Category: Politics

Arron Banks on Leave.EU, Smithson and Patisserie

The Andrew Marr interview of Arron Banks was all good knock-about stuff but there was no knock-out blow inflicted. Andrew Marr was interviewing Arron Banks about his £8 million funding of the Leave.EU campaign. The Electoral Commission have recently asked the National Crime Agency (NCA) to investigate the matter as they apparently do not believe his story about the source of the funding. The suggestion has been made that the funding came from Russian sources or from a company registered in the Isle of Man (Rock Holdings) which would not have been permitted under electoral law.

You can watch the full interview here: https://order-order.com/2018/11/04/arron-banks-marr-interview-full/

Mr Banks made it clear that the money came from Rock Services Ltd and strenuously denied it came from other sources. Andrew Marr suggested Rock Services was a “shell” company and that neither that company nor Mr Banks had sufficient financial resources to cover the £8 million in funding.

It is of course a simple matter to look at the accounts of Rock Services Ltd at Companies House (it’s free to do so – go here: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/search?q=rock+services+ltd ).

Rock Services Ltd hardly looks like a “shell” company which is normally used to describe a company with no revenue and no assets apart from possibly some cash. Rock Services had Turnover of £50 million for the year ending December 2017 but little in the way of profits or net assets. But it did have fixed assets of over £1 million. This is hardly a “shell” company in the normal usage of the word. The “Strategic Report” says the company’s “principal business activity is that of performing a recharge function for services for the Group and other related parties”. The profit of the company is generated from service charges added to costs and salary recharges.

Aaron Banks has been running motor insurance companies for many years and is involved in a group of companies which includes Rock Services, Rock Holdings and UK registered Eldon Insurance. I vaguely recall he was involved in a company called Brightside I held shares in from 2012/2014 which was publicly listed before being taken over. The accounts of Eldon Insurance can also be read at Companies House and indicate revenue of £77 million and profits of £1.8 million in 2017. Another substantial company in the Group is Southern Rock Insurance which is based in Gibraltar. You can see a complete list of group companies and their transactions through Rock Services Ltd on page 15 of their accounts.

In summary the allegation that Mr Banks or his UK companies did not have the financial resources to make the donation to Leave.EU is not reasonable, and Andrew Marr and his researchers should have looked into the background more before making the allegations he made.

As Mr Banks said in the interview, other donations were made to the remain campaign from subsidiaries of foreign companies. Why were they not being investigated? It certainly looks like a witch-hunt to me. It would seem to be more about politics than election regulation.

Note that Companies House is an invaluable source of information on companies and their directors. All investors should be familiar with it. It can be useful in other ways – for example I recently obtained a bid from a company to provide web site development work. That was done from the email address of a company that was different to that from which they suggested would do the billing. When I looked the former company up at Companies House it had actually changed name a couple of years ago and under its latest name had got appallingly bad references on the internet. Needless to say I decided not to do business with them.

Smithson Investment Trust (SSON) is now trading at a remarkable premium to net asset value of 7.4% according to the AIC after its recent IPO. Bearing in the mind the state of the market and the fact that it can hardly have yet invested the money raised (one might call it a “shell” company), it would seem investors are putting a high premium on the name of Terry Smith and his involvement in this trust. There must be investors out there who are purchasing shares at that premium to maintain this “discount” but that seems very unwise to me when most investment trusts have historically traded at a discount. The reason for this is quite simple – investment trusts incur costs in management and administration which reduces the yield and returns on the underlying shares they hold. Investors can always buy the underlying shares directly to avoid those costs. In the recent bull market and recognition of late of the merits of investment trusts, some have been trading at small premiums but a premium of 7.4% when the company has no track record and will be mainly holding cash seems somewhat unreasonable.

As I said when reviewing the IPO, it may be best to wait and see what transpires for this trust.

Patisserie (CAKE) and the recent General Meeting have been covered in several previous blog posts. I have previously mentioned that I was not happy that Luke Johnson did not answer my questions – he ruled them out along with a lot of others. When can a Chairman refuse to answer questions in a General Meeting? It was always judged to be matter of common law that questions should be answered but that has now actually been put into a Regulation.

