Category: Laws & Regulations

Why the FCA Did Nothing About the Lloyds TSB Abuse

Those who were Lloyds TSB shareholders back in 2009 when they merged with HBOS to form Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) thought it was bad deal at the time and it certainly turned out to be so. HBOS had many dubious loans to property companies and when the banking crisis arose they were in deep financial difficulty. There seemed very little benefit in the merger for Lloyds shareholders

Subsequently a legal action was launched by the disgruntled Lloyds TSB shareholders which was lost in the High Court in late 2019. I wrote the following to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) soon after:

“I refer to the recent judgement in the High Court in the case of SHARP and Others v BLANK and Others (the case concerning the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB). Although the judge in the case rejected the claim by shareholders in Lloyds, he made it clear in his judgement that there were significant omissions from the prospectus that was issued at the time.

Specifically he says in his Executive Summary: “But I consider that the Circular should have disclosed the existence of the ELA facility, not in terms such as would excite damaging speculation but in terms which indicated its existence”; and “Likewise, I consider that the board ought to have disclosed the Lloyds Repo. The board assumed that because at the time of its grant it had been treated by the authorities as “ordinary course” business that provided an answer to all subsequent questions. But whether it should be disclosed in the Circular as material to an informed decision was a separate question. The Court must answer that question on an objective basis. The size of the facility, the fact that it was extended in tight markets, the fact that it was linked to the Acquisition and was part of a systemic rescue package showed that this was a special contract which ought to have been disclosed”  (see paragraphs 46/47 of the Executive Summary which can be obtained from here:  https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/sharp-others-v-blank-others-hbos-judgment/

There were also possible other omissions from the disclosures which the judge did not consider but the above does provide prima facie evidence of a breach of the Prospectus Rules.  The directors of the company (Sir Victor Blank and others) would certainly have been aware of this funding and failing to disclose it was negligent.

Investors in Lloyds TSB (I was one of them) were misled by these omissions and the subsequent outcome was financially very damaging to those investors.

I suggest your organisation needs to look into these matters as a breach of the Prospectus Rules surely is a matter that makes the culprits liable to sanctions under the Rules and there is no statute of limitation in regard to these matters.”

Their response after 5 months delay can be summarised as follows:

  1. The Lloyds Circular was subject to the Listing Rules, not the Prospectus Rules. The FSA approved the Lloyds Circular under those rules.
  2. In the Judgement by Sir Alastair Norris he did not consider whether they breached the FSA rules.
  3. We will not be opening an investigation into these allegations as we are time barred from taking enforcement action (there is a 2-year limit for enforcement action).

In summary therefore, the shareholders were unable to obtain redress by civil action and the FCA proved to be toothless to deal with this matter also. It is very regrettable that the protection that shareholders believed they had against the abuse of directors not acting in their interests proved to be imaginary.

Shareholders were not given all the information to which they were entitled and that fact alone merited action by the FCA. But they have declined to pursue it. Considering the similar case of the Royal Bank of Scotland Rights Issue in 2008, it is very clear that shareholders should not rely on what is said in prospectuses or circulars.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right in most browsers or by using the Contact page to send us a message requesting. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

The New Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill

The Government has introduced the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill into Parliament. This is quite an important piece of legislation for share investors and for property investors. Insolvency practitioners will also be interested as it makes substantial changes to that area. It’s had very little media coverage though as the news channels are swamped by coronavirus news, debate over Dominic Cummings breaking the lock-down (or not depending on your point of view) and Brexit news.

The Bill is being “fast tracked” through Parliament as it is considered urgent. Some of the measures in the Bill cover practical problems arising from the epidemic crisis. Some are temporary but others are permanent.

As regards insolvency, the Bill introduces greater flexibility into the insolvency regime. For example, it provides greater powers to ward off creditors and enable directors to escape personal responsibility if they continue trading. It provides a “moratorium” to facilitate a rescue of a business via a company voluntary arrangement (CVA), or a restructuring or fund raising as opposed to it going into administration. The directors can remain in charge of the business while a restructuring plan is put in place, or a scheme of arrangement decided upon. A “monitor” (a licensed insolvency practitioner) has to oversee the process however and give consent to various matters.

