the third key recommendation that "An investors’ forum should be established to facilitate collective engagement by investors in UK companies". Subsequently a Collective Engagement Working Group was formed to take this proposal forward and it has recently produced a report (see Note below). Unfortunately this report contains a number of major defects in our view and we will be making representations to the Government opposing the structure ...

ShareSoc’s Response to the FCA’s Consultation on Crowdfunding

Proposals to regulate Crowdfunding were the subject of this response to an FCA consultation: Crowdfunding

Great news – real company owners to be disclosed

PRESS RELEASE 51 (31/10/2013) The Prime Minister has announced that the details of who really owns and controls UK companies will be made publicly accessible. More information will be announced in early 2014, but the key paragraph in the announcement from the BIS Department includes the statement that the Government will “………potentially use as a model the disclosure regime that currently applies in relation to disclosure of information on company shareholders. This would mean that companies would hold information on the names and ...

Sharesoc response to consultation on Venture Capital Trust share buy-backs

ShareSoc submitted this response to the public consultation on Venture Capital Trust (VCT) buy-backs by HM Treasury: VCT_BuyBacks

Response to Consultation on Transparency & Trust Discussion Paper

ShareSoc has submitted this note in response to the BIS Dept’s Discussion Paper on "Transparency & Trust": TransparencyandTrust

Vodafone and Verizon – how will they use the cash?

PRESS RELEASE 50 (31/08/2013) ShareSoc welcomes the announcement that discussions on the disposal of Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless are being pursued. But our main concern is what the company will do with the cash they might receive (which may be over US$100bn). Vodafone is a company that favours market share buybacks, when most private investors do not. The company has spent £19.5 billion on buybacks in the last ten years (see below) plus £1 billion in the last quarter alone. ShareSoc prefers to ...

City of London Investment Trust Removes Performance Fee

PRESS RELEASE 49 (31/07/2013) ShareSoc welcomes the announcement by City of London Investment Trust that it is to remove the manager’s performance fee. In future it will simply pay a flat fee of 0.365% of assets (or 0.35% when net assets are above £1bn – they are currently 0.7bn). City of London IT is one of the largest generalist investment trusts and also one of the best performing over the long term. Despite beating its benchmark index last year, and over the last ...

Shareholders advised to vote against new performance fee at Northern Venture Trust

PRESS RELEASE 48 (26/06/2013) Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) are one of the stock market oddities but are beloved by many private investors because of the tax reliefs available to investors. Northern Venture Trust was one of the first to be launched back in 1995. It was issued without a fund management performance fee in place but they are now proposing to introduce one. ShareSoc advises shareholders in this company to vote against the resolution to approve the change in the management fee at ...

VSA Capital Group delisting – some most peculiar events

PRESS RELEASE 46 (18/04/2013) On the 28th March, VSA Capital Group announced a proposed delisting from AIM, with a vote to be taken on the 17th April (yesterday). That was of course immediately before the Easter bank holiday, making it somewhat difficult for shareholders, particularly those in nominee accounts, to get their votes in on time. And so it turned out to be. A number of shareholders opposed the delisting, led by Nick Brown who set up a web site to co-ordinate ...

ShareSoc Calls for Revitalised AGMs

PRESS RELEASE 45 (11/04/2013) General meetings are one of the best opportunities for companies to communicate with their owners: the shareholders. But ShareSoc members often find that Annual General Meetings are not the lively and mutually informative occasions that they should be. With the main AGM season looming, ShareSoc has published a document explaining how they should be run. This 12-page note provides guidance on how to get the best out of such meetings, both for shareholders attending and those managing or ...

ShareSoc’s response to HM Treasury’s ISA Shares Consultation

ShareSoc’s response to HM Treasury’s ISA Shares Consultation (covering technical issues on the inclusion of AIM shares in ISAs among other matters) is present here: ISASharesConsultation