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Do Spivvy PE Funds IPO Their Investments at Inflated Prices? – and HM Treasury Consultation UK Listings Review

The AA 86% share price decline, coming on top of the Saga and Aston Martin makes me wonder if PE firms and others are exploiting those retail investors willing to buy into a fashionable story. I have to admit to losing money on Saga, whose share price is down 90% from its 2016 high. My mother-in-law was a huge fan of Saga and she gave me a present of Saga membership when I was 50, so when they were floated, I and ...

Report: Volex Webinar

I listened in to a Volex webinar on 11th November which was very well attended and presented. I have been a shareholder in Volex for some while and they have done very well achieving their targets of raising their gross margins by improving their product mix, dropping much of their lower margin cables business. Margins have been increased to 10.3% and they are doing well with their electric vehicle cables as the growth in this market continues. Volex have manufacturing operations in China, ...

Law Suit Launched Against Grant Thornton over Patisserie Valerie Audits

The Daily Telegraph and some other sources have reported that the liquidators of Patisserie Valerie (CAKE) have filed a claim in the High Court against Grant Thornton over the audits of Patisserie Valerie in the years before it went into administration. I reported previously that the accounts of Patisserie were a complete fiction – see Reference 1 below – with the assets of the firm overstated by more than £90 million. The liquidators are FRP Advisory and they have appointed lawyers Mischon de ...

Law Commission Review of Intermediated Securities

The Law Commission has published a “scoping paper” on Intermediated Securities (See Reference 1 below). This might sound a pretty dry technical subject but the subtitle of the report asks the important question – it covers “Who Owns Your Shares?” I have written about the problem of the growth in the use of nominee accounts as on-line platforms have replaced share certificates many times in the past. ShareSoc has a web page with voluminous information on this subject including reports written by ...

(Nearly) 20% Vote Against Strategic Equity Capital (SEC) AGM Resolution

19.25% of votes cast were against the continuation of SEC, 13.8% and 12.9% respectively were against the reappointments of SEC Chairman Richard Hills and Richard Locke as director. See https://www.strategicequitycapital.com/sites/default/files/proxy-voting-results-2020_0.pdf The RNS announced but did not mention the actual votes cast. Strategic Equity Capital PLC announces that at the Annual General Meeting held on 11 November 2020 all 14 resolutions proposed were duly passed. Although the ordinary resolution for the continuation of the Company was passed comfortably, the Directors are cognisant of the fact that ...