It will provide more flexibility for companies in difficulties, while complicating insolvency law, which is complicated enough already. It also includes provisions for companies to ward off winding up petitions during the epidemic crisis which have apparently been used lately by landlords to get rent paid after a “statutory demand” has been issued. In addition while in a moratorium, the company is protected from termination of supply agreements.

In summary this new “moratorium” facility should be a big advantage to companies that are in financial difficulties, and may better protect the interest of shareholders than the existing provisions in insolvency law. Companies in difficulties are too often forced into administration where ordinary shareholders typically receive nothing when a temporary “stay of execution” might enable them to survive and subsequently prosper.

General Meetings

Another aspect of the new Bill are provisions to allow companies to hold General Meetings electronically. Investors will already have seen companies only permitting two shareholders to attend their Annual General Meetings because of the restrictions imposed on public meetings by the Government. The Articles of most companies do not provide for electronic meetings at present.

The new Bill enables any company to use an electronic general meeting, or a hybrid meeting (i.e. some people physically present and some accessing it electronically). Companies can also delay their AGMs. These provisions are only temporary. Companies can also delay their account filings.

The Bill gives companies the right to run meetings as they see fit. For example it says: “The meeting need not be held at any particular place; The meeting may be held, and any votes may be permitted to be cast, by electronic means or any other means; The meeting may be held without any number of those participating in the meeting being together at the same place; A member of the qualifying body does not have a right— (a) to attend the meeting in person, (b) to participate in the meeting other than by voting, or (c) to vote by particular means.”.

This may be acceptable in the short term, during the epidemic crisis, but I have suggested to the ShareSoc directors that the organisation should draw up some recommendations for how “virtual” or “hybrid” meetings should be held in future. The experience to date of such meetings is very unsatisfactory, with answers to questions not being given at the meeting for example. Not having the interactivity of a physical meeting with at least some members present is also a severe disadvantage.

Some bigger companies have already updated their Articles to permit such meetings but a recommended set of Articles should also be published that do not simply give the directors the power to run such meetings as they see fit.

For more details of the Bill’s provisions, see https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2019-21/corporateinsolvencyandgovernance.html.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right in most browsers or by using the Contact page to send us a message requesting. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

 © Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

Burford Capital Share Trading and Why No Transparency?

Burford Capital (BUR) was affected by a shorting attack from Muddy Waters (Carson Black) who have published several dossiers attacking their accounts. As I have said before, I have never had any interest, long or short, in the shares of that company but I have publicly questioned the business model, their corporate governance and the prudency of their accounts. But other investors take a different view of the company.

Burford have alleged that there was some manipulation of their share price taking place at the time of the shorting attack, i.e. market abuse by such methods as “spoofing and layering”. They went to court to force the LSE to disclose the share trades so that they could determine whether this was in fact the case and to identify who might have been doing it. The application was supported by a joint letter from ShareSoc and UKSA.

The High Court rejected the application on a number of grounds. For example because the FCA and LSE had already reviewed the matter and could not confirm the allegations.

ShareSoc director Paul de Gruchy has now published a blog article which covers the judgement. See: https://www.sharesoc.org/blog/regulations-and-law/slave-to-the-algorithm-burford-and-the-importance-of-maintaining-confidence-in-a-broken-system/

It is very good analysis of the problem of identifying market manipulation when the market is dominated by high frequency trading. For example it says: “An ordinary investor may wonder what strategies could be revealed by releasing the trading data in relation to a single company on two days. It appears that there is a genuine fear that “algorithmic” trading companies would have their secrets exposed by this information”; and: “This may look like market manipulation, but the LSE, who have a commercial interest in maintaining the income stream provided by high frequency, algorithmic trading, say it is “legitimate”. Indeed, it is a noticeable feature of the judgment that the judge appeared unconcerned by the clear conflict that the LSE has in being a commercial business seeking to maximise revenues with its role in identifying market manipulation. A cynic might say that the difference between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” market manipulation depends on the level of fees you pay to the gatekeeper”.

