Tag: Nominee Accounts

IPOs, Platforms, Growth Stocks and Shareholder Rights

I agreed with FT writer Neil Collins in a previous article when discussing the prospective IPO of Aston Martin (AML) – “never buy a share in an initial public offering” he suggested because those who are selling know more about the stock than you do. We were certainly right about that company because the share price is now 24% below the IPO price.

Smithson Investment Trust (SSON) did rather better on its first day of trading on Friday, moving to a 2% premium. That’s barely enough to have made it worth stagging the issue though. But I think it will be unlikely to outperform its benchmark in the first year simply because as the largest ever investment trust launch it might have great difficulty investing all the cash quickly enough. On the other hand, if the market continues to decline, holding mainly cash might be an advantage.

One company that is lining up for a prospective IPO is AJ Bell who operate the Youinvest investment platform. They reported positive numbers for the year ending September recently but I suspect the IPO may be delayed given recent stock market conditions. One symptom of this is perhaps their rather surprising recent missive to their clients that discouraged some people from investing in the stock market. This is what it said: “In this year’s annual survey we had a small number of customers who identified themselves as ‘security seekers’, which means, ‘I am an inexperienced investor and I do not like the idea of risking my money and would prefer to invest in cash deposits’. If this description sounds like you, please consider whether an AJ Bell Youinvest account is right for you. If in doubt, you should consult a suitably qualified financial adviser”. It rather suggests that a number of people have moved into stock market investment after a long bull run and have not considered the risks of short-term declines in the market.

An interesting article was published on another platform operator, Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.), in this week’s Investors Chronicle. Phil Oakley took apart the business and showed where it was generating most of its profits – and it is undoubtedly highly profitable. Apart from the competitive advantage of scale and good IT systems it enjoys, it also benefits from promoting investment in funds, and running its own funds in addition. The charging structure of funds that it offers means it makes large amounts of money from clients who invest mainly in funds – for example £3,000 per annum on a £1 million SIPP portfolio. Other platforms have similar charging structures, but on Youinvest Mr Oakley suggested the charges on such a portfolio might be half.

His very revealing comment was this: “It is not difficult to see how this is not a particularly good deal for customers. It’s the main reason why I don’t own funds at all”. That goes for me also in terms of investing in open-ended funds via platforms.

Hargreaves Lansdown has been one of those typical growth stocks that do well in bull markets. But with the recent market malaise it has fallen 20% in the past month. Even so it is still on a prospective p/e of over 30. I have never invested in the stock because I was not convinced that it had real barriers to competition and always seemed rather expensive. Stockbroking platforms don’t seem greatly differentiated to me and most give a competent and reliable service from my experience. Price competition should be a lot fiercer in this market than it currently appears to be.

Almost all growth stocks in my portfolio have suffered in the last few weeks as investors have moved into cash, or more defensive stocks such as property. One favourite of private investors has been Renishaw (RSW) but that has fallen 35% since July with another jerk down last week. The company issued a trading statement last week that reported revenue growth of 8% but a decline in profits for the first quarter due to heavy short-term investment in “people and infrastructure”. According to a report in the FT Stifel downgraded the company to a “sell” based on signs that demand from Asian electronics and robotics makers has weakened. But has the growth story at this company really changed? On a prospective p/e now of about 20, it’s not looking nearly as expensive as it has done of late. The same applies to many other growth companies I hold and I still think investing in companies with growing revenues and profits in growing markets makes a lot more sense than investing in old economy businesses.

Shareholder rights have been a long-standing interest of mine. It is good to see that the Daily Mail has launched a campaign on that subject – see https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-6295877/We-launch-campaign-savers-shares-online-fair-say-company-votes.html .

They are concentrating on the issue of giving shareholders in nominee accounts a vote after the recent furore over the vote at Unilever. But nominee account users lose other rights as well because they are not “members” of the company and on the share register. In reality “shareholders” in nominee accounts are not legally shareholders and that is a very dubious position to be in – for example if your stockbroker goes out of business. In addition it means other shareholders cannot communicate with you to express their concerns about the activities of the company which you own. The only proper solution is to reform the whole system of share registration so all shareholders are on the share register of the company. Nominee accounts only became widespread when it was necessary to support on-line broking platforms. But there are many better ways to do that. We just need a modern, electronic (i.e. dematerialised) share registration system.

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

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A Bad Day in the Market, but Good News from Unilever and BEIS

It was a bad day in the market yesterday, with the FTSE All-Share falling over 1%. This seems to have been driven by a sell off in bonds. Equity prices are usually linked to bond prices simply because as bond yields rise from a fall in bond prices, it becomes more attractive to hold bonds relative to equities. That particularly applies to shares that are “bond proxies”, i.e. ones bought because of their high yields for income seeking investors.

These changes have been driven by the realisation that the US economy is booming. The Federal Reserve has already raised US interest rates and is therefore likely to do so again if the US economy continues to race ahead. But a booming US economy is of course good news for many companies. Higher interest rates may mean that some companies pay more on their debt but that it a longer-term impact and many “new economy” companies do not have any debt.

When markets are falling in general, there is no place to hide. My over-diversified portfolio, mainly in UK small cap stocks, fell about 1%. Not every share declined but the majority did. It affected particularly highly rated, go-go stocks such as Fevertree (FEVR) which was down 8% yesterday. I am glad I now only have a nominal holding in the company. But also affected were many investment trusts which I hold as their typical low liquidity compounded by a few private investors panicking drove down the prices. Some fell more than the underlying shares they hold.

Property companies have also been affected as interest rates have an impact on their business model, despite the fact many have locked in low rates on long-term debt. Safestore (SAFE) for example was down 3.9% yesterday (I hold it).