I have written to Mr Johnson and my letter includes these paragraphs:

  1. As regards the conduct of the General Meeting, I suggest you not only handled it badly as Chairman but that refusing to answer my questions was a breach of The Companies (Shareholders’ Rights) Regulations 2009. There are valid grounds on which you can refuse to answer questions at General Meetings but the reason you gave for not answering mine (refusal to answer any questions that might prejudice the investigations) was not a valid one.
  2. Holding a meeting a 9.00 am is also not good practice. This note published by ShareSoc (and partly written by me) gives guidance on how to run general meetings, and includes references to the law on the subject: https://www.sharesoc.org/How_To_Run_General_Meetings.pdf

If you study the aforementioned regulations, you will see that the directors can refuse to answer questions that would require disclosure of confidential information or “if it is undesirable in the interests of the company or the good order of the meeting that the question be answered”. That may be quite broad but it hardly covers the questions I posed and the answers to my questions would certainly not have prejudiced any investigations.

I have therefore asked him to answer the questions in my letter. He may have other things on his mind, but all company directors should be aware of the law, or take legal advice when required.

Shareholders should not allow directors to ignore their responsibility to answer reasonable questions.

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

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Budget Summary – Austerity Coming to an End

Philip Hammond’s budget today can be summarised as:

  • More money for the NHS.
  • More money for the MOD.
  • Money for schools.
  • More money to fix potholes.
  • More money for housing.
  • More money for the Universal Credit scheme.

Yes “austerity” is being relaxed. Changes to taxation are relatively minor, but there will be a new tax on “digital platforms” which is clearly aimed at large companies such as Facebook and Alphabet (Google) who generate large revenues from their operations in the UK but pay very little tax on the resulting profits. There will also be a new tax on plastic packaging (comment: that could have been tougher if the problem of plastic pollution is to be tackled). These new taxes may be at relatively low rates initially but once a new tax regime is in place, the rates tend to go up if history is any guide.

Fuel duty is frozen, beer and cider duty are frozen, spirits duty is frozen but wine duty will rise to match the increase in the cost of living. Tobacco duty will rise also.

There will be a new Railcard for the 26-30 age group to help the millenials.

Personal income tax allowances will rise in April 2019 – £50,000 for higher rate taxpayers. And capital gains tax allowance will rise to £12,000.

All the suggestions about changes to pension tax relief, inheritance tax and AIM tax advantages seem to have been ignored, so there is little to dislike about this budget for stock market investors.

In summary a confident performance from Mr Hammond with an avoidance of unnecessary changes to taxation which helps with longer term planning.

More information available from the Treasury here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/budget-2018-24-things-you-need-to-know

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

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Frying in Hell and Investing in Oil Companies

Last night and this morning, the national media were dominated by the news from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that we are all going to fry in a rapidly rising world temperature unless we change our ways. CO2 emissions continue to rise and even to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius requires unprecedented changes to many aspects of our lives.

The suggested solutions are changes to transport to cut emissions, e.g. electric cars, eating less meat, growing more trees, ceasing the use of gas for heating and other major revolutions in the way we live.

So one question for investors is should we divest ourselves of holdings in fossil fuel companies? Not many UK investors hold shares in coal mines – the best time to invest in coal was in the 18th and 19th century. That industry is undoubtedly in decline in many countries although some like China have seen increased coal production where it is still financially competitive. See https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels for some data on trends.

But I thought I would take a look at a couple of the world’s largest oil companies – BP and Shell. How have they been doing of late? Looking at the last 5 years financial figures and taking an average of the Return on Assets reported by Stockopedia, the figures are 2.86% per annum for Shell and 0.06% per annum for BP – the latter being hit by the Gulf oil spill disaster of course. They bounce up and down over the years based on the price of oil, but are these figures ones that would encourage you to purchase shares in these businesses? The answer is surely no.

The figures are the result of oil exploration and production becoming more difficult, and in the case of BP, having to take more risks to exploit difficult to access reserves. It does not seem to me that those trends are likely to change.

Even if politicians ignore the call to cut CO2 emissions, which I suspect they will ultimately not do, for investors there are surely better propositions to look at. Even electric cars look more attractive as investments although buying shares in Tesla might be a tricky one, even if buying their cars might be justified. Personally, I prefer to invest in companies that generate a return on capital of more than 15% per annum, so I won’t be investing in oil companies anytime soon.