The share trading all took place some weeks ago. What damage could have been done by disclosure of the trades? The Court could have imposed confidentiality conditions to avoid wider public distribution if they had a mind to do so. The fact that the FCA have given it a whitewash hardly inspires confidence either as they have been notoriously inefficient in pursuing wrong-doing in financial markets.

We do not know whether there was any market manipulation taking place and we will never know as Burford is not going to appeal the judgement. That is a shame because transparency is all important in financial markets.

Investors do want to know when market manipulation is taking place and who is doing it. As Mr de Gruchy says: “It was hard to imagine how confidence in the markets could be further eroded. This judgment has managed to do so”. I completely support ShareSoc’s stance on this issue.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right in most browsers or by using the Contact page to send us a message requesting. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

 

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

SFO Difficulties and Barclays Case

This morning the Financial Times ran a full-page article over the problems with prosecuting fraud under the headline “The legal fight over a company’s controlling mind”. This covered the difficulty that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has in prosecuting fraud with particular reference to the Barclays case. That arose from the escape by Barclays from involvement with Government funding after the financial crisis in 2008. They simply borrowed a pile of money from Qatari investors instead. But it was alleged that they had paid additional consultancy fees as a sweetener for the deal which were not disclosed to investors at the time.

As a Barclays shareholder at the time, I thought that it was a very wise move to avoid Government involvement as the Government seemed to be intent on taking control of the banking sector by forcing recapitalisation on the major UK banks, i.e. forcing them to issue equity or take loans on onerous terms which they certainly did with RBS and Lloyds, much to shareholders disadvantage.  It has always seemed to me that the legal case against Barclays was politically motivated from the very beginning with the objective of teaching Barclays a lesson.

Last week, the last of three Barclays defendants were acquitted. The former CEO John Varley had been previously discharged by the judge on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence and no corporate charges were brought. The deal had been approved by the board of Barclays after legal advice had been taken so the latest acquittal is hardly surprising.

But the FT article explains well why it is difficult for the SFO to obtain convictions in fraud and bribery cases even when the evidence is better because it is very difficult to identity a “directing” or “controlling” mind in large companies. The current law might have worked with small companies in times gone by but the complexities of modern corporations make it difficult to apply. As a result the SFO has tended to rely on Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) where the company pays a fine to avoid prosecution but without conceding anything. However, the individuals involved have often then been declared not guilty in subsequent trials (e.g. in the Tesco case).

It’s worth reading the FT article to see how the legal framework is such a mess in the UK. It’s also not helped by the FCA and FRC also being involved with overlapping and confusing responsibilities for corporate financial affairs.

It’s certainly makes a good case for reform. It’s worth pointing out also that the Barclays case stemmed from 2008 (i.e. 13 years ago) and it is surely unjust to have the defendants under the stress of a major prosecution, incurring very large legal costs and probably making them unemployable for that length of time when the legal case seemed to be very weak.

However much some sections of the public would like bankers who were around in 2008 put in prison, this is not justice.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right in most browsers or by using the Contact page to send us a message requesting. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

 

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

Brexit – Over and Out – and Why Shareholder Votes Matter

Last night Brexit got done. We exited the EU after 47 years. Our last words to the EU bureaucrats were surely “over and out”. But we will need to resume the conversation to secure a trade deal. That still leaves room for many more arguments within the UK and with the EU.

Some people seem to think that there is a hope we might rejoin the EU some time in the future. But while the EU is dominated by bureaucrats and real democracy is so lacking in the EU institutions that seems exceedingly unlikely to me. Hope of any reform to the EU is surely forlorn.

It might be preferable to have some alignment on product and financial regulations but in the latter area the EU either follows well behind the UK anyway, or creates regulations like MIFID II that are over complex or simply incomprehensible.

