Blogs

Latest Blogs

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 ...

Horizon Discovery AGM and Chrysalis VCT

Yesterday I attended the Annual General Meeting of Horizon Discovery Group (HZD) in Cambridge. This is a new holding for me, and I don’t often buy shares in companies that are not reporting profits, but I thought it was worth going along to learn some more about the business. The company’s primary focus is on cell manipulation tools (gene editing, gene modulation) which they sell to drug development companies et al. I am not sure I have great understanding of the ...

Boardroom Battle at Petropavlovsk

Those of you who follow Petropavlosvk (POG) will be aware that a boardroom tussle for control is taking place. Two institutional holders, CABS Platform Limited and Slevin Ltd, have requisitioned resolutions to remove the whole of the present board,  who have been in place since 2017, and replace them with 3 directors who were previous members of the board including the previous CEO, Dr Pavel Maslovskiy. The two requisitioners are supported by POG’s largest shareholder Fincraft. Proxy votes need to be in by ...