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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 ...

How to turn 9.5% into 2.4% – British Smaller Companies VCT

British Smaller Companies VCT (BSV) have recently circulated their Annual Report  prior to the AGM on the 29th July. They had a good year according to the Chairman's report with the value of the investment portfolio increasing by 9.5% over the year.  But the total return (net asset value plus dividends increased by only 2.4% (a rise of 4.8p to 197.5p since launch). How can that be? The reason is simply that costs went up 56%. That includes investment advisors fees up ...

Changes at Oxford Technology VCTs

Announcements were made last week about further changes at the four Oxford Technology VCTs and the financial results for the year were also published. These companies experienced somewhat of a revolution last year after two of them narrowly escaped losing their Venture Capital Trust tax status. New directors were appointed to them at that time. This is what is said by the Chairman in one of the Annual Reports about that problem: "Since taking up our appointment, the new Directors of the ...

ShareSoc Company Seminar Announcement

The initial line-up for our next seminar at which public companies will be presenting on the 15th July is now available and registrations are now open. This event is in the City of London (in the usual FinnCap offices venue), with registration starting at 4.00 pm. Four companies will be presenting this month and answering your questions, which are: - IDOX (IDOX): Public sector software solutions, and for highly regulated asset intensive industries. - ABZENA (ABZA): Services and technologies to support the development of better biopharmaceuticals. Plus two other companies ...