One area that the EU could have been a leader in was to improve financial regulation such as on shareholder rights. They have produced a Shareholder Rights Directive but it is so badly written that it can and is being effectively ignored in the UK. Just take the area of shareholder voting and the problem of nominee accounts.

The Investors Chronicle (IC) have published an article by Mary McDougall this week entitled “Why Shareholder Votes Matter”. It shows how the nominee account system has disenfranchised most individual shareholders as they either cannot vote their shares, or it is made so difficult to do that they don’t bother.

I contributed to the IC article because I have a lot of knowledge of this area having pioneered the ShareSoc campaign on the issue and having experience of using multiple platforms over many years (see https://www.sharesoc.org/campaigns/shareholder-rights-campaign/ ).

The article mentions Sirius Minerals (SXX) which is currently subject to a takeover bid via a scheme of arrangement. A very large proportion of the shares are held by individual investors in nominee accounts but because of the voting rules on Court hearings all of them will only get one vote by the nominee operator who might not even vote at all. That’s because nominee accounts are generally “pooled” with only one name on the share register as a “Member” of the company – and that name is that of the nominee operator (i.e. the platform).

Another example that shows where votes are important is that of the forthcoming AGM scheduled for the 12th February at RWS Holdings (RWS), an AIM company. You might think that this will be a routine matter with just the standard resolutions. But not so. There is actually a resolution to waive the need for a Concert Party that might acquire more than 30% of the shares to make an offer for the company under the City Takeover Code. The Concert Party comprises Chairman Andrew Brode, Diane Brode and a Trust they control. They already hold 32.8% of the shares but as there is also a share buyback resolution that might increase their holdings, and hence trigger the need for an offer, a waiver is required. I voted against both resolutions – I always vote against share buy-backs unless there are very good reasons, and I don’t like public companies to have shareholders with more than 30%.

You can see that just a few private shareholders in nominee accounts might affect the outcome as the Concert Party cannot vote on the waiver. But will they?

Regardless I encourage shareholders in RWS to vote their shares – if you hold shares in an ISA your platform operator has a legal obligation to cast your votes.

The IC article mentions that the Law Commission is currently looking at the problems and legal uncertainties created by nominee accounts, but it also discloses that they only expect a “scoping study” on intermediated securities to be published in Autumn 2020. No great urgency there then!

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

Bucket Shops are Back

I recently saw an advertisement on Twitter for a company, who shall remain nameless, offering to trade “fractional shares”. That means instead of buying a whole one share of expensive stocks such as Google (Alphabet) and Amazon which cost more than a thousand dollars, you can buy a fraction of a share. They offer an App which provides this with zero commission trading and CFD trading on 20% margin or less (i.e. you don’t need to put down the whole amount). What immediately sprang to mind when I read the advertisement was the provision of trading by “bucket shops” in the USA in the early 1900s.

I can do no better than to quote a Wikipedia description: “As defined by the U.S. Supreme Court, a bucket shop is an establishment, nominally for the transaction of a stock exchange business, or business of similar character, but really for the registration of bets, or wagers, usually for small amounts, on the rise or fall of the prices of stocks, grain, oil, etc., there being no transfer or delivery of the stock or commodities nominally dealt in”. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket_shop_(stock_market) for more background.  They were outlawed in many US states, but if you wish to get some understanding of how they operated it’s worth reading a book called Reminisces of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre, which was possibly a pseudonym for stock market speculator Jesse Livermore. It was published in 1923 and is still readily available as it’s a book worth reading by any stock market investor.

The company advertising this new trading facility claims to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and be based in London although they also have operations and authorisation elsewhere. Their web site makes it clear that 76% of retail investors lose money when trading CFDs with them. It takes a very smart operator, as Jesse Livermore was, to make money in bucket shop operations and he soon moved on to bigger things. When stock markets are buoyant, as they have been of late, inexperienced punters get suckered into share speculation which is really gambling and most are likely to lose money.

