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Just Eat – Capital Markets Day

I recall other ShareSoc Members complaining about how some companies publicly announce “Capital Market Day” events on the morning that the event takes place. This ensures that private investors are excluded as only institutional investors are given advance notice. A very good example was that for Just Eat (JE.) yesterday. Given in an RNS at 7.00 am in the morning, with the event commencing at 9.00 am. Usually such announcements say something like “no new information will be provided”, or in this ...

Directors Removed But One Reappointed at Telit

More interesting events at the Telit Communications (TCM) AGM yesterday. This is a company that has been through troubled times of late with the departure of former CEO Oozi Cats under a cloud and lots of questions about their accounts being raised. But events at the AGM were even more surprising when the Chairman Richard Kilsby and two other non-executive directors were voted off the board on a poll. The meeting lasted all of ten minutes apparently. Existing non-executive director Simon Duffy ...

Scottish Mortgage Investor Meeting

Yesterday I went to the meeting for investors held by Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (SMT) in London. This was a useful event as they normally hold their AGMs in Scotland. Needless to say this company’s name is now grossly misleading as it does not invest in mortgages nor in Scotland but is a “global” investment trust. It has a great track record in the last few years and has a focus on growth companies. Their top 10 investments are Amazon, Alibaba, ...

Watch out FRC – there’s a new Guv’nor in town

One of our members - Tony Johnson - who is a Chartered Secretary and longstanding member of ICSA, has brought to my attention ICSA’s planned rebranding to become “The Chartered Governance Institute”. See here for more details - https://www.icsa.org.uk/. ICSA or, should I say, CGI, appear to be positioning themselves as the “go-to” organisation for good corporate governance. Here’s what their President, David Vernon, had to say recently in his letter to members: “Over the last two years, your Council has been implementing ...

Update on Boardroom Battle at Petropavlovsk

The deadline for voting at the Petropavlovsk AGM on the 29th June (proxy votes need to be in by 27th June) is approaching fast. For those of you who are shareholders and are still undecided on the boardroom tussle that is taking place, and if you haven’t already read the cases for and against, you may like to take a look at the following sources of information: Firstly, the arguments from the incumbent board headed by Chairman Ian Ashby are available here - Petropavlovsk ...