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BAE Systems – Typhoon deal shot down, and credit extended

There was bad news from BAE Systems yesterday - issued after close of trading which is always a negative sign. Firstly the prospective deal to sell Typhoons to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is apparently a dead duck. That's perhaps not altogether surprising. But the worse news was that the pricing of a sale of the same planes to Saudi Arabia under the Salam contract has still not yet been agreed. The announcement says the parties are "actively engaged" but a "definitive ...

VCTs – Stopping the tax relief abuses

The Government has published its response to the public consultation on share buy-backs in Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs). In particular the proposals put forward were aimed at stopping "Enhanced Share Buy-Backs" where VCTs were buying back shares from investors and immediately reinvesting the cash paid to investors in a new shares issued to the same investors, thus enabling them to obtain tax relief on the same original cash more than once.There was a general acknowledgement in the responses to the consultation ...

B&B Finance Director fined

Christopher Willford, the Finance Director of Bradford & Bingley in 2008, has been fined £30,000 by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for "failing to provide the board with up-to-date information about B&B's financial position" ahead of the right issue in May of that year. The FCA state that Mr Willford "failed to identify and investigate potentially material risks, or alert the board, at a crucial time for the firm. Bad mortgage debts, arrears and repossessions had all risen while the net interest ...

Collective Engagement – a new “City Club” for institutions?

The Kay Review advocated the setting up of a mechanism whereby institutional investors could engage better with public companies. This was seen as a way to improve understanding between investors and companies, to encourage more long-term thinking, to enable debate on strategic options and to tackle such problems as excessive pay.A first step has been the setting up of a "Collective Engagement Working Group" under the Chairmanship of James Anderson of Baillie Gifford. It has produced a report on how such ...

The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement – What’s in it for investors?

You may well be worse off if you are dead. The Government is to clamp down on the payment of state pensions to people who are dead, which is apparently a particular problem when they move overseas upon retirement.Otherwise these are come of the changes and how they may affect individual investors:- As expected, there is to be a restriction on Venture Capital Trust (VCT) "enhanced share buy-backs" upon which there was a recent consultation. In future VCT investments that are ...