Representing, Lobbying and Campaigning – Progress Update 01 August 2022

Executive Summary

We have focussed our resources mainly on the Woodford campaign, best practice guidance for AGMs, nominee accounts and pre-emption rights; and maintaining good relationships with the FCA, FRC, BEIS and Treasury. Activities relating to ShareSoc’s shortly to be launched Investing Basics Course have consumed much of our available resource and limited what can be done on campaigns. Nevertheless, we have made much progress.

Since our last update of 4 April 2022 we have worked on:

Consultation responses and government lobbying
Shareholder Rights/Nominee Accounts
Woodford Campaign
Voting Guidance and Shareholder Engagement
FCA liaison
FRC, BEIS, etc liaison
Campaigns
AIM regulation

1. Consultation responses and government lobbying.

This continues to be a major area of work, where ShareSoc represents the interests of individual investors.

Secondary Markets fund raising review: This was published on 26 July and has recommended significant changes to the nominee system and dematerialisation, which we lobbied for and are very pleased with. We are also hopeful individual investors will gain access to all placings on fair terms.
Prospectus regime/crowdfunding interactions: We have been asked to meet HM Treasury to put forward the views of individual investors.
We responded jointly with UKSA to proposals from the new International Sustainability Standards Board – ISSB IFRS S1 and S2 EDs consultation response

2. Shareholder Rights/Nominees

Sir Douglas Flint has been appointed by the Chancellor to head the Digitisation Taskforce. We are very pleased at this progress. As noted above in 1., the Secondary Markets fund raising review recommended significant changes to the nominee system and dematerialisation, which we lobbied for during this review and previously to BEIS, the Law Commission and others. After years of disenfranchisement of individual investors who beneficially own shares via nominees, real progress is looking much more likely.

3. Woodford Campaign

We currently have >1,800 members supporting the ShareSoc Woodford Campaign and are working to increase this hugely. The Webinar on 19 July was very well received. Group Litigation Order agreed.

Over the next 6/12 months, there will be a big push to recruit people to the claims (currently only 10% have joined a claim) as the deadline to claim will probably be early/mid 2023. We aim to ensure that as many as possible of those that are eligible to claim redress do so.

4. Voting Guidance and Shareholder Engagement

We continue to test our new ideas with a pilot study of FTSE30 companies. This is a major exercise and reports have been published for c20 companies. There is relatively little activity this time of year. Reports have been done for Tesco and Unilever.

See https://www.sharesoc.org/category/vci/ for more information.

5. FCA

We continue to liaise positively with the FCA over numerous issues that we think are important to individual investors and ensure that the FCA give due regard to the views of individual investors. We met with the FCA Primary Markets Team on 3 March and need to schedule the next quarterly meeting. We have emailed to ask to schedule a meeting with the funds team, who we have not met since July 2021. We asked the FCA Chair for help in publicising the Investor Basics Videos and the FCA have offered to put forward a speaker at a launch conference/webinar.

6. FRC, BEIS, etc.

We also meet regularly with FRC, BEIS and other key influencers to present to them the views of individual investors.

We met with the FRC on 20 April, and on 25 July.
We provided strong input to the FRC report on AGMs and shareholder engagement, which was published at the end of July. We think this offers some useful guidelines in respect of individual investors, especially re engagements and company meetings.
We met BEIS on 7 July and a meeting with the Minister Lord Callanan should occur.
We are concerned about accounting provisions for legal class actions and raised a question at the TESCO AGM. We intend to write to the FRC as a next step.

7. Campaigns/Problem cases

Sirius. We, led by Paul Anscombe, are still working on this but currently have nothing further to report.
We have been asked to look at 4D Pharma (DDDD) and Scirocco and have provided some assistance to concerned investors.

8. AIM regulation:

AIM is regulated by the LSE itself. We remain very concerned about what are, in our opinion, inappropriate and irregular (more than just questionable) practices, that may occur in some AIM companies from time to time. We frequently report such cases to the FCA and LSE/AIM. Please alert us if you are concerned about malpractice.

Cliff saw Marcus Stuttard at the UKSA AGM and agreed to fix a date to meet up in September.

9. Our Mission

We clarified how policy, campaigning, lobbying and representing fitted into ShareSoc’s mission of championing and empowering individual investors in a recent news item, viz

One of ShareSoc’s primary functions is to represent individual investors. To do this we lobby Government and Regulators about individual investor needs, and campaign for change from government, regulators and financial service providers.

Alongside this, we network, inform and educate investors though events, company presentations, SIGnet groups, educational content, newsletter, blogs, tweets and emails. These elements combine to make the investing experience better for our members.