The FCA really needs to monitor and regulate such operations a lot more closely.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

Objections to Pay at Diploma and the Cost of Zero Carbon

My previous blog post covered the subject of criticism by Slater Investments of many current pay schemes. That at Diploma (DPLM) is a typical example. But at their Annual General Meeting yesterday, which I unfortunately was unable to attend in person as a shareholder, there was a revolt.

The votes cast as disclosed in an RNS statement today were 20% against their new Remuneration Policy and 44% against their Remuneration Report. I voted against both of them of course personally. The board has acknowledged the concerns of shareholders and they will consult further with shareholders plus provide an update within six months.

What is wrong with their remuneration scheme? First pay is simply too high. Over £1 million last year for the CEO when profits were only £62 million and that does not include any LTIP benefits as he is recent joiner. But the CFO got £1.6 million in total. The CEOs pay scheme includes base salary, pension, short term bonus of up to 125% of base (90% achieved) and an LTIP that awards up to 250% of base salary. The Remuneration Report consists of 14 pages when Slater suggests a maximum of two would be sensible. I could go on at length of this subject but in essence the remuneration scheme at Diploma is simply unreasonable and too generous. It displays all the faults that Slater complained about.

I have previously criticised the Government’s commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions on the grounds of cost. Well known author Bjorn Lomborg has published a good article on this subject in the New York Post. Almost no Governments making similar promises are willing to publish any real cost-benefit analysis. The only nation to have done this to date is New Zealand: the economics institute that the government asked to conduct the analysis found that going carbon neutral by 2050 will cost the country 16% of GDP. If the small nation follows through with the promise, it will cost at least US$5 trillion with negligible impact on temperatures. Just imagine what the cost will be in the UK, for a much bigger economy! See this article for more information:  https://nypost.com/2019/12/08/reality-check-drive-for-rapid-net-zero-emissions-a-guaranteed-loser/

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

Should Companies, their Investors and Bankers Adopt Some New Year Resolutions?

Environmental concerns are all the rage at present. Indeed it’s become a new religion verging on paranoia. Some people believe that the world is going to become impossible to live in after a few more years, or that seas will rise enough to submerge many major cities. They ascribe the cause to global warming caused by rising CO2 emissions from the activities of mankind. Even if we are not all wiped out, the impact on the economy could be devastating due to mass migration and the costs imposed by decarbonising all energy production, food production and transport.

This article is not going to attempt to analyse whether global warming is a major threat, or what its causes might be, but simply what the reaction of companies, their investors and their bankers should be. Should company directors adopt a New Year’s resolution to divest themselves of all activities that might result in CO2 generation? Should investors who hold shares in such companies sell them and invest in something else, and should bankers stop lending money for projects such as creating new oil production facilities.

Even outgoing Bank of England Governor Mark Carney gave some dire warnings in a BBC interview a couple of days ago.  He suggested that the world will face irreversible heating unless firms shift their priorities soon and that although the financial sector had begun to curb investment in fossil fuels the pace was far too slow.

What do oil companies or coal miners do if faced with such rhetoric?  There is clearly a demand for their products and if one company closes down its activities then other companies will simply move in to take advantage of the gap. There will be a large profit incentive to meet the demand as prices will likely rise if some producers exit the market.

Companies also have the problem that they cannot close down existing facilities, or move into new markets such as wind or tidal energy in the short term without incurring major costs.

Famous investor Warren Buffett does not think they should do much at all. He has suggested that even if Berkshire’s management did know what was right for the world, it would be wrong to invest on that basis because they were just the agents for the company’s shareholders. He said “this is the shareholders money” (see FT article on 30/12/2019).

So long as the law of the land says it is OK to exploit natural resources even if they generate CO2, and the shareholders support a company’s activities then company directors should not be holding back he suggests.

