Jack Brumby

It was a winding up order that started it, presented to The Gazette on a quiet September’s day, where it sat for a month like a ticking time bomb. Not even the board of the company in question knew a countdown had started. This was not Act One of the Patisserie Holdings (LON:CAKE) fraud saga. Nobody knows how deep the rot goes, apart from the…

Seeing the elephant Focusing too much on operations and not enough on capital allocation can be dangerous. In his book, Shareholder Yield: A Better Approach to Dividend Investing, US author and investor Meb Faber tells the Indian parable of the blind men and the elephant. The curious group hears about a strange animal. They seek it out and each one inspects a different part of…

When it comes to politics, economics and stock markets, 2018 feels like a year of transition - and it’s been a bumpy ride. Brexit rumbles on, there have been riots on the streets of Paris and a new Italian government is negotiating a controversial Budget with the EU, which itself faces the prospect of a change in ECB president, the end of its asset-buying programme…

I recently met with Games Workshop (LON:GAW) to talk about the prospects of this singular British success story. It was more of a chat about the company than a formal interview, and the coffee shop we met in was bustling. I made notes as best I could and you can find my scribbles translated into (thankfully, more legible) Arial font below, sorted under a few…

I didn't attend Day 2 of this year's Mello London event, but luckily for me, Ben Hobson did. I've got a hold of some of his recordings - two good speeches here: Keith Ashworth-Lord Switch On Companies; Switch Off markets Keith Ashworth-Lord ('KAL') manages the UK Buffetology fundThe fund tries to find really great companies at a price that makes sense, invests meaningful quantities in…

Sorry to hear that, Tony. This struck me while writing as well (again, with the benefit of hindsight), particularly when trying to track the LTIPs. Financial reporting quality, accounting complexity, transparency, and the degree of detail and disclosure in the footnotes are all very real aspects to consider. When I had previously looked at the accounts I just put their brevity down to a straightforward…

Hi Tradertimes82,It will take a while for the full story to come out, but I agree that white collar crime isn't punished adequately and you're absolutely right to point out the reputational damage it causes to the stock market and equities as an asset class.I still think it bears repeating that these things happen though, because they do happen and it is a risk to…

Hi ACounsell, thanks for the post.The LTIPs left me scratching me head. The company itself is still trying to figure out what's happened... You're right in assuming the data I got is from updates and company accounts. 1. Not sure! Commentary on the LTIP scheme was frustratingly sparse. This is from note 6 to the 2017 accounts: The number of options held according to these…

Sad... It's good to see Luke Johnson extending the loan for staff payments. I don't think he had anything to do with it but it happened on his watch

Ah, I get why you say that.It's the compound annual growth rate of money spent by management on M&A - not the compound annual growth rate of returns.So M&A spend grew at a faster rate, but it's not saying anything about its profitability.