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Quindell – and how to avoid the shorters

Quindell, a company operating in the insurance sector, came under attack yesterday by Gotham City Research LLC, an investment analysis firm. Quindell's shares ended down on the day by 39% and were down more than 50% at one point. Gotham City make numerous allegations in a 74-page document which is available from their web site. Without a lot more knowledge of this company and a detailed study of these allegations, it is impossible to comment on the substance of them, but some ...

Letter in the FT regarding dematerialised share registration system

 A ShareSoc Member, Michael Coulson, had a letter published in the Financial Times this morning. It points out that there is a tried and tested electronic share registration system called CHESS already in use in Australia. It provides direct share registration for shareholders in a dematerialised form. Mr Coulson suggests it be adopted in the UK rather than have a lengthy and uncertain process of developing a similar system. See http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1498a2e4-c58a-11e3-97e4-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz2zcRDWr9t It would surely be a better system than the prevalent use ...

Changes to Company Regulations

Today on Bank Holiday Easter Monday, the Government announced some changes to company regulations. Does this show how they work all the days of the year to improve the UK business environment, or they thought it a good time to announce controversial proposals? You can judge for yourselves the answer to that question after reading what follows. But as most of the proposals were well flagged in advance by past public consultations, they may only be controversial to those companies who ...

Directors’ Share Purchases at Chrysalis VCT

Would you be happy if you saw that the directors of a listed company had apparently purchased shares at an advantageous price? In other words had purchased shares in the market  at a price that was not available to anyone else? On Thursday the 17th April, I chose to purchase 3,000 shares in Chrysalis VCT. This followed an announcement by the company on the 14th April that the company had achieved two successful exits from portfolio companies which had increased the company's ...

Remuneration at Barclays and Persimmon

Barclays Bank Annual General Meeting is due next week on the 24th April. Pay of bankers is always controversial and Barclays is no exception. Pay has been going up but performance has gone down, and a rights issue is required to strengthen the company's balance sheet. The CEO, Antony Jenkins, has waived his bonus for last year, but that has not placated investors. The bonus pool has been increased and "Role Based Pay" introduced to avoid restrictions imposed by the new ...