But one aspect that totally baffles me about the global warming scare is why the scientists and politicians ignore the underlying issue. Namely that there are too many people emitting too much air pollution. The level of CO2 and other atmospheric emissions are directly related to the number of people in this world. More people generate more demand for travel, consume more food, require more heating and lighting and require more infrastructure to house them (construction generates a lot of emissions alone). But there are no calls to cut population or even reduce its growth. Why does everyone shy away from this simple solution to the problem?

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

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Pay-outs from Labour’s Dividend Plans

I said in my last blog post that the Labour Party’s plans to take 10% of a company’s shares and pay the dividends into an employee trust did not make much sense. I have actually worked out what the implications of such a scheme would be on a few large UK public companies. These are the figures (after 10 years and assuming 10% of the total dividend is therefore paid to employees):

  • BP pays £6.15bn in dividends and has 74,000 employees: £8,310 per employee.
  • Shell pays $10.87bn in dividends and has 92,000 employees: £9,846 per employee.
  • M&S pays £304m in dividends and has 84,000 employees: £360 per employee.
  • Tesco pays £82m in dividends and has 448,000 employees: £18 per employee.

The latter two do of course have many part-time employees. How they might be treated is unknown so I have assumed they get an equal share. Tesco has also been paying a low dividend of late because of past financial difficulties but even if it returned to previous levels, the pay-out to each employee would be low – hardly sufficient to motivate them.

In the case of the oil companies where they have relatively few employees in a capital- intensive business, the pay-out would exceed the £500 cap in year one, so it would be mainly the Government that benefited.

This seems a perverse result to say the least. Are M&S and Tesco employees so much less worthy than BP and Shell employees? Whether an employee got any worthwhile share of the dividends would much depend on the kind of company they worked for.

Another odd result is that the Government would collect a lot more in tax (the amount above the £500 cap) from capital intensive companies than from those with lots of employees.

The more one looks at this, the more perverse this scheme turns out to be.

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

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The Impact on Investors of the Labour Party’s Plans

I commented briefly yesterday on the plans by John McDonnell of the Labour Party to give employees shares and possible future nationalisations – see: https://roliscon.blog/2018/09/24/labours-plans-for-confiscation-of-shares-and-rail-system-renationalisation/

More information is now available on the share scheme and the more one studies it the more one realises that whoever devised it does not understand much about business and the stock market. In other words they were typical politicians with no experience of the real world I would guess.

The scheme would apparently operate by companies with more than 250 employees being forced to hand over 10% of the shares in a company to an employee trust fund. That would be over a period of time – possibly ten years – and presumably that would be by the issuance of new shares rather than confiscating existing shares, but it still means 10% dilution for investors.

Shareholders normally get a vote on the issuance of new shares but presumably that could be legally subverted. Otherwise the scheme would cover about 11 million employees. However, foreign owned companies would not be covered so that excludes perhaps a third of the employees (the Labour Party apparently admits they would not be and it is difficult to see how legally any such law could be enforced on them).

One simple way for companies to avoid the scheme would be to move their country of registration elsewhere – no need to change where their shares are listed, just move domicile. We could see a host of companies re-registering in such places as Panama! An unintended consequence that I am sure the Labour Party would not like.

The shares accumulated in the trust fund would pay dividends to the individual shareholders out of the dividends paid to the fund by the company. But there would be a cap of £500 per employee. Any amount payable above that cap would revert to the Government. It is estimated this might generate £2 billion a year to the Government after 5 years – another large tax hike in addition to proposed increases in Corporation Tax the Shadow Chancellor is promising.

Employees could not buy or sell the shares held on their behalf, so presumably could not take them away when they leave or retire. So in practice those companies with high staff turnover would see the dividends accumulating for the benefit of the Government, particularly if the £500 cap remain fixed, i.e. unindexed.

But the company could avoid paying out this windfall to the Government simply by not paying dividends. Many companies don’t pay dividends anyway. Alternatively they could pay a dividend in shares (a “scrip” dividend), or offer to buy back shares occasionally via a tender offer or market share buy-backs– these would not be dividends and hence would be excluded.

Another problem with the scheme is that companies who had a few less than 250 employees could decide not to expand and hence become subject to this scheme, i.e. this would discourage companies from growing which is not what the Government wants. Alternatively they could create new separate companies owned by the same shareholders to expand their business and avoid it that way.

Apart from the 10% dilution that will hit not just direct investors but those investing via pension schemes, you can see that this scheme is not just daft because of its unintended consequences and likely avoidance, it’s an insidious way to raise taxes on companies and investors very substantially.

