Blogs

Latest Blogs

Brexit and the Impact on Your Investments

There has been a lot of public debate on the issue of whether Britain should remain in the EU, or depart. And whether David Cameron has negotiated a good enough deal to keep us in. I have written an editorial on this subject for the latest ShareSoc Newsletter. It's rather too long for this blog but if anyone would like a free copy of the newsletter (as a pdf document) please request it on our Contact page here: www.sharesoc.org/contact-us/ One of the ...

Words of Wisdom from Nick Train at the Finsbury Trust AGM

Here's a very brief report on the AGM of Finsbury Growth and Income Trust (FGT) held yesterday (4/2/2016) - there is a much longer one here. This very successful, and hence popular, investment trust is managed by Nick Train and colleagues and has been for many years. I'll skip over the concerns about this trust such as the Chairman having too many jobs and there are way too many directors who have been on the board too long, and focus on Mr ...

Company Presentation and Supper in Richmond (Surrey)

We are pleased to announce we are launching the very first ShareSoc Supper in the UK and it will be taking place in Richmond in South West London on the 1st March. This is a response to feedback from our member survey telling us they want more events; it will be starting in Richmond but others will follow if our members like it (another one is already scheduled for the 3rd May). The purpose of the suppers is to bring interesting companies ...

Sainsbury and Home Retail – A Done Deal?

As I commented on the proposed acquisition of Home Retail by Sainsbury in previous blog posts (as a shareholder in the latter) here's some on this mornings announcement. In essence a deal has been agreed, with an offer equivalent to 161.3p in the hands of Home Retail shareholders. But that includes a capital return by Home Retail to their shareholders from the sale of Homebase which Sainsbury probably did not want anyway. The key justification for the deal is given later in ...

TD Direct Being Sold?

TD Direct, a favourite execution-only stockbroker among private investors, is likely to be sold according to a report by Sky News. There are a number of suggested bidders but one of them is Barclays Bank who run a similar platform under the name Barclays Stockbrokers. With TD Direct having £13 billion of assets under management, a merger of those platforms would still leave the combination somewhat smaller than Hargreaves Lansdown, the market leader. Mergers and restructurings are the name of the game ...