Plus Markets Group Share Discussion Threads

[harry f] 06/2/2013 08:19

have you ever registered with these guys pjw? (duedil)

https://www.duedil.com/company/OC379777/fth-investments-llp/people

remember you once said tony's front room is a bit crowded?

well it looks like dfs didn't have a set of 15 chairs on the sale so it's now down to just him and misra.

[harry f] 29/1/2013 11:18

thanks pjw.

its a shame but thats the legacy we were left with. booms and busts are cyclical and the bigger the former the bigger the latter. the 1929 wall st crash is the last great example, along with the japanese bubble in the late 1980's.

as for osbourne recommending him for a knighthood at first it appears gross stupidity but then consider he was installed as fsa chief executive in july 2007 just as the financial crisis broke. i think the preceding 5 years are when the big mistakes were made and maybe he was a man tasked to clean things up? im not defending him at all, or the decision to recommend an knighthood but i feel things aren't as clear cut as they appear.

if you have time have a look at some of the cases mcdermott has taken on, there are a few publicised. she appears to be doing everything she can to sort things out. the ersin mustafa case is a good one and shows how far they go back and in how much detail they investigate things. in some cases the liability the fsa seek for the misdemeanours is far higher than what was initially obtained.



with regards plus, i get these red mists when i see something and it brings it all back. the people who did what they did must clearly understand one thing, that any information which is price sensitive is not owned personally by themselves in their role as company agents but is in fact owned by the company.

so when icap sign a contract with ts (however this is ultimately dressed up it appears to me as this is consideration for the sale of sx), and this is a substantial asset, then that information is company property, and NOT the sole property of the agents of the company, their associates, and related parties. importantly when the ts - forum transaction took place both sides (the buyer and the seller) knew this beyond all doubt and continued with the "trade".

now for these people to know that information, and for somebody like amara who invested £5m in the business and it's currently worth £130k to not know that information is an utter disgrace. without amara's funding in the past it is debatable if PMK would have existed. how do they repay their generous salaries? by doing this. it really is an absolute disgrace; makes me sick in the stomach just thinking about it.

...and there's no point in anybody claiming the chain of events adhered to the rules, or else there wouldnt have been the indefatiguable bashers for over 2 years.


imo, (and it wont be lost on the other side) i feel PLMO at the current share price is derisked now from an investor point of view. the risk as i saw it was legal action (and nothing more) in the first week of december and perhaps in the days/ weeks afterwards. this has not occurred. how much of a risk was this? imo probably moderate despite the merits of the case, but if necessary always one i was personally willing to accept.


as ive said before, realistically any takeover offer from late 2009 - late 2011 here would have needed to be circa 10p a share, thats with things just as they were. but then again due to this occurring what has actually been lost? could a well (or even moderately well) run company have increased in value to 15p/ 20p/ 25p a share or even more over this time? i think so, and i think this should not be overlooked.

[harry f] 29/1/2013 08:23

pjw. when i read things like this there appears to be a clear demarcation between the revised sister bodies of the FSA, called the FCA and PRA.

[harry f] 28/1/2013 19:18

thanks pjw... good work.


harry, and we must remember how close TS came to a "premature end"

"Tony Harrop, Managing Director of Forum Trading Solutions added: "One month ago, the team were looking at a wind-down situation and the premature end of a great solution."

maybe he should have added "...but now thanks to the addition of a substantial contract with icap the value of which shareholders who own the company have no idea about, half the company can now continue as a going concern."

and thats a "management buyout"?

i think there is a more appropriate term which readily springs to mind.



whilst im historically dubious about the conduct of the fsa i believe (or perhaps hope?) that much of the reasoning for the above is due to the potentiall for it leading to a view that the govt is being econominally incompetent. the treasury obviously does not want this.

our case i feel is different and despite whatever spin was put on things at the time nothing can deviate from what transactions really took place.

[harry f] 28/1/2013 18:32

shoulda known really, that's what "raindancer" called it on iii on the 22nd august.

just been looking back at the great shift they put in over on iii in june and before that, just for old times sake.

i need to get one of their crystal balls really, they called it right all the way through back as far as 2010, as did the rest of them.

[harry f] 28/1/2013 17:09

lovely update to the forum website folks, i always find it amazing that essentially the same bunch of people who couldnt manage a half decent website for us in over 2 years can now do an all signing and dancing one now.

more notable imo is the "about us - company history" section. what a lovely graph showing the evolutionary steps the company took on the road to a ..... wait for it.....

