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Paddy Power Betfair – Same Excuses as William Hill

Bookmaker Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) came up with similar excuses for middling results as did William Hill recently on which I wrote a previous blog post (see https://www.sharesoc.org/blog/company-news/how-bookmakers-lose-money-william-hill/ )....

FCA’s Mission Statement – A Suggestion

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has been consulting on its "Future Mission" and ShareSoc has submitted a detailed response. It can be read here: https://www.sharesoc.org/FCA-Mission-ShareSoc-Response.pdf and there is also a press release which we issued this morning which summarises it: https://www.sharesoc.org/pr86-fca-mission.html It's a pretty devastating critique of the activities of the FCA and the muddled thoughts about its mission statement. It has occurred to me that actually writing a mission statement for the FCA should not be that difficult, so here's my ...

Forward Selling: A Crime Against Shareholders?

Roger has recently written about the censure of Cornhill Capital, in the matter of New World Oil & Gas. The full censure notice, setting out the gory details of the case has been published here: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/traders-and-brokers/rules-regulations/change-and-updates/stock-exchange-notices/2017/n0117.pdf This case centres around the practice of "forward selling", a practice which is not unusual at present. So, what is forward selling? Forward selling occurs when a company agrees to issue shares to a third party and that third party sells those shares in the market, prior ...

Cornhill Capital Fined Over AIM Placing

Cornhill Capital have been fined £210,000 by the London Stock Exchange (LSE) over a placing of shares in New World Oil & Gas on AIM. Cornhill was acting as a broker to the company which planned to place some 2 billion shares. That was twice the number already in issue. Cornhill sold shares to its private clients in advance of the placing with the sales to be fulfilled from the placed shares. But the placing required a vote of shareholders and ...

Technology change impact – Pearson and Royal Mail

I wrote an article for this month’s ShareSoc Informer Newsletter that covered forecasts for the future. One of the aspects covered was the impact of technology on many companies...