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Persimmon AGM and Remuneration

On the same day as BP held its Annual General Meeting (AGM), and got snubbed by shareholders over its Remuneration Report, house building company Persimmon held its AGM in York. One might have expected that Persimmon would also have been attacked for its remuneration scheme, for the reasons explained below, but in reality it passed with only 9% of votes against. Indeed there was more opposition to the election of a new non-executive director, Nigel Mills, who only passed with 53% ...

BP Remuneration Vote Lost

BP had 59% of shareholders voting AGAINST the Remuneration Resolution at their Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 14/4/2016 (and that's ignoring the abstentions which some institutions like to use to express dissatisfaction). This is what the Chairman had to say even before the vote was cast: "We know already from the proxies received and conversations with our institutional investors that there is real concern over the directors' pay in this challenging year for our shareholders. We have always judged executive performance not ...

What’s the Beef About the Cameron’s Tax Planning, and Tata?

The attacks on David Cameron over his family's tax planning seem wildly excessive. His father set up an offshore investment fund to invest in dollar based shares without incurring the risk of double taxation. David did hold some of the units but subsequently sold them. His mother gave him £200,000 after his father died, with the probability (not certain) of that being outside inheritance tax if she lived for another 7 years. That is not exceptional tax planning, it's just common ...

Spreading Rumours About Stocks Is a Criminal Offence

As a follow up to my last blog post on the case of Iraj Parvizi currently being heard in Southwark Crown Court, it has now transpired that he was not aware that spreading false rumours was a criminal offence. As Mark Bentley has commented on the last article, Mr Parvizi's comments on trading in Pacific Media appear to be an example of using “manipulating devices” [MAR 1.7.2] under the FCA Handbook regulations, which explicitly identifies “pump and dump” as a form of ...

Spreading Rumours About Stocks

The Financial Times reported today on the curious case of Iraj Pavazi, a stock market trader currently on trial at Southwark Crown Court. In his defence testimony he apparently admitted that he once spread false rumours about a stock to push up the share price. The article reports that he bought all the shares in the stock of Pacific Media (a "penny" share listed on AIM) that were available and then spread a story that a Malaysian tycoon was going to reverse ...