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Corporate Governance Inquiry Launched in Parliament

The BIS Select Committee of MPs has launched an inquiry into corporate governance focussing on executive pay, directors duties, and the composition of boardrooms. That includes worker representation and gender balance in executive positions. It has been prompted by the recent comments from the Prime Minister and the Committees recent inquiries into BHS and Sports Direct where major failings were revealed in the way those businesses were run. The terms of reference for this inquiry are very broad - see this web ...

Have you been scammed by AIM?

One of ShareSoc’s primary objectives is to protect the interests of individual shareholders. Sadly, many investors have lost significant sums through outright fraud, misrepresentation or market abuse occurring amongst...

Greene King & Crawshaw Profit Warnings

In Weatherspoon’s full year results announcement, their CEO Tim Martin took the opportunity to criticise Greene King for blaming poor results on Brexit. He said “The only thing worse than complaining about the weather is complaining about Brexit”, implying that they were poor excuses. Yesterday (13/9/2016) butcher Crawshaw Group went further. In a profit warning “trading update” they blamed suppressed footfall patterns on “international football, adverse weather and Brexit”. In addition they said customers were now even more price focussed and they were ...

Tesco Fraud Charges, Cattles and Globo

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has charged three former managers of Tesco in relation to the overstatement of profits that occurred over several years and which came to light in 2014. The charges are fraud and false accounting and those charged are Carl Rogberg (finance director at the time), Christopher Bush (UK Managing Director) and John Scouler (UK Commercial Director). The former Chief Executive, Philip Clarke, has not been charged but is apparently still under investigation in relation to the offences. Neither ...

Money – You Can’t Give It Away

A momentous item of news last week (which arose while I was on holiday and hence the late post) was the astonishing fact that two public companies, Henkel and Sanofi, sold bonds with negative coupons. Yes the purchasers of their bonds are guaranteed to get back less than they paid for them in a few years time giving an effective return of minus 0.5%. In a normal financial world, you have to pay to borrow money you do not have. More recently ...