The only good aspect of the scheme is that it would help to give employees a stake (albeit indirect) and hence interest in the company they work for. It might also ensure some representation of their interests because the trust fund would be controlled by employees and could vote the shares. But there are much better ways to provide both those benefits.

In conclusion, the idea of an employee trust fund sounds attractive at first glance but it has not been properly thought through. A lot more consideration needs to be given to come up with a workable scheme that does not prejudice companies and their investors. Any foreign investor who saw such a scheme being imposed on his UK investment holdings would promptly run a mile – and don’t forget that most of the UK stock market is now owned by foreign investors. The impact on the Uk stock market, and the economic consequences of investors taking their businesses and investment money elsewhere beggars belief.

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

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Labour’s Plans For Confiscation of Shares and Rail System Renationalisation

Jeremy Corbyn made it clear in a speech last night that the rich will be under attack if Labour gets into power. John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor, will present his plans today to give 10% of shares in all larger companies to employees over a period of years. The Daily Telegraph described it as a Marxist plot to control businesses while Carolyn Fairburn of the CBI attacked it as a “new tax that adds to the impression that Labour sees business as a bottomless pit of funding”. The proposal seems to be based on setting up a trust for employees into which the shares would be deposited and from where dividends would be paid to employees.

Comment: It will certainly dilute existing shareholders so readers of this blog might find they and the pension funds that invest in shares are proportionally poorer. Although it sets a bad principle, if the numbers being proposed are enacted it might not have a major impact on companies or investors. Enabling employees to have a financial interest in the profits of a company is quite a sensible idea in many ways. But it might simply encourage companies to take their business elsewhere. If they are registered in another country, how will the UK Government enforce such legislation?

Last week Chris Grayling, Transport Secretary, announced a review of the privatised rail system. That follows the recent problems with new timetables where the regulator concluded that “nobody took charge”. John McDonnell said that he could renationalise the railways within five years if Labour wins the next election – it’s already a manifesto commitment. Perhaps he thinks he can solve the railway’s problems by doing so but this writer suggests the problem is technology rather than management, although cost also comes into the equation.

The basic problem is that the railways are built on inflexible and expensive old technology. There has never been a “timetable” problem on the roads because there are no fixed timetables – folks just do their own thing and travel when they want to do so.

Consider the rail signalling system – an enormously expensive infrastructure to ensure trains don’t run into each other and to give signals to train drivers. We do of course have a similar system at junctions on roads – they are called traffic lights. But they operate automatically and are relatively cheap. Most are not even linked in a network as train signals are required to be.

Trains run on tracks so they are extremely vulnerable to breakdowns of trains and damage to tracks – even snow, ice or leaves on the line cause disruption – who ever heard of road vehicles being delayed by leaves? A minor problem on a train track, often to signals, can quickly cause the whole line or network to come to a halt. Failing traffic signals on roads typically cause only slight delays and vehicles can drive around any broken-down cars or lorries.

The cost of changes to a rail line are simply enormous, and the cost of building them also. For example, the latest estimate for HS2 – the line from London to Birmingham is more than £80 billion. The original M1 was completed in 1999 at a cost of £26 million. Even allowing for inflation, and some widening and upgrading since then the total cost is probably less than £1 billion.

Changes to railway lines can be enormously expensive. For example, the cost of rebuilding London Bridge station to accommodate more trains was about £1 billion. These astronomic figures simply do not arise when motorways are revised or new service stations constructed.

Why invest more in a railway network when roads are cheaper to build and maintain, and a lot more flexible in use? At present the railways have to be massively subsidised by the Government out of taxation – about £4 billion per annum according to Wikipedia, or about 7.5p per mile of every train journey you take according to the BBC. Meanwhile road transport more than pays for itself and contributes billions to general taxation in addition from taxes on vehicle users.

So here’s a suggestion: scrap using this old technology for transport and invest more in roads. Let the railways shrink in size to where they are justifiable, or let them disappear as trams did for similar reasons – inflexible and expensive in comparison with buses.

No need to renationalise them at great expense. Spend the money instead on building a decent road network which is certainly not what we have at present.

Do you think that railways are more environmentally friendly? Electric trains may be but with electric road vehicles now becoming commonplace, that justification will no longer apply in a few years’ time, if not already.

