Blogs

Latest Blogs

FCA Makes Platform Switching Easier

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have today announced some measures to improve competition in the platforms market. Experienced investors who use electronic trading platforms will be well aware of the problems of switching to another provider if they are dissatisfied with the service, wish to move to a cheaper provider or for other reasons such as consolidating on one provider or spreading their risk over several. It simply takes too long to move “in-specie” holdings from one platform to another  ̶  ...

Superdry – Does It Need a Revolution?

I mentioned the requisition of an EGM to appoint two new directors at Superdry (SDRY) in a previous article. Here’s some more analysis: The requisition has been submitted by two founders – former CEO Julian Dunkerton and James Holder who together hold about 29% of the ordinary shares. They wish to appoint Julian and Peter Williams as non-executive directors – Mr Williams is a very experienced director of consumer products companies and is currently Chairman of Boohoo.com Plc although he is stepping ...

FRC Revolution to Fix Audit and Accounting Problems

A major announcement that will impact investors was made yesterday by the Government. You may not have noticed it in the midst of political turmoil, but it’s worth studying. The Kingman review of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) was published last December. It was a quite damning criticism of many aspects of the current regulatory regime that had resulted in so many audit failures and poor-quality financial reporting. See my previous blog post on this subject here: https://roliscon.blog/2018/12/18/all-change-in-the-audit-world/ There are few experienced investors ...

Another Accounting Scandal – Goals Soccer Centres

Yet another problem in accounting has been revealed at Goals Soccer Centres (GOAL). This morning they disclosed in a trading update the discovery of “certain accounting errors” and are reviewing their accounting practices. As a result, the board now expects full year results to be below expectations and publication of the 2018 results has been delayed. The even worse news is that they have breached their banking covenants so are having to have one of those difficult conversations with their bankers. The ...

Metro Bank, Improving Accounts, Patisserie, Telford Homes and GoCompare

Originally posted 28th February 2019 The latest example of a public company publishing misleading accounts is Metro Bank (MTRO). Both the FCA and PRA (the bank regulator) are looking into the “misclassification” of some loans which resulted in the bank overstating its regulatory capital. The result was that it has had to do an equity share issuance to bolster its capital. There was a very good letter to the FT today on the subject of improving accounting and audits from Tim Sutton. He ...