Blogs

Latest Blogs

All FTSE-100 CEO Pay Too High

ShareSoc Director Cliff Weight was interviewed on Bloomberg this morning (prior to the WPP Annual General Meeting). He suggested all FTSE-100 CEO pay was too high and it was damaging shareholder returns. Click on this link to see the video: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-06-08/all-ftse-100-ceo-pay-too-high-says-weight ShareSoc previously issued this press release on pay at WPP: https://www.sharesoc.org/pr79-wpp-remuneration.html and advised shareholders to vote against the Remuneration Report at the AGM. We have also recently issued our Guidelines for Remuneration in public companies which suggested pay is generally excessive in ...

ShareSoc Proposes How the AIM Market Should Be Improved

ShareSoc has issued the following press release today: The AIM market run by the London Stock Exchange (LSE) has been criticised by many people for the quality of companies listed on the market and for the way it operates. ShareSoc and our Members think that some reform is necessary. There is no denying that it is possible to invest in successful AIM companies but as any experienced AIM investor knows, doing so consistently and avoiding those that either never establish a profitable business, ...

Alliance Versus RIT Capital

Readers will no doubt be aware from the national media and communications with shareholders that RIT Capital have approached Alliance Trust about a possible merger. The press have noted the problems faced by Alliance in the last few years such as the persistently high discount and the attack by Elliot Advisors (supported by ATSAG/ShareSoc of course) that resulted in board changes. RIT shares have traded at a premium to net asset value recently and media comments tend to generally be positive ...

Rolls-Royce and Voting Procedures

I published a report on the Rolls-Royce Annual General Meeting (AGM) in the last ShareSoc newsletter and also here. I wrote to the Chairman after the meeting complaining about...

FT One-Sided on Brexit?

Do you read the Financial Times? If so have you found the repeated articles on Brexit (including many editorials) somewhat one-sided? Well yesterday the Financial Times actually published a letter from Campbell Gordon complaining about it, and it's not often that editors publish letters critical of what they are issuing. But what do we get today? Yet another editorial on the same topic and with the same slant - in this case explaining why scientists are unhappy with Brexit and should not ...