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Does Rolls-Royce need shaking up?

Does Rolls-Royce (RR.) need shaking up? Or more to the point perhaps, will they be following the disclosure that activist fund manager ValueAct has taken a 5% stake in the company, although their agenda is as yet unclear. On the 30th July Rolls-Royce issued their half-year results. Results were disappointing as expected. The order book was up, but underlying revenue was down and underlying profit before tax down by 32%. This is basically the same story as was evident at the full ...

Markets in Freefall, Chinese shares and VCT Issues

While the world seems to be collapsing around us - with sharp falls in the price of most commodities including the critical ones of oil and gold - this writer took the time to attend the Annual General Meeting of Downing ONE VCT this morning. Forget also the fact that the Chinese stock market plummeted yesterday. The more I read about the dynamics of that market the more it looks similar to the US market in the 1920s where manipulation was ...

FT Acquisition, Toshiba, Diageo, Healthcare Locums, False Accounting, Chinese Companies, and AIM

The Financial Times is being sold by Pearson to Japanese media group Nikkei Group. The Chairman of Nikkei was quoted as saying it will be "business as usual" (in the FT of course) and that the "philosophy and values of the FT are the same as ours". Clearly they are still in the honeymoon period but let us hope that is true as the FT provides excellent factual news and commentary in general. Here's just some of the news they have ...

Alliance Trust Results

Yesterday (23/7/2015) Alliance Trust (ATST) announced its results for the six months to 30 June 2015. The results were disappointing with a net asset value (NAV) total return of 1.4% and a share price total return of 2.7%. Based on data published by Morningstar the NAV and share price total returns were below comparable figures for the company's peer group. The Morningstar peer group NAV return was 4.26% and share price return 5.53%. The Alliance Trust discount has, however, fallen from ...

National Grid AGM, Rensburg AIM VCT and Stocktrade

I attended the National Grid Annual General Meeting in Birmingham yesterday. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to ask a question as the organisation that I was representing as a proxy put my son's name on it rather than mine so I was only allowed in as a "guest". It was not a particularly exciting event this year. Not a single shareholder complained about the outrageously high pay of the executive directors. The Chairman was both dogmatic and condescending to the mainly ...