Just like some people love old transport modes – just think canals and steam trains – the attachment to old technology in transport is simply irrational as well as being very expensive. Road vehicles take you from door-to-door at lower cost, with no “changing trains” or waiting for the next one to arrive. No disruption caused by striking guards or drivers as London commuters have seen so frequently.

In summary building and managing a road network is cheaper and simpler. It just needs a change of mindset to see the advantages of road over rail. But John McDonnell wants to take us back to 1948 when the railways were last nationalised. Better to invest in the roads than the railways.

It has been suggested that John McDonnell is a Marxist but at times he has denied it. Those not aware of the impact of Marxism on political thought would do well to read a book I recently perused which covered the impact of the Bolsheviks in post-revolutionary Russia circa 1919. In Tashkent they nationalised all pianos as owning a piano was considered “bourgeois”. They were confiscated and given to schools. One man who had his piano nationalised lost his temper and broke up the piano with an axe. He was taken to goal and then shot (from the book Mission to Tashkent by Col. F.M. Bailey).

Sometimes history can be very revealing. The same mentality that wishes to spend money on public transport such as railways as opposed to private transport systems, or renationalising the utility companies such as National Grid which is also on the agenda, shows the same defects.

The above might be controversial, but I have not even mentioned Brexit yet. Will the Labour Party support another referendum as some hope and Corbyn is still hedging his bets over? I hope not because I think the electorate is mightily fed up with the subject. In politics, as in business, you should take decisions and then move on. Going back and refighting old battles is not the way to succeed. All we should be debating is the form of Britain’s relationship with the EU after Brexit.

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

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AIC Calls for KIDs to be Suspended

The Association of Investment Companies (AIC) have called for KIDs to be suspended. KIDs are those documents devised by the EU that were aimed at giving basic information on investment funds – and that includes investment trusts which the AIC represents.

It was a typical piece of badly implemented EU regulation even if the motive was worthy. But KIDs give a very misleading view of likely returns from investment funds. Whoever designed the performance rating system clearly had little experience of financial markets, and neither did they try it out to see what the results would be in practice. Similarly, if they had bothered to consult the AIC or other bodies representing collective funds, or experienced investors as represented by ShareSoc, they would have realised how misleading the results might be.

It also imposes costs on investment managers and on brokers who have to ensure their clients have read the KID before investing – even if they are already holding the fund/shares or have invested in it previously. This means for on-line brokers we now get a tick box that we have to click on which is simply tedious. I just click on them automatically because if I intend to buy an investment trust there is a great deal of information available elsewhere in the UK and the KID does not add anything of use in my opinion.

I think KIDs should be scrapped rather than just suspended. They serve little useful purpose and just add a costly bureaucratic overhead. This is the kind of nonsense that Brexit supporters are keen to get rid off when we do finally get out of the EU monster. But will we if Mrs May gets her way?

The AIC press release is here if you want more information: https://www.theaic.co.uk/aic/news/press-releases/aic-calls-for-kids-to-be-suspended

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

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Trump Impeachment and No Deal Brexit Planning

Donald Trump has suggested that if he was impeached the stock market would crash and everyone would become poorer. And make no mistake, if the US market crashes then so will other worldwide stock markets including the UK as there is a high correlation between international stock markets.

Is that likely if he was impeached? No it is not. Stock markets can be remarkably immune to political crises. Just look at the negligible impact of the turmoil in the UK as politicians debate Brexit and there is the major threat of a very left-wing Government. What moves stock markets is economic crises, not political ones. Changing the US head of state would have little impact on the US economy.

In any case, the chance of impeachment looks relatively low. Paying hush money to past contacts is not a crime unless campaign funds were misused which currently appears unproven.

In the short term there is perhaps more threat to the UK stock market from a “no deal” Brexit. Having had a quick read of the papers published yesterday by the Government on planning for such, I am not panicking (see https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/how-to-prepare-if-the-uk-leaves-the-eu-with-no-deal#money-and-tax ). The regulatory issues can be accommodated without too much difficulty. What concerns me more is that if customs facilities are not improved well in advance, we might have long queues of vehicles on the motorways here in Kent.

Meanwhile Chancellor Philip Hammond has been stirring the Brexit debate pot with a letter to the Treasury Select Committee which includes this statement: “This January provisional analysis estimated that in a no deal/WTO scenario GDP would be 7.7% lower (range 5.0%-10.3%) relative to a status quo baseline. This represents the potential expected static state around 15 years out from the exit point.”