The share price declines spread like a contagion to many other stocks who should be positively affected by a booming US economy and not impacted by higher interest rates. The rise in interest rates is hardly a surprise though it has been well signaled in advance in both the US and UK. It was unrealistic to expect the historically exceptional low interest rates to continue forever.

My reaction when there is carnage in the stock market is to stand back and wait to see whether it develops into a trend or is simply a short-term blip. There can be buying opportunities if the reaction to economic news is too severe. But interest rates are nowhere near low enough yet to cause me to abandon the stock market and move into bonds. I feel there is more destruction to come in the latter. 

Unilever and Enfranchising Nominee Shareholders

Today we have some good news from Unilever. They have backed down on their proposal to merge their dual legal structure. The announcement said “We have had an extensive period of engagement with shareholders and have received widespread support for the principle behind simplification. However, we recognise that the proposal has not received support from a significant group of shareholders and therefore consider it appropriate to withdraw”.

There was opposition from both individual shareholders and institutions in the UK and there was a risk that they might fail on the Court hearing vote to gain enough support. It’s always good when shareholders make their voice heard, although it still leaves the issue that shareholders in nominee accounts were likely to be disenfranchised.

The good news in that regard is that I have received a letter today from the BEIS Department which says “BEIS is sponsoring a project by the Law Commission to examine the UK system of intermediated securities”. I will try and find out more, but don’t get too excited – it might not report before 2020!

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

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Beaufort Settlement Improved, But…..

It’s good news that PWC have revised their proposals for the administration of Beaufort and the return of client assets. No doubt due to the efforts of ShareSoc and others. But it still leaves many issues that need properly tackling. These are:

  1. The Special Administration Regulations that allow client assets to be used to cover the costs of the administration. Client assets should be ring fenced and they are what they are called – client assets not assets of the broker or bank.
  2. The fact that most investors now have to use nominee accounts and they are therefore not the legal owner of the shares they hold. We need a new electronic “name on register” system and the Companies Act reformed to reflect the realities of modern share trading.
  3. The UK needs to adopt the Shareholder Rights directive as intended, so that those in nominee accounts have full rights. The “beneficial owners” are the “shareholders”, not the nominee account operator.

We must not let these matters get kicked into the long grass yet again due to the reluctance of politicians and the civil service to tackle complex issues.

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

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Protecting Yourself Against Administrations

Investors now know that when your stockbroker goes into administration, your assets are not secure (or “ring fenced” as your contract with them often says) because they can be seized under the Special Administration Regulations by the administrator to pay their costs. This has become clear from the Beaufort case. That means many investors are facing losses because Beaufort client accounts, like most stockbroking accounts now, were nominee accounts with the shares registered in the name of Beaufort.

There are two possible ways to protect your assets: 1) Hold your shares in the form of paper share certificates – not the most convenient format for trading and expensive to do so even if you can find a broker still willing to handle them; or 2) Hold your shares in a personal crest account, i.e. a “Sponsored Crest” account where your broker acts as the sponsor but the shares are registered in your name and traded electronically.

Some doubts arose in my mind about whether the latter would actually provide the protection required. For example, would an administrator be able to transfer the shares into their name, or stop the transfer of the account and hence the holdings to another broker? So here are the answers provided by Killik & Co who. It provides some reassurance:

In order for a participant to change Sponsor, CREST require:  

  • For those Participants that are already Sponsored, 3 letters as follows – – One from the existing Sponsor stating they are happy for the Participant(s) to move away from them on a set date. – One from the Participant(s) requesting to move Sponsors on a set date. – One from the new Sponsor stating they are happy to take over sponsorship of the Participant on a set date.
  • However, our understanding is that, where the Sponsor is in administration, a letter is not required by the existing Sponsor.  We believe it would be possible therefore, for the sponsored member to instruct another Sponsor to take on the sponsorship of the account.  Note that CREST is not a custodian or a depository and the shares are actually held by the Sponsor, but in the name of the legal owner. 

Regarding the question of the ability of the administrator to issue instructions on the stocks or transfer them into their own nominee name, our understanding is that the administrator has no rights over the securities held in the name of the legal owner as specified on the legal register. 

This information is provided by Killik & Co to the best of their knowledge and belief. For more information contact Gregory Smith on 0207-337-0409.

There are few brokers that still offer personal crest accounts (Killik & Co are one of them), but that still leaves the problem that ISAs and SIPPs have to be held in nominee accounts. Until the administration legislation is reformed, the only solutions for them are to open multiple broker accounts so that no one of them contains assets worth more than £50,000 (the limited covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme) or to pick a broker which is large enough and with a balance sheet that is strong enough that it is unlikely to go into administration. Having multiple broker accounts can be wise for other reasons than the risk of administration even if it can make life very complicated and possibly less secure – for example IT meltdowns in financial services companies are not uncommon (RBS and TSB are examples). It can be very frustrating not to be able to trade even for a few minutes (as happened this morning with the LSE due to a technology problem) let alone days or even weeks as Beaufort clients are suffering.

It is perhaps unfortunate that these risks might make for an anti-competitive stockbroking market. Folks may be very reluctant to sign up with new brokers who have a limited track-record.

But we really do need some reform of the insolvency rules to stop administrators grabbing client assets, a new electronic “name on register” system that protects ownership to replace the nominee system (something I have been campaigning on for years), and the ability to hold ISA and SIPP holdings in our own name.

ShareSoc are running a campaign on the Beaufort case (see https://www.sharesoc.org/campaigns/beaufort-client-campaign/ ) and have also asked anyone who is concerned about this issue, as all stock market investors should be, to write to their M.P.s. Please do so. Only that way will we get political action on these issues. ShareSoc can provide a template letter you can use.

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

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