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EU Commission Proposes Overhaul of Prospectus Rules

The EU Commission has published proposals to overhaul the rules on prospectuses, where companies are raising equity or debt in public markets. But prospectuses are costly to produce, especially for smaller companies.  As Ian Sayers of the AIC said after the above announcement: "One of the main problems with a prospectus is that the regime effectively compels issuers to include any information that an investor might conceivably want. Given the legal implications, the result is a huge amount of boilerplate of ...

LAPFF Write to FTSE-350 Companies on their Duties

The Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) have issued a press release stating that they have sent a letter to the Chairmen of all FTSE-350 companies. The letters sent warn the Chairmen that they might be breaching UK Company Law by publishing accounts based on guidance from the Financial Report Council (FRC). This is a long running argument that arose during the financial crisis in 2008 when it was alleged that one of the problems was that the accounts of financial institutions ...

Rensburg AIM VCT Merger Agreed

Today (27/11/2015) shareholders in Rensburg AIM VCT (RSB) agreed to merge their company with Unicorn AIM VCT in a unanimous show of hands vote. They also agreed the tender offer which was associated with the deal and those shareholders who submitted tenders will be paid in full. Proxy votes were about 92% in favour on both resolutions. This is a definitive snub to Bill Nixon  of Maven who attempted to disrupt these plans on the basis that he could make a more ...

Alliance Trust Director Steps Down

It was announced this morning (27/11/2015) that Karin Forseke, Chair of Alliance Trust, will step down in January 2016. Gregor Stewart will take over as Chairman. Alliance Trust has been the focus of campaigns by Elliott Advisors and ShareSoc to get some changes made to this company so as to improve its performance (see https://www.sharesoc.org/alliance.html ) . Although the company has recently announced some changes, and has been furiously buying back shares – presumably in an attempt to close the discount to NAV, ...

The Truth about Executive Pay

The Financial Times has today published some extraordinarily revealing comments made by new Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan: “I have no idea why I was offered a contract with a...