BEIS

The Unstoppable Glacier of Government’s Concerted Actions?

By Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc We sometimes see things changing at a glacier-like pace. But once a glacier starts moving it has huge momentum and is unstoppable. My question is: is this metaphor applicable to the way Government is behaving with regard to business? The civil servants who drive Government policy transcend the short lives of Parliament. Taking this perspective what do we see? My take on this is as follows. The Financial Crisis terrified nearly everyone. We stared into the abyss. We were ...

Auditor appointments: ShareSoc+UKSA write to Minister Greg Clark

Today 18 Feb 2019, ShareSoc & UKSA have written to The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. We made three key points: Appointment of auditors by a third party with the relevant skills and expertise would, once and for all, break the current link of excessive dependency between auditors and those they audit. If, on a trial basis, the Regulator started by managing the appointment of auditors for FTSE 100 companies this would ...

The Quindell Story and the FRC

5 years on and the FRC has fined KPMG for its performance over Quindell. It has taken far too long. The settlement received a huge amount of coverage in the press, e.g. https://www.ft.com/content/e8ce1a30-6d3d-11e8-852d-d8b934ff5ffa The FRC's official announcement can be found here: https://www.frc.org.uk/news/june-2018/sanctions-in-relation-to-the-audit-of-quindell-plc The KPMG fine of £3.15 million is derisory. It is absurd when compared with the (£2bn) shareholder losses as a result of being misled by the accounts. The average KPMG partner was paid £519k in 2018, and many were paid more. To ...

BEIS Consultation on Insolvency and Corporate Governance

We have submitted jointly with the UK Shareholders Association our response to the consultation on Insolvency and Corporate Governance. The response was written by  Cliff Weight - Director, UK Individual Shareholders Society (ShareSoc) and Peter Parry - Policy Director, UK Shareholders' Association. Click here to read it.

Hard Hitting BEIS Report on Corporate Governance and Pay

The BEIS Commons Select Committee have today published a strongly worded report on Corporate Governance after its recent hearings on the subject. Here are some of the key points they make: They agree with the Prime Minister that high levels of executive pay need to be tackled "for the benefit of society as a whole". They forcefully recommend that Long Term Incentive Plans (LTIPs) should be abolished as soon as possible because they create perverse incentives and are often a way ...

ShareSoc Requests More Power for Ultimate Investors

PRESS RELEASE 83 25/10/2016 ShareSoc (the UK Individual Shareholders Society) has today submitted its written evidence to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee inquiry on corporate governance. In summary: The goal should be to get more power back to the ultimate investors. This can be achieved by: Ensuring that individual shareholders can exercise their rights, even if their shares are held in nominee accounts. ShareSoc, if sufficiently well resourced, can play a role by ensuring that individual shareholders are educated about their rights and ...