The excerpt below is from For A Left Populism. I found the book a bit underwhelming to be honest, but the idea of approaching politics as a radicalisation of democracy appeals to me. I’m particularly interested in how this would play out in corp gov / …Read more…
Severn Trent dividends
Another day, another attack on a utility company for putting its investors first….
Press release – Embargoed until 00:01 Thursday July 26, 2018
SEVERN TRENT SHAREHOLDERS MAKE £1.1 BILLION AS BILLIONS OF LITRES WASTED, GMB REVEALS
Dividends and inter…Read more…
Where’s Ryanair’s annual report?
UPDATE: it’s out.
In recent history, Ryanair has usually published its annual report a day or two after releasing its Q1 figures.
In 2017, the day after:
In 2016, the day after:
In 2015, 3 days after:
In 2014, the day after:
In 201…Read more…
Hedge funds and Sky
I thought I’d have another quick look at hedge fund activity around the bidding war for Sky PLC. This looks like it could be quite a profitable trade (especially after several got burnt on Qualcomm / NXP).
As before, some old favourites are in the lis…Read more…
Elias Canetti, centrist hegemony etc
I really like this (as quoted in this):
No-one has ever really believed that the majority decision is necessarily the wiser one because it has received the greater number of votes. It is will against will as in war. Each is convinced that right and rea…Read more…
F**k business
Before his latest piece of self-promotion, Boris Johnson had been in the news for making an interesting remark – “Fuck business” – in a conversation about the attitudes of corporates towards Brexit. Though it’s a few weeks back now, it seems this remar…Read more…
Shareholder primacy and utilities
A theme I think anyone with an interest in corporate governance should keep an eye on is the way that the interests of investors in a firm in relation to others are portrayed in financial media and elsewhere.
Under the 1990s model it was common to see…Read more…
Short stuff
Like everyone does, I spent a bit of my spare time yesterday having a quick trawl through the FCA’s list of disclosed short positions. Quite often these fishing trips end up leaving me empty handed, but this time I stumbled on something interesting.
Investors and labour – gaps, biases, conflicts
I’ve had a couple of interesting conversations this week about how a lot of investors (even those with some ESG credentials) actually view workers. So this is a bit of a splurge of thoughts.
A first over-arching point is that is seems like quite a few…Read more…
Ryanair: just a bit of fun
I dug the stats out of the Ryanair annual reports when it used to disclose the split between direct hire and agency flight crew. The first graph has the real data, the second includes projected numbers for 2012-2017 if the direct hires stayed at the sa…Read more…
Ryanair & employment-related disclosures
As a lot of people in my world know, there are a number of initiatives underway to try to improve disclosure by companies of information related to employment practices. This is in response to blow-ups at a number of companies that have had controversi…Read more…
"Open vs Closed"
If it’s not obvious, let me be clear that I really hate the suggestion that the “real” divide in politics these days is “open” v “closed”. In purely linguistic terms it is such an obviously loaded division – doors that are “closed” are bad, a business …Read more…
Politico commentary
This (from this) is pretty good on the commentariat:
“[J]ournalists weren’t consciously deciding the equilibrium. The journalists were writing ‘serious’ articles, i.e. articles about Alice and Bob rather than Carol. The equilibrium consisted of the jou…Read more…
Just one more thing about hedge funds…
In the middle of the Melrose bid for GKN there was a point when the merger arb activity seemed to be falling back. Specifically, the total shorts in Melrose in the FCA’s list started dropping (having been building up steadily up till that point). And o…Read more…
NEX Group takeover & derivatives
Another takeover, another example of hedge funds piling in using derivatives. In this case its NEX Group, which is being taken over by US-listed CME Group. It’s not hostile so it went to a vote and got a strong thumbs up.
I find this one interesting a…Read more…
Ownership and control
Here’s something I wrote for work…
Ownership and control
If you’re a delivery driver whose movements are monitored remotely, or doing gig work through a platform like Uber or Deliveroo, you’re already seeing the impact of technology on work. Million…Read more…
More hedge fund shenanigans
1. I had a quick Google to see if there are any more funds that use the generic blurb I’ve found in dozens of cases to avoid compliance with the Stewardship Code. And… yes there are.
Curam Capital Management:
Curam Capital Management LLP (the “Firm…Read more…
Politicised investment decisions
If you’ve spent any time trying to get pension funds to take account of labour issues, or any other social or environmental issue for that matter, at some stage you will have been on the receiving end of the need not to politicise investment decisions….Read more…
Chantal Mouffe again
I don’t agree with everything she says, but a lot of it is on the money:
Every order is the temporary and precarious articulation of contingent practices. The frontier between the social and the political is essentially unstable and requires constant d…Read more…
A defence of capital strategies as a tactic for unions
There have been a few bits and pieces recently that I have read that critique capital strategies from a labour movement perspective. I think these are generally helpful, and having worked in this field for a long time, I share some of the critical view…Read more…