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Ocado Placing Does Not Respect Shareholder Rights?

Under the Companies Act 2006, pre-emption rights allow existing shareholders the ‘right of first refusal’ when new shares are issued.  According to 561(1) of the 2006 Act, shares cannot be offered to another person until an offer has been made (on the same or more favourable terms) to each existing shareholder, and any time limit given for the offer has expired. At its core, this enables such individuals to protect their existing shareholding against further dilution of their shares – but typically ...

AGM – scope for change

There is an excellent FT article on AGMs  https://www.ft.com/content/1209fa2f-30a9-4a16-bcee-65743814acc2 (11 June 2020) which quotes me in some detail: Cliff Weight, from the individual shareholders group ShareSoc, says he is concerned that some companies see AGMs as a “waste of time and unnecessary, apart from the formalities” required by law. He fears some will use the disruption caused by the pandemic to rubber stamp bad practices, such as by making it harder for investors to question the board. ShareSoc believes a move towards live AGM ...

AGMs – a great webinar from CSFI

I think you will find this well worth listening to. It is 46 mins. It is a bit technical, so educational for some ShareSoc members and intellectually stimulating for others. CLICK HERE TO WATCH The CSFI has produced a new discussion, titled 'Virtual AGMs: just the start of overdue changes in the way companies communicate with shareholders' Why you should watch: Technology has made it easier to run virtual AGMs, but barriers remain between the end investor – especially in pooled accounts – and ...

Babcock Price Fall, Segro Placing, TR Property

I said in a previous blog post “that I tend to avoid FTSE-100 companies as their share prices are driven by professional analysts’ comments, by geo-political concerns, by general economic trends and by commodity prices. You can buy a FTSE-100 company and soon find it’s going downhill because one influential analyst has decided its prospects are not as they previously thought”. Indeed that is exactly what happened after I made a recent purchase of Babcock International (BAB). Soon after, Shore Capital Markets ...

Market Trends, Big Miners and Will the Music Stop?

Stock markets continue to rise. They seem to be ignoring the bad company results that are going to come out in the next few months. Although there are signs that the Covid-19 epidemic is weakening, some sectors such as hospitality are going to be in lock-down for some time. The economy is clearly going into recession with many employees being laid off. The lack of consumer spending, not just because some people have less money to spend, but because others are ...