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GKN – Melrose and the Sage of Omaha

A number of ShareSoc members have asked the ShareSoc Board for their recommendations for the GKN offer from Melrose. ShareSoc is not FCA registered and cannot give advice - and neither can I. Why have fund managers, who should be talking a long-term view, sold 25% of GKN to short-term opportunists? Why are 11% of Melrose shares shorted? Why has the Melrose share price not dropped hugely in the face of this short selling? The final offer is for 81p plus 1.69 Melrose ...

Aviva Preference Shares – FCA Announcement

Readers who take any notice of financial affairs will be aware of the furore over the threat by Aviva to redeem their preference shares by a “share cancellation” process – they claimed that is a different legal process, even though the shares were described as “irredeemable”. The shares concerned dropped in price to a significant extent because their high coupon interest rate meant they were trading at a premium when cancellation would have meant redemption at the original par value. Aviva ...

Which Is The Cheapest Platform?

Many investors do not research which trading platforms (a.k.a. on-line stockbrokers) are the cheapest before they sign up with them. Neither do all platforms offer the same facilities – for example all the different types of ISAs and allow investment in both funds and investment companies or direct shares. Retail investors tend to depend on which name they remember from advertising, from friends’ recommendations and other sources. But now the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) has provided a useful comparison tool. The ...

Analyst Presentations: the Unlevel Playing Field

A core aim for ShareSoc is to seek to level the playing field for individual shareholders. One aspect of this is addressing the cosy chats that companies have with analysts and favoured institutional investors, which individual investors usually cannot gain access to. A typical example of this was contained in ScS's recent interim results announcement: https://www.investegate.co.uk/scs-group-plc--scs-/rns/interim-results/201803210700033530I/ Investor and Analyst Meeting A meeting for analysts will be held at the office of Buchanan, 107 Cheapside, London, EC2V 6DN on 21 March 2018 commencing at 9.30am. ScS ...

Sustainable Finance Action Plan

ShareSoc welcomes the actions proposed by the European Commission which should bring about more transparency for investors and favour sustainable long-term value creation for end-investors and savers. ShareSoc is...