Blogs

Latest Blogs

Premier Foods – it all comes down to strategy

Premier have now responded to the Oasis “decapitation” initiative with a posting on their website outlining the case for retention of the present CEO. Its worth a read through and you can find a copy here - http://www.premierfoods.co.uk/getattachment/investors/results-centre/Premier-Foods-Presentation-July-2018-(2).pdf.aspx Premier have taken each of the key areas mentioned by Oasis and outlined their own position on the matter. The pack summarises the past financial performance, the abandoned McCormick approach, the strategic review and Gavin Darby’s pay. And, to demonstrate that they DO have ...

Whose company is it anyway?

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. A rather strange thing happened at the RBS annual general meeting at the end of last month. UK Government Investments (UKGI) used its 70 per cent stake to help scupper a resolution ...

Open Season on Auditors?

I attended a joint ShareSoc/UKSA meeting hosted by PwC yesterday. There was a lively debate as one might expect of the problems of the audit profession where there have been just too many issues with listed company accounts in recent years. The latest is an investigation announced by the FRC into the audit of Conviviality but there have been lots of other problem cases in both large and small companies – Carillion, Interserve, BHS, BT, Rolls-Royce, Mitie, RSM Tenon, Connaught, Autonomy, ...

Book Review: Debtonator by Andrew McNally

Now here’s a book well worth reading on your summer holidays. It’s called Debtonator by Andrew McNally. Indeed if you are taking a long-haul flight to your holiday destination, you might be able to read it in one sitting. Like all good books it is short at only 98 pages excluding notes and index, and the format is small as well. But there is an enormous amount of information embodied in there. It covers the problems caused by excessive debt in the ...

Amati AIM VCT AGM and Retailers

Amati AIM VCT is one of those peculiar beasts – a Venture Capital Trust. Yesterday I attended their annual general meeting and here are some general comments on the company and the meeting: Amati AIM VCT (AMAT) is the result a merger of the two Amati VCTs. They had very similar portfolios so this made a lot of sense, and the result is a large VCT with total assets of £147 million. This figure was also boosted by excellent performance last year ...