But I suggest shareholders have other things to consider whether they believe in global warming or not. Investors clearly face a risk that even if they are happy to invest in coal mines, the Government might legislate directly or indirectly to put them out of business. As a result of Government policies in the UK, the amount of coal produced and consumed in the country, particularly for power generation has been going down. It’s now only about 5% of electricity generation, largely replaced by natural gas usage (with lower CO2 emissions) and renewables such as wind-power and hydroelectricity. Forget trying to get planning permission for any new coal-fired power stations even if very cheap coal can be imported.

As an investor, clearly divestment from coal mining and coal consumption is a worldwide trend in most countries with a few exceptions such as China. So any wise investor might simply look a few years ahead and take into account this trend. Investing in declining industries is always a bad thing to do. However well managed they are, companies operating in such sectors ultimately decline in profitability as revenue falls and competitors do not exit as the management has only expertise in that sector and won’t quit.

Investment is also not about what you believe but about other people believe because other people set the share prices of companies, not you. You might think that global warming is simply not true, but if the majority of investors believe it then they will sell the shares in companies that are involved in CO2 generation and drive down the share price. This is surely already happening to some extent with major oil companies. Shell and BP are on low p/e ratios no doubt because they are seen as having little future growth potential. You can of course become a contrarian investor if they become cheap enough but that is a risky approach because clearly these companies are facing strategic challenges.

Investment managers are divesting themselves of holdings in oil companies so as to please their investors. Both the managers and the investors have been subject to propaganda that has told them for the last few years that oil is bad and consumption needs to be reduced. They are unlikely to take a contrary stance. Once a religion becomes widespread, you have to follow the believers or be branded a heretic, whether the religion has any basis in reality or not.

There are not trivial sums involved. The Daily Telegraph suggests that UK shareholders are some of the most vulnerable in the world with about £95 billion invested in fossil fuel producers. If you consider that CO2 needs to be reduced, and choose your investments accordingly, then you need to exclude not just coal, oil and gas producers but a very large segment of the economy. All miners and metal producers are big energy consumers mainly from fossil fuels, and engineering companies likewise. And then one has to consider the transport sector and the producers of trains, planes and automobiles. Even producers of electric vehicles actually use large amounts of energy to build them although much of that is consumed in other countries such as China. Food production and distribution also consume large amounts of energy, and building does also. For example cement production uses enormous amounts of fossil fuel and actually generates about 8% of global CO2 production for which there is no viable alternative.

There are actually very few things in the modern world that don’t consume energy to produce them. That production can be made more efficient but decarbonising the economy altogether is simply not viable.

For investors, it’s a minefield if they wish to be holier than thou and claim moral superiority. There may be some simple choices to be made – for example why support tobacco companies where their products clearly kill people? But as an ex-smoker, I am more concerned about future Government regulation that will kill off or substantially reduce their business which is why I am not invested in tobacco companies.

Company directors, investors and bankers do not need to make moral choices. New year resolutions are not required. They just need to look to the future and the evolving regulatory environment and the court of public opinion.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

 

 

NMC Health Attacked and Open-Ended Funds Holding Illiquid Assets

Yesterday Muddy Waters, the same organisation who recently attacked Burford Capital, published a highly negative report on NMC Health (NMC). The share price fell 33% on the day. Muddy Waters, and owner Carson Black, are effectively saying the accounts of NMC are fraudulent. A quick review of their report suggests the key issues are undisclosed related-party transactions, the purchase of assets at wildly inflated prices and the under-reporting of debt.

As with other similar “shorting attacks”, the dossier is long and complex enough to make any quick analysis of whether it is all true, or whether some of it is true, or whether the whole thing is a fiction, impossible to resolve. NMC published a fairly brief statement this morning saying the company had already responded in the past 12 months to many of the allegations but they suggest the claims are “unfounded, baseless and misleading, containing many errors of fact, and will respond in detail in due course”.

NMC run hospitals and other healthcare services in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and elsewhere. It is registered in England and holds its AGMs in London.

