RBS

New Year Resolutions? How About a New Resolution at RBS?

One of ShareSoc's recent initiatives has been the promotion of the concept of Shareholder Committees as a way of improving corporate governance in public companies. To pursue this agenda we have today submitted a requisition for a resolution to be added to the Annual General Meeting of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). A summary of what it said is given below (the full press release is here: https://www.sharesoc.org/pr85-rbs-shareholder-committee.html ): RBS Shareholders Demand Shareholder Committee (A joint press release on behalf of Private ...

Fenner AGM Requisition. Why Is It Not a Good Idea?

Fenner Plc (FENR) are the subject of a requisition of a resolution to appoint another director at their forthcoming Annual General Meeting on 11th January. ShareSoc is particularly interested in requisitioned resolutions at present because we are trying to get one added to the Royal Bank of Scotland AGM (see www.sharesoc.org/campaigns/rbs/). In the case of Fenner, activist Swiss investor Teleios Capital Partners have put forward the requisition, with the support of a number of other investors. Teleios hold over 5% and have ...

Campaign to Obtain Shareholder Committee at RBS

This note has been issued by ShareSoc to its Members (but anyone can join in to support the campaign): ShareSoc has advocated the implementation of Shareholder Committees since our...

RBS Settlement Announced – But Why Has the FCA Done Nothing?

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) have announced a settlement of the litigation over the rights issue in 2008 with three out of the five investor groups who were pursuing the company. They have reserved £800 million to settle all the claims and are continuing to negotiate with the remaining litigants. But private investors may be reluctant to settle because of the high legal costs that will erode any settlement, the low value of the settlement (the claims were originally estimated ...

RBS and Pre-Packs

The FT carried a story on Saturday (11/6/2016) which was a blast from the past. It reported that Neil Mitchell, a former CEO of Torex Retail, had filed a claim in the high court against Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Cerberus and KPMG in relation to the sale of the company at the time it went into Administration. This case goes back to 2007 when Torex Retail got into financial difficulties after some fraudulent accounting came to light (which resulted in subsequent ...

More Bad News for Banks and their Investors

If there are any private investors still invested in major UK listed banks, last week (w/e 30/1/2016) was yet another for disillusionment. In the Financial Times, Lex hit the nail on the head when he said "The one-offs keep on coming. If one did not know better, one might suspect them of being two-, three-, or more-offs". He was referring to Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), but other banks likewise posted bad news during the week. Let's take them in turn: RBS ...

Goodwin still on the hook for RBS debacle

The Herald newspaper have reported an astonishing attempt by the lawyers for Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to have Fred Goodwin excluded from the legal case over the rights issue in 2008. They wanted four former directors removed from the case so as to streamline proceedings. However the judge presiding over the case threw this attempt out. The directors signed off the prospectus and hence should surely be accountable for what the plaintiffs claim was a misleading document. But the lawyer for ...

Enormous Costs of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Legal Action

There was an interesting article by Geoff Ho in the Sunday Express yesterday (31/5/2015) on the law suit being pursued by shareholders against RBS. He reports that the RBoS Shareholders Action Group was presented with a bill for £1.2 million by its former solicitors Bird & Bird and a demand for "prompt payment" after they changed lawyers to Fladgate following concerns over costs and communication. Indeed the original demand was even higher but was subsequently reduced.  Fladgate are working on a ...

Law suits – Quindell, Lloyds, RBS and SIPPs

Feel misled by the Quindell board and its advisors? Then there is a new legal action being formulated by Liverpool legal firm "Your Legal Friend". They already claim to have 250 investors interested in pursuing a claim on the basis that statements issued by the board and its advisors show that insufficient care had been taken in relation to the duty of care owed to investors.  At least that's a brief summary of the allegations - see their web site for ...

Tesco Legal Action – or should we just “put our hands up”?

Law firm Stewarts Law has announced that it is preparing a case against Tesco based on the losses of investors in the company from the overstatement of profits. To quote from their announcement: "The Claim will allege that directors and senior management knew or were reckless as to whether Tesco's statements to the market were untrue or misleading and/or dishonestly concealed the true position, in breach of the Financial Services and Markets Act". They don't intend to await the results of ...

Pay at RBS – over 99% in favour

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) held its Annual General Meeting yesterday (the 25th June). Most of the media did not even bother to report it. There were some shareholders present who spoke against the remuneration at the company, but when it came to a vote  the proxy counts were 99.81% in favour of the Remuneration Report and 99.66% in favour of the Remuneration Policy. PIRC had also opposed the Remuneration Policy before the meeting. A summary of what they said is ...

Royal Bank of Scotland – more losses and downsizing

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) announced yet another set of disappointing results yesterday (27/2/2014). The share price closed down 8% on the day and is now way below what the Government paid for its majority stake in the business. New chief executive Ross McEwan announced the results after the previous one, Stephen Hester, had departed to sort out another basket case - RSA (formerly Royal and  Sun Alliance). It was certainly an opportune moment to move on. Last year RBS managed to ...