One of ShareSoc’s objects is “to ensure equal treatment for all shareholders”. We are therefore rather disappointed when, as happens all too frequently, companies issue announcements like the one from Crest Nicholson today: http://www.investegate.co.uk/crest-nicholson-hdgs–crst-/rns/analyst—investor-day/201706270700022028J/
The announcement was issued at 7am this morning and announces an event for analysts and investors taking place on the same day. It is clear that this event is not open to ordinary individual shareholders. Selected analysts and favoured institutional shareholders will undoubtedly have been invited well in advance. The company deigns to make the presentation it is providing to those delegates available to others at 5pm today, long after the delegates will have seen and digested it.
Things should not and do not have to be this way. I have written an extensive article for ShareSoc’s Informer newsletter, which will appear in the next edition, to be published shortly, on Harbourvest’s (HVPE) investor day, which was announced to all investors well in advance and was highly informative. Similarly, yesterday, Staffline (STAF) announced an interim results presentation open to all investors.
We applaud this spirit of openness and condemn those companies that focus their investor relations effort on “the chosen few”.
Make sure you have joined ShareSoc if you would like to receive our monthly newsletter and read my article. Increasing our membership adds weight to our arguments with the “powers that be” to force change that levels the playing field for the individual investor.
We are pressing the British government to introduce a UK equivalent of “Regulation FD“, which applies in the US and enforces fair disclosure to ALL shareholders.
DISCLOSURE: I hold shares in all three companies mentioned in this post.
Mark Bentley
I suggest ShareSoc’s Chairman should write to the FCA about this, and request a meeting. There was an interesting article in the FT on Monday about how many times fund managers had met the head of the FCA in the last year or so – many times in reality. While the consumers of investment services had not met him once so far as I am aware.