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Transparency Task Force Attacks FCA and Sophisticated Investor/HNWI Status

This article represents the views of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. Following on from the BBC Panorama programme on the Blackmore Bond scandal the Transparency Task Force have launched an attack on the competence of the Financial Conduct Authority – see https://www.transparencytaskforce.org/letters-to-mps-about-blackmore-bond/. It includes a letter you can send to your Member of Parliament asking for some reform. I agree with most of their recommendations on how matters can be improved. One issue I would also raise is that the Panorama ...

Panorama Attacks FCA over Mini-Bond Failures

This article represents the views of its author and not necessarily those of Sharesoc. The BBC’s Panorama programme last night (on 16/8/2022) did a good job of pointing out the failure of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to prevent fraud on investors in “mini-bonds”. In this case the focus was on the collapse of Blackmore Bond where 2,000 people lost £46m when the company collapsed. But there have been several other similar cases. Mini-bonds are unregulated investments so should only be sold to ...

Treatt Profit Warning

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. It has been suggested by articles in Investors Chronicle that now might be the time to venture back into the small cap market after a big fall in the share prices of such companies in the last year (the FTSE-AIM index is down by 27%). But investors in Treatt (TET) might not agree. After a profit warning this morning (15th August 2022) the share price ...

Gore Street Energy Fund Dividend Waiver and Directors’ Jobs

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. At the forthcoming Annual General Meeting of Gore Street Energy Storage Fund (GSF) in addition to the usual resolutions shareholders are asked to approve a whitewash of the illegal past payments of dividends (resolution 15). This regularly happens when a company fails to file a statement of distributable reserves at Companies House showing it has sufficient reserves to cover the dividend. It seems to happen ...

Austin Review of Capital Raising and Dematerialisation

This article represents the views of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. It’s the mid-summer doldrums in the stock market and with investors having more time on their hands, what better time to issue a 265 page document entitled “UK Secondary Capital Raising Review” (see link below). This document covers a number of very important issues to investors after a review by Mark Austin as Chair of a committee that has looked at the way the UK stock market operates ...