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BIS Release Paper Showing the Mind-Boggling Complexity of the Intermediated Shareholding Model

The Government BIS Department have released a Research Paper entitled "Exploring the Intermediated Shareholding Model". It shows in 160 odd pages the existing share registration models in the UK and the underlying systems that support shareholder rights (including voting). In essence it demonstrates perfectly the need for reform. It shows that private investors often do not know what rights they have in nominee accounts or indeed that there are alternative ways of holding shares. Even if they are aware they should have ...

Broken Brokers and Nominee Accounts

There is a great letter from a reader in this weeks Investors Chronicle on the subject of nominee accounts. Under the title "Broken Brokers", Jonathan Crozier says he used to work for Pritchard Stockbrokers who are one the brokers that went bust covered in previous articles. He complains about the low level of compensation under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (currently £50,000) which he says is a ludicrously low figure for Mr Average. But this is the paragraph that made the most ...

Home Retail Group Trading and Disposal

As a follow up to my blog post on the possible Sainsbury/Home Retail deal yesterday, here are some comments on the Home Retail Group trading statement issued this morning. Total sales at Argos increased 0.9%, but like-for-like sales were down 2.2% in the period as a result of reduced store footfall and growth in digital transactions. Homebase total sales were down 4% but like-for-like grew by 5% - this mix arises from an "aggressive store closure program". But the killer in their statement ...

More on Sainsbury (SBRY) and Home Retail Group (HOME)

Sainsbury published their Third Quarter Trading Statement this morning (13/1/2016) and they have also published a document arguing the merits of their possible bid for Home Retail Group under the title of "Accelerating our strategy for growth". Home Retail Group previously rejected an approach from Sainsbury on the basis that it undervalued the company. This note discusses the latest news as a follow up to my previous comments on this matter. Now I have previously declared an interest in this subject as ...

Stockbroker Transfers – More Evidence of Unreasonable Delays

Back in November I wrote about the delays that can occur in switching a portfolio of shares from one stockbroker to another. I now have a file of 7 examples contributed by different people where such transfers took several months. This is surely totally unreasonable and unnecessary. On behalf of ShareSoc and our members I have written to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) complaining about this problem and have received a response which provides some more information at least. The FCA does have ...