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Restoring Responsible Ownership

"Restoring Responsible Ownership" is the title of a paper published today by Chris Philp, M.P., on the topic of "Ending the Ownerless Corporation and Controlling Executive Pay". Many people, including ShareSoc, have pointed out the problems in the current governance of public companies. Professor John Kay covered many of the issues in his admirable review of how the stock market operates in his Kay Review a few years ago. One of the symptoms has been rapidly rising director pay as institutions ...

Wealth Manager’s Charges Still High

There were a couple of interesting articles in the FT over the weekend (27/8/2016) on the costs to investors of having someone else manage your portfolio. Data from Grant Thornton suggests that investors who buy investment advice and financial products from mass market investment groups are still paying 2.56% per annum on average. This is only down from 2.86% in 2012 when the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) which unbundled product commissions was expected to reduce them substantially. Indeed product costs may have ...

Youinvest Charges Postscript

I previously commented, both on this blog and in the ShareSoc Informer Newsletter, on the revised charges that Youinvest announced on the 9th August. The impact on SIPP investors with largish portfolios of direct investments (shares or investment trusts) seemed to be minimal. But the increase in custody charges on funds caused more than one ShareSoc member to complain. The introduction of a custody charge on holding shares, investment trusts, ETFs, gilts and bonds in SIPPs, ISAs and Direct Dealing accounts may ...

Please Vote Against Berkeley Remuneration

ShareSoc has advised investors to vote against the Remuneration Report at Berkeley Group. Is a total pay figure of £21 million in 2015/16 for Executive Chairman Tony Pidgley justifiable on any grounds at all? It has surely arisen as the result of an over generous LTIP scheme which shareholders voted for without realising the possible consequences. LTIP schemes have been one source of the ever growing pay of public company directors and if we are to reign in pay levels we ...

Companies House Records May Be Lost

The last ShareSoc Informer Newsletter contained an article on the ease with which one can look up the past history of company directors in the new free service provided...