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Investment styles – Phil Oakley, Richard Beddard and Roger Lawson

Post Date: September 5, 2017

Last week Phil Oakley, who mainly writes for ShareScope/SharePad, published a very interesting article entitled “A Blueprint for Better Long Term Investing”. This described his investment style in essence and contained lots of good tips from an experienced stock market analyst. For example: “Focus on businesses not stocks”, “Don’t overpay for quality companies” and “Avoid information overload”. It’s well worth reading and is here in full: Oakley-Article Experienced investor Richard Beddard also joined that company recently and published an article entitled “Shares ...

Another Fat Cat Payoff at Hunting

Post Date: September 1, 2017

On 7th April, Hunting announced the retirement of CEO Dennis Proctor: https://www.investegate.co.uk/hunting-plc--htg-/rns/retirement-of-dennis-proctor-as-chief-executive/201704070700088531B/ This follows a very difficult period for the company and its shareholders, as it suffers from sharp cutbacks in CAPEX by the oil & gas industry. I was shocked to read this today: https://www.investegate.co.uk/hunting-plc--htg-/rns/directorate-change-and-remuneration-disclosure/201709010700054964P/ A payment of US$1,688,350 will shortly be made to Mr Proctor which includes US$785,600 related to his service contract obligations with the balance reflecting a settlement in connection with the cessation of employment. (in addition to which Proctor retains ...

Vested Interests Win a Battle… but We Will Win the War!

Post Date: August 30, 2017

In a speech made in 2016, Theresa May said: ...And I want to see changes in the way that big business is governed. The people who run big businesses are supposed to be accountable to outsiders, to non-executive directors, who are supposed to ask the difficult questions, think about the long-term and defend the interests of shareholders. In practice, they are drawn from the same, narrow social and professional circles as the executive team and – as we have seen time and ...

FT Article on Small Investor Voting

Post Date: August 28, 2017

On 25th August in the FTMoney supplement, FT writer Aime Williams explained how small investors could influence companies. But unfortunately some points may have misled readers. I have sent Aime the following communication: I read your article entitled “Small investors stand up and be counted” in this weekend’s FT with interest. It is good that the article shows how private investors can have an impact on companies, and it will no doubt encourage people to attend AGMs. But the comments from Richard Stone ...

How Many Stocks?

Post Date: August 21, 2017

There was an interesting article in this week’s Investors Chronicle by John Rosier which discussed the number of holdings he had in his portfolio. He had attended a presentation by a well-known private investor who had 25% of his portfolio in one stock. John questioned whether he held too many stocks in his own portfolio (32 according to his portfolio list). He mused that Neil Woodford held 135 stocks in his UK Equity Income Fund but the largest 10 positions made ...