ShareSoc has been working hard for many years to improve its relationships, networking and influence with the FRC, BEIS, FCA and many other organisations. Much of this work we do jointly with UKSA, the UK Shareholders Association. The FRC and others now routinely seek the views of individual investors before making their decisions.

More volunteers or donations (which enable us to recruit more paid staff) are necessary to enable ShareSoc to do more work to representmembers’ interests. All offers of help are warmly received.

Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc

1 August 2022

Post Date: August 9, 2022

Group description:	Our group is interested in sustainable investing and our goal is to identify and evaluate businesses that will thrive through innovation and their transition to a ‘One Planet Economy’. By leveraging the skills of group members, we aim to deeply understand these businesses, particularly focusing on how they develop long-term valuable benefits for their customers. Each year, we plan to evaluate around seven businesses to identify opportunities where our valuation exceeds the market price. A successful outcome is defined as achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR), including dividends, of 10% over a decade.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Meetings are in-person in a pub near to Waterloo station in London.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	Meetings are bi-monthly on a Monday from 10:45am to 4:30pm. Members are expected to also pay for their own lunch which secures the group free use of a private room in the pub. The cost is expected to be £35-40 per person, per meeting, in addition to your SIGnet membership fee.

Group description:	SIGnet Taunton is a new group with around 10 keen members at present, with a range of investment styles and experience. We welcome new members.
Meeting Type/Venue:	In person meetings at a golf club near to the centre of Taunton.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	We meet on the first Monday of every month at a golf club near to the centre of Taunton, 11am until 3pm with a lunch break.

Group description:	An online group for those who are new to investing, or have only been investing for a few years. Including topics such as: – What is a share or a bond, why and how to buy them. – Comparing funds, unit trusts, Investment trusts and exchange traded funds. – Portfolio management and diversification. – ISAs, pensions, SIPPS and how to save tax. – How terms such as PE ratio and dividend yield are used to value a share. – How to use technical analysis or charting.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Online using Zoom.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	Meetings are usually held on the last Monday of the month at 7:00pm.

Group description:	An online group for those who already have some experience in investing. Covering topics such as finding companies to invest in, financial statements and ratios, valuation / margin of safety, analysis of companies and investment trusts and exchange traded funds.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Online using Zoom.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	Meetings are usually held on the last Wednesday of the month at 7:00pm.

Group description:	The Equity Income Group welcomes investors of all levels of experience, from beginners to advanced. The focus of meetings is on dividend paying Investment Trusts, though there is also discussion around individual shares.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Meetings are held online.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	Meetings are held every 6 weeks on a weekday between 7 and 8:30pm.

Group description:	A welcoming group open to all types of investors. Typical meeting content is to have a deep dive presentation on a topic selected by the participants and a session on buy/ sell/ key lessons learnt last month.
Meeting Type/Venue:	In person at a friendly pub close to Piccadilly Circus
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	Monthly during the evening on the first Wednesday of the month.

Group description:	All levels of experience welcome. A typical meeting agenda includes: – Macro Environment – Trades: Members review existing positions and identify securities with promising TA entry patterns or setups and with suitable risk/reward. Any security, long, short, futures, options may be considered. The convener takes actual positions in trades and maintains his own detailed ledger, accurately measuring performance of individual securities and cumulative activity. Members are notified by e-mail prior to the entries or exits that are decided upon. Following each meeting an updated copy of the ledger is circulated together with the next meeting agenda. Members may wish to maintain similar ledgers of their own but there is no obligation to do so. – Technical Analysis: Techniques and systems used in trades. Members can request discussion of particular aspects of TA.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Online via Zoom
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	The first Tuesday of every month from 7 to 9pm

Group description:	Group focused on active investing, primarily in small / medium cap UK equities.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Regular Zoom meetings interspersed with occasional face to face meetings and social activities in the North West.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	Monthly on Saturdays at 10am.

Group description:	Our group covers a wide spectrum of mainly stock market investing and trading from equities – which include shares, ETF’s Investment and Unit Trusts. We normally rotate the meeting chairperson (responsible for creating, with member’s help, suitable agendas) and a meeting presenter (members take it in turns to provide a 15 to 45 minute presentation on a subject of their choice). Various investing topics of interest are regularly discussed such as software, brokers, investing categories and markets and any related topics of interest.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Meetings will be returning to in-person in a private room at a West London golf club, close to an underground station. In the meantime monthly video calls and an in-between meeting email group will continue.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	In-person meetings will be held on the second Wednesday of each month in the afternoons, following a golf club one course lunch.