Anyone who thinks they can forecast the economy so far as 15 years ahead is plain bonkers in my opinion. Economists don’t manage to accurately forecast the UK economy one year ahead let alone 15. Such long-range forecasts are always based on numerous assumptions, most of which are undermined by unforeseen events which have not been taken into account. The Chancellor also forecast that Government borrowing might increase by £80 billion a year because of the reduced GDP by 2033 unless spending or taxation was changed. All this looks like scaremongering to me of the worst kind.

I may favour doing a deal with the EU along the lines of Mrs May’s proposals to assist with trade, but having a no-deal Brexit does not scare me.

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

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Shareholder Voting and Financial Times Generosity

Anyone using an on-line investment platform will be aware that your shares are normally held in a nominee account (i.e. you do not own them, your broker does – you are only the “beneficial owner”). ShareSoc has long campaigned for reform of this system because it usually results in you not being able to vote your shares at General Meetings, and you are unlikely to be sent information such as Annual Reports. You are effectively disenfranchised and the lack of voting by private shareholders undermines good corporate governance. Platforms can enable you to vote by submitting proxy votes on your behalf, but many do not offer this facility.

Last week the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) published some information that helps you to get a vote. They showed which platforms provide such voting facilities. See https://www.theaic.co.uk/aic/news/press-releases/aic-releases-information-to-help-shareholders-vote-on-platforms for the details. Note though that some may permit it but often without providing an easy to use system of voting.

Ian Sayers of the AIC had this to say: “We need all platforms to offer a simple, online solution that means that shareholders get the information they need on resolutions affecting the company and can exercise their democratic rights at a click of a button. In the meantime, investors should consider whether and how they can vote their shares as part of their decision over which platform to use.”

One can only agree with his sentiment on this. The solution is to reform the laws and regulations in this area, and ideally have all shareholders on the share register of companies. But in the meantime, it’s worth reviewing the AIC list when choosing a platform to use.

Another item of news last week was a report from Reuters that a group of Financial Times journalists have complained about the pay of their CEO John Ridding. He earned £2.55 million pounds in 2017. The group led by an NUJ representative have written to their colleagues around the world saying the pay was absurdly high and that he should give some of it back to lowly paid staff.

Comment: Pay is escalating all over in the business world and this is just another example of outrageous pay inflation among senior management. The journalists’ initiative is to be applauded. As a daily reader of the Financial Times, I also have concerns that the CEO is not doing a great job either than might justify these gazillions. In the last couple of years, since the acquisition of the FT by Nikkei, the content of the paper has substantially changed.

It still publishes very good in-depth analyses of financial issues – for example, the review of accounting and audit standards headlined “Setting Flawed Standards” on Thursday which is well worth reading. But it has taken a very pro-EU and pro-Remainer political stance with numerous articles and published letters with a highly political slant. At the weekends we have to suffer from ex-sports journalist Simon Kuper’s views on that subject. He may know a lot about football but his views on UK politics and those who support Brexit seem very ill-informed.

Coverage of hard news on companies is also now very patchy, with more on the politics of foreign nations and on social issues. The FT needs to get back to reporting on financial matters and cut back on the political polemics.

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

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Learning Technologies AGM and Brexit

I went to the Learning Technologies (LTG) Annual General Meeting yesterday, only to find my son Alex was there also (we both hold the shares). So we did a joint report which can be found on the ShareSoc Members Network. What follows are a few particularly interesting points from it.

LTG was a workplace digital learning solutions provider up to the beginning of last month when it announced it was to buy PeopleFluent – a cloud based talent management platform. Chief executive Jonathan Satchell described the deal as “transformative” for LTG’s US presence and that is surely the case. He also noted that “learning and talent are closely aligned” with cross-selling opportunities adding possibilities for further growth.

When the formal business was considered the first resolution was to accept the annual accounts and directors report. This had a surprise vote of 56 million proxies against (12%). I asked why the large vote against a resolution that normally gets a high percentage “yes” vote. Chief exec Jonathan Satchell replied that ISS (a proxy advisory firm) had recommended shareholders vote against the resolution on the grounds that there was insufficient disclosure in the Directors remuneration report, and shareholders had not been given a chance to vote on directors’ remuneration. Jon felt the complaint by ISS was overblown, but that LTG had discussed the issue with ISS and will look to improve disclosure next year. Jon noted it was not necessary to hold a vote on remuneration although I pointed out it was preferable to do so and many AIM companies did have remuneration votes. ISS had also noted that the Chairman Andrew Brode was on the remuneration committee, which they didn’t like. Jon did say that Andrew would be more than willing to give this role up and so in the coming year Jon said to expect a change on this committee.