"MANAGEMENT LED BUYOUT"

so that's what they call it then?


this is the wiki extract of "MANAGEMENT BUYOUT". i found the overview section especially interesting.

[harry f] 28/1/2013 10:54

DX gone. No surprise.







This RNS alert is brought to you by Digital Look.
RNS Number : 4821W
Polemos PLC
28 January 2013

28 January 2013



Polemos plc

(the "Company")



Re: Disposal of PLUS Derivatives Exchange Limited

The Company announces that, further to the announcement of 19 September 2012 regarding the disposal of PLUS-DX, it has now received agreement from the FSA for the change of control. As a consequence, the Disposal has now completed.

Unless stated otherwise, capitalised terms in this announcement have the same meaning as given in the Company's announcement of 19 September 2012.



For further information, please contact:

Polemos plc

Don Strang


[phone]



N+1 Singer (Nominated Adviser and Broker)

Aubrey Powell / Alex Wright


[phone]







This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

END


DISBPMMTMBITBBJ

[harry f] 28/1/2013 10:11

thumper

no offence intended, sorry if it came across that way. as your well aware i dont fight people who are on the same side as me. the comment's were intended to be thought provoking more than anything.

if the fsa had wanted to say yes all along then why didnt they issue icap with a licence when they applied for one?

...and if the major shareholders clearly made decisions under duress, why would it be any different for the FSA?


my guess is the french bloke is "Wishing life wouldnt be so long" "Devenir Gris".....

.... and i expect a few others feel the same.

[old thumper] 28/1/2013 09:45

harry,

I totally agree with you that amara and rowan had to vote Yes, not too sure why you thought I suggested otherwise.

My suggests as to how Icap got the licence still stands I believe it was agreed over a drink rather than in a open contest between the interested parties.

It will be interesting how the recent developments may have dampened that drink.

Anybody heard anything of the French bloke?

[old thumper] 25/1/2013 07:59

pjw,

In my view the only way the FSA would agreed to allocate a RIE to a company whilst being investigated by the FSA is where it's being told what to do, from a higher "power"

[old thumper] 24/1/2013 17:57

I wonder???

[old thumper] 24/1/2013 17:53

Oh dear, what a shame!

Friction do I sense?

[pjw1956] 24/1/2013 16:56

"Michael Spencer, former Conservative Party treasurer, has slashed political donations by his private investment company IPGL."


"a leaked internal memo from the Financial Services Authority appeared to say that seven out of the 50 Libor investigators were focused on Icap."


Michael Spencer still loves Tory party but he slashes donation

By Sarah Bridge, Financial Mail On Sunday

PUBLISHED: 22:21, 12 January 2013 | UPDATED: 11:28, 18 January 2013


Michael Spencer, former Conservative Party treasurer, has slashed political donations by his private investment company IPGL.

Donations to the Tories in the latest financial year fell to just £82,000, down from £436,000 the previous year and £1million the year before.

However, Matt Wreford, chief executive of IPGL, which has stakes in the global broking giant ICAP, spread-betting firm City Index and other businesses including smartphone gambling app Probability, denied that this was a sign that Spencer had fallen out of love with the party.

'When he was treasurer he led from the front in making donations and obviously the money is more needed in election years than between elections,' he said.

'He continues to speak of David Cameron in the highest terms.'

IPGL posted pre-tax profits of £49.7million on turnover of £100.5million for the year to March.

Wreford said it had been 'phenomenally successful', with some of its investments, particularly in the sale of its stake in Origin Asset Management, which netted £27.5million on an investment of £4million.

Turnover at broker ICAP, in which IPGL has a 16 per cent stake, fell by three per cent to £1.7billion, but profits were up one per cent to £354million.

Wreford said IPGL was already eyeing up future investments, possibly in the trade financing and invoice discounting sector.

'It's the real nuts and bolts of traditional banking so we see a lot of opportunity in that sector,' he said.

The secret of IPGL's success, he added, was investing in good management teams in people-focused businesses.

'All our businesses are on or above expectations and in the market generally things are improving as there isn't that deep pervading sense of fear which paralyses companies,' he said.

'But the financial services environment is changing a lot and if you don't specialise in that space it can be very complicated.'

However, not everything was rosy in the IPGL portfolio and Wreford had to step in to turn round emerging markets broker Exotix, which needed restructuring in the year.

The company donated £70,000 to charity last year, though ICAP also runs a hugely successful charity day each year in which a day's profits are donated.

