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Foresight 4 “C” Shareholders Object

Shareholders in the "C" fund of Foresight 4 VCT are unhappy with the conversion of their shares to Ordinary shares. These holders are former investors in the Acuity VCTs. They feel the conversion is being done on inequitable terms for the "C" shareholders. Put at its simplest, C shareholders are aggrieved that free and surplus cash in the C fund has not been paid out to them as a dividend before conversion. A large portion of surplus cash within existing C shares ...

The Budget – How Will It Affect Private Investors?

George Osborne announced the Government's Budget yesterday (8/7/2015). These were the main changes that might affect individual investors: - Personal income tax allowance will rise from £10,600 to £11,000 in 2016-17. The Higher Rate Threshold will increase to £42,385 in 2015-16 with further increases in subsequent years. - Dividend taxation will be substantially changed. Dividend tax credits will be abolished and be replaced by a new Dividend Tax Allowance of £5,000 with tax rates on dividend income above that at 7.5% for basic ...

Unhappy Shareholders at Sea Energy, Vislink and Blinkx

Perhaps it was the hot weather, or that folks have more time to spare in the summer holiday season, but shareholders in three smaller companies have been stirred to complain about a variety of issues mainly focussed on pay and overhead costs. Sea Energy Stuart Stafford has formed a Shareholder Action Group for investors in Sea Energy. See this web site for more details and to register an interest: https://seashareholderactiongroup.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/action-group/ His main complaints are about 1) Exorbitant central costs which destroy shareholder value; 2) ...

ShareSoc Site Visit to Xaar plc

I was delighted to join a group of fellow ShareSoc members, including investor and financial journalist Richard Beddard, on a visit to Xaar Plc’s Huntingdon factory, last Tuesday. This was...

Defeating Shareholder Democracy at Alliance Trust et al

The existing shareholding arrangements in public companies, with many investors in nominee accounts, now effectively frustrate shareholder democracy. Alternatively they make it either very difficult in practice, or enormously expensive. Let's look at a couple of examples where ShareSoc has some recent experience of requesting share registers - Alliance Trust and Rensburg AIM VCT. In terms of the size of the company and numbers of shareholders Alliance Trust is one of the larger public companies. It has recently come under attack from ...