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Restoring Trust in Audit and Corporate Governance

As it’s Friday afternoon with not much happening, and I have completed my latest complaint about the time it’s taking to complete a SIPP platform transfer, I decided to have a look at the public consultation on “Restoring Trust in Audit and Corporate Governance” from the BEIS Department. This is a quite horrendous consultation on the Government’s proposals to improve audit standards and director behaviour as foretold in the Kingman and Brydon reviews, with proposals for a new regulatory body (ARGA). That’s ...

OCDO : OCADO – Company Information and Vote Guidance

by Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc. These are my personal views and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. I do not own shares in Ocado, but wish I had! Ocado summary of voting issues The AGM is on May 13th, 2021. The share price is worth a recap. The Stocko data shows the graph since IPO, which I think was around 160p. It looked like Ocado was overpriced as its share price collapsed to 80p, on Guy Fawkes' day Nov 5, 2012. If you had ...

PRU : Prudential – Company Information and Vote Guidance

by Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc. These are my personal views and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. I own shares in Prudential and M&G. PRU summary of voting issues The AGM is on May 13th, 2021. The Pru demerged M&G in Oct 2019, and now focuses on the Far East. The Stockopedia graph shows the modest share price increase since demerger and the (good) long term growth. However, Stockopedia now labels Pru as a "momentum trap". The Minerva report highlights various issues: Remuneration Report: Benefit concerns. High bonus ...

RDSA : Royal Dutch Shell – Company Information and Vote Guidance

by Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc. These are my personal views and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. I own shares in Shell and have done so for 30+ years. Shell summary of voting issues The AGM is on May 13th, 2021. The share price is up nearly >50% from its ludicrously low £9.00 on 28 Oct 2020 (I should have bought then!) and is now £14.30 (@7/5/21). In 2018, Shell was £27 a share. The share price fluctuates wildly, sort of correlated with oil ...

LLOY : Lloyds Banking Group – Company Information and Vote Guidance

by Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc. These are my personal views and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. I own shares in Lloyds. Lloyds summary of voting issues The AGM is on May 20th, 2021. The share price is up nearly 100% from its recent nadir of 24p  (22 Sep 2020) and is now 46p (@7/5/21). Like the other UK banks, Lloyds has performed woefully over 20 years, as the Stockopedia data shows. The best US banks (JP Morgan, Goldmans) have a different trajectory. Government ...