Last year, it raised £11million with the support of actress Goldie Hawn and Samantha Cameron.









24 January 2013

Shares in broker Icap fell by more than 5% today after a report in the Financial Times said that it was one of the main focuses of regulators investigating Libor-rigging.

Although it was widely known and reported by the firm that it was under investigation over Libor, a leaked internal memo from the Financial Services Authority appeared to say that seven out of the 50 Libor investigators were focused on Icap. But broker Bank of America Merrill Lynch's analyst Philip Middleton said he did not feel the article added substantively to the situation.

He added: "We think it is important to remember that Icap neither took any formal part in the Libor setting process nor had any principal exposure to Libor."

Icap, led by Michael Spencer, said today it was "required to keep details of investigations by regulators confidential".

The shares today fell back 17p to 310.2p.

[nitaroo] 24/1/2013 15:06

"...what occurred here..."
This occurred here: a smallish, badly run AIM company failed miserably and investors/punters/gamblers/imbeciles/madmen etc. dropped a bundle!
That's all there is to it.
It happens all the time.

[harry f] 24/1/2013 10:15

thanks pjw, helps/ helped me a lot, a lot more than you'd think.

thumper - point taken. i suppose the above helps with your efforts of notifying a wider audience about what occurred here as the name of the fsa enforcement director overseeing this is quoted. normally i find contact email addresses can be intuitively derived from this.

[old thumper] 24/1/2013 09:09

Tut Tut!

And to think they have a RIE! (at the moment)

[pjw1956] 24/1/2013 08:28

FSA Libor probe of ICAP intensifies
ICAP, the world's largest interdealer broker, has reportedly become a focus of the UK Libor rate-rigging investigation and is being investigated by the Financial Services Authority for possible breaches of market conduct rules.


By Ben Harrington

6:00AM GMT 24 Jan 2013

Comments2 Comments

The UK financial watchdog has asked seven of around 50 people working on its London Interbank Offered Rate investigation to focus on ICAP, according to an internal FSA memo seen by the Financial Times. The newspaper also reported ICAP has been under formal investigation since at least March 2012. The FSA could not be reached for comment last night and ICAP declined to comment.

Tracey McDermott, FSA enforcement director, has previously said that the watchdog is investigating Libor-related allegations at six institutions, not including UBS and Barclays.

The FSA memo from March 2012 shows that the regulator has been probing whether a subsidiary of ICAP broke rules by "directly or indirectly inappropriately influencing or attempting to influence submissions used to compile the London Interbank Offered Rate ... [for] Japanese yen and possibly US dollars".

While ICAP brokers have previously been linked to the Libor probe, the memo provides the first hard evidence that part of the firm is an FSA target. The probe comes after UBS and Barclays paid large fines for Libor-fixing, while Royal Bank of Scotland is in advanced stage settlement negotiations.

Michael Spencer, the former Conservative Party treasurer who set up the company, has previously played down the group's role in the scandal surrounding Libor.

[old thumper] 24/1/2013 06:03

harry,

Yes I agree it's vague and hence my comment that there's probably quiet a few of people not announcing their holdings as they don't know what to do. This is not directed at Polemos but at all shares and more so at very small companies where the private investor has a chance to by into 3%+

[harry f] 23/1/2013 18:22

it does appear to be a vague requirement from what you've said, thanks for the example.

digressing, it seems to me like their was a bit of demand today, hence the tickup.

[old thumper] 23/1/2013 17:22

harry,

I once had to report a 3% holding but I found so many misunderstandings between brokers, registrars, the company BoD I'm not suprised that many holdings don't get reported by small investors.

TD told me it was their job as I have a nominee a/c, however weeks later they corrected their stance and it was my job to report it to the FSA.
(TD told me I'm the "Legal Beneficary" and I really own them. Which if you think about it, if your nominee broker went bust you'd expect to still own the shares, they are just the holders of the shares in trust)

However you only have 3 days from the trade day to report it in a TR-1, by now it was months later so I wrote to the FSA, twice, both ignored.

So spoke to the company registrars who told me it was TD's job, full circle!

Spoke to the company's CEO, didn't know but pointed to the companies broker, spoke to them and within a hour a RNS was posted, sorted!

The FSA letters still not replied, Oh well.

A lot of people who see a nominee a/c RNS reported then think the job's done for them but I'm not so sure but as I say there is a lot of misunderstandings as to who does what!