This is what I had to say about such shorting attacks in a previous article: “One of the problems in most shorting attacks is the mixture of possibly true and false allegations, which the shorter has not even checked with the target company, along with unverifiable claims and innuendo. The shorter can make a lot of money by such tactics while it can take months for the truth or otherwise of the allegations to be researched and revealed. By which time the shorter has long moved on to other targets. Shorting is not wrong in essence, but combining it with questionable public announcements is surely market manipulation which is covered by the law on market abuse”.

I still think those who publish allegations that are likely to move share prices should at least give the company the opportunity to comment on the accuracy of the allegations before they publish. A few days grace should suffice with possible suspension of the shares until the allegations are investigated by the company and the FCA.

Readers will no doubt be aware of the problem of open-ended investment funds holding illiquid assets such as property or private equity shares. Investors of funds can sell their shares on a daily basis, but the fund manager who has to meet such redemptions cannot sell the assets of the fund to do so in any sensible time frame. They may hold some cash but if a stampede for the exit occurs then they cannot hope to meet the demand and hence have to close the fund to redemptions.

The Bank of England have published a Financial Stability Report that suggests such funds are creating a systemic risk and unfair outcomes for investors. They make various suggestions to solve the problem which includes making redemption notice periods reflect the time need to sell the required portion of a fund’s assets. For property funds this might mean many months delay. They also suggest a pricing mechanism to impose discounts on those investors who want a quick exit, but that might simply encourage investors to dump their holdings sooner rather than later, thus exacerbating a “run” on the fund.

Are these suggestions workable? I doubt it and they would certainly be confusing for retail investors. Why introduce such complexity when the answer is simply to ban open-ended funds from holding more than a very limited proportion of illiquid assets. Investors have a good alternative in investment trusts which have no such problems.

The Bank of England’s Report is present here: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/financial-stability-report/2019/december-2019.pdf (see page 75 for the coverage of open-ended funds).

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

Edinburgh IT Fires Manager and Grant Thornton Fined

The Edinburgh Investment Trust (EDIN) has fired fund manager Invesco. This company is an equity income trust focused primarily on the UK, although it also has an objective to increase the Net Asset Value per share in excess of the growth in the FTSE All-Share Index. But in the last few years it has signally failed to achieve that objective. According to the AIC it has fallen behind the sector average in growth in net asset value per share in all of the last year, the last 3 years and the last five years. In the last year alone the total return was 7.0% versus 15.6% for the sector. In other words, it’s a pretty abysmal record.

The company is appointing Majedie Asset Management as the new manager. This is what the company had to say about the reason for the change: “As detailed in the Interim Results announcement also published today, the Company has experienced another period of weak investment performance. This extends the period of underperformance relative to the Company’s benchmark to over three years and is a major disappointment for the Board as well as our shareholders. The Board understands that all good conviction fund managers experience periods of underperformance and a focus on long-term results requires shareholders sometimes to bear bouts of relative weakness especially during times when the fund manager’s style is out of favour. However, your portfolio has suffered from a number of stock specific issues: that is to say large falls in prices of stocks held in the portfolio, the cause of which is specific to each stock rather than resulting from broad market movements. Collectively these stocks have been a significant contributor to the weak performance of the Company and increasingly has led the Board to question the effectiveness of the investment process”.

These are the top ten holdings in the trust: BP, British American Tobacco, Legal & General, Next, Shell, Tesco, BAE Systems, Roche, British Land and Derwent London.

Comment: Firing an investment manager does not happen very often, but certainly the board of the company seems to have given the manager quite long enough to show that improvement was taking place. Shareholders will question whether they allowed the underperformance to go on way too long.

Grant Thornton has been fined £650,000 by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) after identifying various failures in an audit on an unnamed company in 2016. They refuse to disclose which company was involved.

Grant Thornton has been involved in a number of poor or defective audits, such as at Patisserie Holdings, Vimto, Globo and Salford University. The FRC claims that “We promote transparency and integrity in business” on its web site so why should we not be told the company concerned? It is surely not in the public interest to conceal the name of the company. They clearly still have a “cultural” problem about how they handle investigations.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.