Another ShareSoc Informer Newsletter was published last week and there are several good articles in it. One particularly worth reading is a commentary on the Digitisation Taskforce Final Report. It is very critical, as I have been, on the final report on how to get rid of paper share certificates.
Everyone wishes to do that and it is long overdue but the proposals will undermine shareholder rights and will frustrate shareholder activism. But it is good that ShareSoc is representing individual shareholders in this way.
You can obtain notifications of new posts in future by following me on Twitter (now “X”) – see https://x.com/RogerWLawson where new blog posts are usually mentioned.
I have just received the latest ShareSoc newsletter and it is not just a bumper edition but with a number of good articles it shows how professional ShareSoc has now become. It’s now an essential read for all private investors.
For example there is a good article on the merits of shareholder litigation. It is not always wise for shareholders to pursue redress for alleged failings of company or fund management because even if the case is proven any recompense might come out of their own shareholder funds.
But ShareSoc is supporting a legal claim pursued by RGL against Hargreaves Lansdown who continued to recommend the Woodford Equity Income Fund to their clients long after they should have ceased to do so – see https://woodfordlitigation.com/ . Meanwhile Neil Woodford is trying to rebuild his reputation by publishing articles on “Woodford Views” and his latest apologia for the failure of the Equity Income Fund blames Link for suspending the fund without notice and without reason. That may be his view but mine is that holding illiquid small cap speculative shares in such an open-ended fund was bound to be a recipe for disaster.
I never held any of the Woodford funds I am always wary of “star” fund managers. Nick Train is the latest one to come a cropper. Past good performance tends not to persist. Fund managers can have a good performance run by piling into shares while momentum effects and “follow the leader” can mean out-performance against indices for a while.
There is a useful article on DG19 in the ShareSoc newsletter where Paul de Gruchy says “Triple Point [the fund manager] has lost hundreds of millions investing in assets that have not, as a class, slumped in value. It seems to me that it has been the manager’s incompetence and hubris that has done for DGI9. That Triple Point took significant fees based on an alleged NAV of 79p at a time the market was valuing the company at 20p is shocking. Investors have suffered here. There is no merit in the company itself being investigated; it is the manager and the valuers, who sucked up tens of millions in fees, that are responsible”. It certainly looks like a case worth pursuing.
Lastly there is an article on the Digitisation Taskforce who are due to report soon on reforming the UK’s shareholding framework. We certainly need to tackle the loss of shareholder rights from the use of nominee accounts. But at least AJ Bell are making it easier for their clients to vote their shares – see article on page 29.
There is one defect in the ShareSoc newsletter. It omits the link to my submission on the consultation on expanding IHT to cover unused pension funds. It is here:
This may be my last blog post before Xmas so have a good festive season. One of my Christmas presents is a new keyboard. I regularly wear out the keys after two years. Even my latest Rii keyboard which has backlit keys now needs renewing.
You can obtain notifications of new posts in future by following me on Twitter (now “X”) – see https://x.com/RogerWLawson where new blog posts are usually mentioned.
