UK 02:57 Friday, 9 October 2026
Breaking news and expert analysis on fast-moving AIM and LSE listed shares
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from ShareProphets). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Yesterday I ran a piece saying that IGas (IGAS) was still not complying with DTR 3 of the Disclosure and Transparency Rules in the FCA rule book. It isn’t, but it turns out that DTR 3 does not apply to AIM companies, not that I managed to glean that from the DTR rules, although it can be inferred from the AIM Rules in the Guidance Notes. Mea Culpa, then and I apologise for the error. But AIM Rule 17 contains much the same requirements and so here is a corrected version of that piece. For the record, DTR 5 (rules governing disclosure of holdings greater that 3%) DOES apply to AIM Companies.
Already a member? Sign in
• All premium articles
• Tom Winnifrith’s Bearcast
• Access to all the entire nearly 13 year archive
• ShareProphets Daily Newsletter
Cancel any time
This area of the ShareProphets.com site is for independent financial commentary. These blogs are provided by independent authors via a common carrier platform and do not represent the opinions of ShareProphets.com. ShareProphets.com does not monitor, approve, endorse or exert editorial control over these articles and does not therefore accept responsibility for or make any warranties in connection with or recommend that you or any third party rely on such information. The information available at ShareProphets.com is for your general information and use and is not intended to address your particular requirements. In particular, the information does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by ShareProphets.com and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making (or refraining from making) any investment decisions.
Comments
turbograndad
Nigel,
More good work, I am sat here reading this all the time shaking my head like little noddy, just as well I don’t wear a blue pointy hat with a bell on the end.
What a shambles, these twirps, know full well what they are upto, if walks like duck, and quacks like a duck, guess what?.
nigel somerville
Turbo – I was shaking my head too, but for other reasons. But now corrected, I think this does leave one with one’s mouth open. I agree, they must surely know what they are up to. One of the things which caught my eye on the re-write was how the breaches I see regard points E, F, H from schedule five. Hmm, EFH….haven’t we seen those letters somewhere before? ‘Tis a funny old world…..
alcira16247
Nigel
Just wanted to express my appreciation for the first class work, You, Ben and Tom have conducted in the series of articles, this weekend, about Piggies misdeeds and the fudging and diving of Igas and Jefferies. Your combined hard work has really had these bad boys hanging onto the ropes
Were most publications would wane and fold, ShareProphets fight on uncovering the real nuts of the story, uncovering and shaming the snakes that rob and lie!
Fantastic job, guy’s!
JSB
I know this has probably been covered previously, so forgive me if I’m going over old ground, what are the CGT implications here?
Presumably piggy won’t pay tax on his “loan”? Does this explain the large discount to current market price that the deal is struck, Is piggy effectively handing the cgt to EFH
Appologies if this is a stupid question, my understanding of tax law is limited, I tend to glaze over when speaking to my accountant and just pay what he tells me.
RPC
May I add my appreciation for all the work you have done in exposing the regulatory breaches that appear to occur when directors use EFH to sell their shares whilst pretending to shareholders that they have not?
It seems to me that EFH exists solely for the purpose of allowing directors to dump their shareholdings without having to announce the sale to shareholders via RNS thus avoiding the undesirable conseqences that usually follow a director sell.
In which case, I guess EFH has had lawyers run over their contracts with a fine toothcomb to make sure that they don’t breach statutory regulations but only circumvent them. Which makes me wonder whether the apparent breaches you mention in your article have already been considered by EFH and its lawyers and are actually loopholes and not breaches, however they may appear to us.
It doesn’t make the practice any less fraudulent and dishonest as far as the average Joe is concerned but it may mean that the use of such apparent breaches/loopholes is not prosecutable.
Just a thought since I find it difficult to believe that EFH would leave either itself or its clients open to prosecution for breaching statutory regulations. They surely must have had grubby little lawyers construct their contracts in such a way as to circumvent regulations, mustn’t they? They’d be pretty dumb not to have done so.
Even so, because of your work at Shareprophets, I think it is reasonable to say that, henceforth, any association with EFH will arouse suspicion among shareholders and taint a director’s reputation and for that you are to be congratulated.
nigel somerville
Alcira – than you for your very kind comments. It is a horrid, grubby story, isn’t it! Tom and Ben are absolutely brilliant, but spare a thought also for a good few others who make the silent contributions behind the scenes. Proper old-fashioned investigative journalism – something you won’t see in the financial pages all that much these days, sadly. But it is alive and kicking here!
JSB – my thoughts turn to this: I borrow £10k from the bank. I then don’t pay it back. Is that taxable income? Even if the bank stops coming after me?
Now consider the shares: I transferred them and the nasty people have taken them away from me. I’ve lost them and I have therefore made a 100% CGT loss on them. Poor me!
I doubt it is as simple as that, but you get the gist. Surely that could not work, could it?
More likely, I suppose, is that it is a way of releasing the cash value from the shares on a semi-permanent basis (you just keep on rolling over the EFH deal) and so never have to pay CGT on the disposal. OK, you can only take out about 70% in this way but since CGT higher rate is 28% it makes little difference. Meanwhile you can walk away if the shares crash, but can reclaim them if they go up (assuming you’ve not defaulted in some way). And, of course, assuming that EFH can afford to buy the shares back in the market (in the event that they’d all been sold long ago).
Quite how it is not a CGT disposal is EFH have indeed sold the stock themselves is hard to imagine, but I’m not a tax expert, so what do I know?
RPC – again, thank you. We do need to be careful here to appreciate that EFH are not breaking any laws that I can see. I don’t like what they do, but I cannot see how it is illegal. But their clients? Hmm….
But the big question for me is where is the regulation? At lunch? Asleep at the wheel? On holiday? The rules are there: they should be enforced, not ignored. Investors are being duped, deceived, done over. The rules are there to prevent this from happening, but it seems that nobody gives a damn round at the local cop shop. Now then, back to important matters for the FCA and AIM Regulation: should CEOs have to give full disclosure of their shoe size…..
JSB
Nigel,
Thankyou, so we have an iffy tax avoidance scheme. I think I’ve heard of similar loan (non share based) schemes that have been investigated.
The Revenue could be out of pocket by hundreads of thousands depending on his (no doubt low) average