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The Battle for Dee Valley – Shareholders Need to Vote

A bidding war for smallish water company Dee Valley Group (DVW) broke out some weeks ago. The two bidders are Ancala (Ancala Formia Ltd) and Severn Trent Water Ltd. Although the Ancala bid was initially recommended by Dee Valley, the later Severn Trent offer is significantly higher so the recommendation was changed to support them. However, one problem is that Dee Valley has a high proportion of retail shareholders, many of whom hold their shares in nominee accounts, and it is necessary ...

RBS Settlement Announced – But Why Has the FCA Done Nothing?

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) have announced a settlement of the litigation over the rights issue in 2008 with three out of the five investor groups who were pursuing the company. They have reserved £800 million to settle all the claims and are continuing to negotiate with the remaining litigants. But private investors may be reluctant to settle because of the high legal costs that will erode any settlement, the low value of the settlement (the claims were originally estimated ...

Berkeley Group Interims, and Pay

House builder Berkeley Group issued their Interim Results this morning (2/12/2016). It was generally positive about the future so the share price has perked up somewhat today. But the...

Blancco Technology Group and Corporate Governance

I attended the AGM of Blancco Technology Group (BLTG) yesterday (29/11/2016). The Government announced a review of Corporate Governance yesterday but is it not surprising that companies cannot get...

ShareSoc Welcomes Corporate Governance Review

ShareSoc has issued the following Press Release: ShareSoc (the UK Individual Shareholders Society) welcomes the Government's announcement today of a review of Corporate Governance in both public and larger private companies. It is good to see that the Green Paper both discusses the problems of executive pay and the influence of stakeholders other than shareholders on businesses while setting out a number of options for further reform. As regards director pay, the document makes clear that despite more obligations on companies on ...