A shareholder asked if the £13.3m Civil Service contract was a one off. Jon replied that there is scope for a one year extension to the contract but at the moment the accounts are based on the contract ending with no extension.

I asked about the PeopleFluent acquisition and questioned the use of a “cash box” transaction as this ignores shareholder votes in prior resolutions. A cash box placing allows a company to issue new shares by bypassing pre-emption requirements – meaning without shareholder approval. It works by a company forming a new subsidiary into which it puts cash via a placing and then buys that shell, paying with shares priced at whatever level it deems suitable. In effect it sidesteps the legal requirements of Company Law, and the resolutions previously passed by shareholders re share issuance.

Jon replied that LTG was up against US private equity and it was felt this was the best way to get the right amount of funds needed in a timely fashion to give the highest quality offer LTG could make. Comment: with the Chairman and CEO holding over 45% of the shares any vote would have surely gone through so it may not be so prejudicial to shareholders interests. But it sets a bad legal precedent as I think such transactions should be made illegal. Apparently Numis, their Nomad/Broker, suggested they do this. Otherwise it was a placing with no open offer which prejudices private shareholders although the discount to the previous share price was minor.]

Jon talked about the recent Pluralsight IPO, a similar US business. The company lost $90m on $160m revenue. Valuation $2Billion. Comment: this is obviously a “hot” sector for investors.

Summary: The enthusiasm of the CEO for the future prospects of the business were very evident and this seems to have been communicated to shareholders in recent weeks. The share price has been motoring upwards so it’s now on a prospective p/e of 44 according to Stockopedia. Certainly the high recurring revenue feature of the PeopleFluent business is positive as I always like companies with high recurring revenues and I said that in the meeting. However there are significant risks in such a major acquisition of a US business where there may be cultural and management style differences. The business also seems to have some difficulties and they have already be making some management changes.

In addition to that the large civil service contract in the UK will probably not be extended – or at most by a year – so historic revenue may not be representative of future revenue, and in addition the change to adopt IFRS 15 (see page 12 of the Annual Report) will impact 2018 financial figures. The corporate governance and the way the placing was done are also negatives. In summary there are a number of negative aspects in this business and potential high risks from the acquisitions that have been made (not just the latest one). The enthusiasm of investors for this business might be ignoring the substantial risks now associated with it so investors should keep a close eye on the progress of the acquisitions and their associated restructuring.

But as always, I learned a lot about this business and the individuals involved from attending the AGM. There were less than a dozen ordinary shareholders at the meeting which is disappointing given the opportunity it provides to quiz the management.

Brexit: I have not said much on the hot topic of Brexit of late although it’s no secret that I am generally in favour of it. The regulations that have come out of Europe such as MIFID II, the Shareholder Rights Directive and GDPR might have had good intentions behind them but in practice the detail regulations that result have been horribly complex and bureaucratic. The result has been very high costs imposed on many businesses and often with ineffective results. The key problem has been bureaucrats in Brussels with little knowledge of the real world and the business environment in the UK designing regulations without adequate consultation (or ignoring feedback submitted) and producing gobbledygook which few people understand. GDPR had positive objectives but the law of unintended consequences has resulted in people receiving hundreds of pointless emails.

The latest example of ridiculous claims of the cost of Brexit was the statement by Jon Thompson the head of HMRC that the “maximum facilitation” (Max Fac) option could cost UK businesses as much as £20 billion per year. This is apparently based on the cost of filling out customs declarations (200 million per annum at a cost of £32.50 each, plus other form filling according to the FT). This seems to assume that forms are filled out manually when in reality that can be done by computer software surely. Business might also look to reduce the costs by bulking up orders, or simply choosing not to export or import, i.e. to do business in different ways or with different people.

Whether Max Fac is a sensible option it’s difficult to say without a lot more evidence but staying in the Customs Union simply to avoid a hard border in Ireland does not seem to make sense because it means our trading policies and practices will be dictated by the EU. That’s not what people voted for in Brexit. People voted for political and governmental independence. Many people accept there may be some extra cost involved as a result but scare stories about the costs are not helpful.

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

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