Blogs

Latest Blogs

New boards elected at Oxford Technology VCTs

Today all four of the Oxford Technology VCTs held their Annual General Meetings. The meetings were well attended as Oxford Technology VCT (OXT) and Oxford Technology 3 VCT (OTT) previously had their VCT status withdrawn by HMRC, although this has now been temporarily "set aside" while an appeal is processed. ShareSoc formed a "Shareholder Action Group" with a committee of interested shareholders to make representations on this matter and protect their interests. We also pushed for changes to the corporate governance of these ...

Cyber threats and how to avoid them

The International Organisation of Securities Commissions (Iosco) has warned about the growing threats of cyber attacks to financial institutions. The Chairman, Greg Medcraft, has warned that there needs to be a much more concerted effort to tackle such threats. For example disruption of a stock exchange for any length of time could have serious consequences. Securities regulators who are members of Iosco are seeing increased attacks with more than half of securities exchanges being the subject of one or more. The closure ...

Outrage in the Cayman Islands

There is reportedly outrage in the Cayman Islands after they were included in a list of "high risk jurisdictions" by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The Islands Government has expressed "great consternation" at its inclusion in the list, which only became public after a Freedom of Information Act request for the list. But anyone familiar with publicly listed companies that were or are registered in the Cayman Islands might not be that surprised. The Cayman Islands was a favourite location for companies ...

Good news from Hargreaves Lansdown

Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) have issued a press release announcing changes to their Vantage service. It mentions that they "listen carefully to their feedback" from clients and invest heavily in improvements. Some of the latest changes that may be of particular interest to readers include the following (refer to the HL web site for the complete list) : - Removal of the recently introduced corporate action fee including the charge for voting shares. - Free live share prices. - An on-line tax centre to help ...

AIM and other regulatory changes

Effective from the 11th August, there are additional requirements under AIM Rule 26. Rule 26 covers what information is required to be published on a company's web site - for example the listing prospectus and last Annual Report. In future a company must disclose what corporate governance code the company is using, or not as the case may be. Currently AIM companies often refer to the Quoted Companies Alliance (QCA) Corporate Governance Code for Small and Mid-Size Quoted Companies, some use ...