All the union news that's fit to blog...
Given the renewed interest in financial market activity around mergers and acquisitions, I thought it might be interesting to have a look at the regulatory disclosures for one of the funds that has caught my eye lately.
I hadn’t heard of Sand Grove Ca…Read more…
With the Melrose bid for GKN almost complete, our old friends Elliott are back in the news again, this time targeting Whitbread, where it looks like they will be pushing for Costa to be spun off. Cue lots of headlines, many of them identifying Elliott’…Read more…
Proxy advisors and shareholders endorse voting against non-independent ICTSI Directors in line with ITF recommendationsGlobal proxy advisors and shareholders have recommended voting against the re-election of non-independent Directors of Filipino port …Read more…
The Institute of Economic Affairs has stuck a report out today on the Melrose bid for GKN. Very broadly it says that there is nothing to get worked up about. Most importantly, a headline message is “leave it to the shareholders”
Interestingly, the rep…Read more…
Belated realised that I never blogged about How Will Capitalism End by Wolfgang Streeck, which I read some time last year. There are loads of interesting ideas in there, even if don’t agree with some of it. Anyway, here’s a little excerpt from the intr…Read more…
Simon Wren-Lewis has a good blog up on Social Europe on the mistakes that centrists make. I’ve been thinking along similar lines, albeit with the aid of other people…!
1. Centrism is failing because is attacking its opponents morally rather than pol…Read more…
Here are a couple of things I noticed over the past few days. Anyone sharing my interest in this should have a read of John Collingridge’s great piece looking at the end of the bid process. There are some really interesting nuggets in there.
For examp…Read more…
Few things have made me as angry recently as the Melrose takeover bid for GKN. This bid was opposed by a very wide group – workers, unions, GKN customers, Labour, some Tories, the Daily Mail, most of the large long-term GKN shareholders – yet it got ov…Read more…
Yesterday afternoon, Elliott Advisers announced that it plans to support the Melrose bid for GKN. This was duly reported, without much scrutiny, as support for Melrose from GKN’s second largest shareholder.
Actually it’s more complicated than that. In…Read more…
As you’ll have noticed, I’ve been following the Melrose bid for GKN with interest. In particular I’ve been looking at hedge fund activity around the bid, and the short Melrose / long GKN arbitrage trade. As I’ve blogged previously, one of the key playe…Read more…
ITF recommends shareholders vote against ICTSI directorsThe International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) today released a shareholder advisory note detailing governance issues at International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI). 15/03/2…Read more…
So it’s been quite a few days in terms of GKN’s continued attempt to fend of Melrose Industries’ hostile bid.
Last week saw Melrose get overwhelming shareholder approval for its bid. It will be interesting to dig into Q1 voting disclosures once they a…Read more…
A month or so back, I blogged that I had found several hedge funds using similar blurb in their Stewardship Code statements. This was off the back of digging into Carillion a bit. Then, when I looked a bit deeper at the GKN / Melrose bid, I found more …Read more…
1. There are two different pieces about shareholder primacy, and why it might be a bad idea, in the FT today. One from the City editor of the FT and one from Rana Foroohar. Meanwhile Theresa May (remember her?) has criticised directors getting paid in …Read more…
Quite a lot of news on the Melrose bid for GKN today.
Unite, which is campaigning strongly against the bid, held a rally and series of meetings at parliament. It is pleasing to see that a lot of Labour MPs are speaking out against the bid too, and it …Read more…
The Melrose bid for GKN is currently subject to a lot of scrutiny, and is actively being campaigned against by Unite.
What hasn’t attracted much scrutiny so far (as far as I am aware) is the extent of speculative activity that is occurring, and as suc…Read more…
Quick plug for a book that will be right up your right if you find my blog interesting… I’ll get a copy and review it on here once I’ve read it….
When Steven Burd, CEO of the supermarket chain Safeway, cut wages and benefits, starting a five-month …Read more…
I’ve been reading Enough Said by Mark Thompson, which is a thoughtful take on political language, and more generally the relationship between the public, politics and the media. I have some minor gripes already, but overall it is well worth a read.
I’…Read more…
I’ve been thinking a bit lately about trying to be a bit more constructive in my approach to corporate governance and “responsible investment”. As anyone who has followed my blog for a while will know, I am thoroughly disenchanted with the 1990s model …Read more…
In a move that should surprise no-one, the two parliamentary committees looking into the Carillion collapse have written to some of the companies major shareholders. Among the things that MPs want to know are the extent to which shareholders engaged wi…Read more…