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Rolls-Royce and Other AGMs

Yesterday I attended the Annual General Meeting of Rolls-Royce Plc - held at 11.00 in Nottingham (at a conference centre on the University Park). Why move the venue from London where it has been held since 2004? Probably to attract a more sympathetic audience of ex-employees I suspect. Shareholders in Rolls-Royce don't need to be told that this company is going through a rough patch. Profits in the last two years have been miniscule, the dividends have been cut and even revenue ...

ShareSoc’s Response to Head of AIM

On Monday, The Times published the response of Marcus Stuttard, head of AIM, to public criticism Sharesoc levelled against the lack of effective regulation of the AIM market. We have today...

Pay at Weir, Reckitt-Benckiser and WPP

Yesterday saw Weir Group Plc defeated on pay. Both the Remuneration Report and Remuneration Policy resolutions were lost with 73% and 70% of votes AGAINST them respectively. This is a very damning blow to this FTSE-250 company which makes pumps for the mining and oil markets. The company subsequently issued a grovelling apologia for the proposals they had tried to implement which included a "stock awards" scheme that was based on share price performance rather than more direct performance criteria (such as ...

ShareSoc slams LSE over AIM failures

ShareSoc slams London Stock Exchange over AIM failures - that was the title of a press release which ShareSoc has issued after the LSE Group's AGM which was held today - see https://www.sharesoc.org/pr76lseaim.html ShareSoc Director Mark Bentley spoke at the AGM and suggested that "AIM is full of dubious businesses led by dubious people". He asked them to do something about it. Perhaps the merger with the German Deutsche Boerse will mean the introduction of a more disciplined approach to some of ...

Atlantis Japan Growth Fund – Requisition to Restructure or Liquidate

Atlantis Japan Growth Fund (AJG) is a closed end investment company (i.e. like an investment trust) focussed on small Japanese companies. It has had disappointing performance in recent years, is trading on a significant discount to asset value, has low liquidity, and is now relatively small in size. Indeed the current market capitalisation is only £54 million which many people would consider unviable, as a result it has relatively high costs (2.47% On-Going Charge according to the AIC). The fund has ...