Intertek were founded in the 1880′s when they started testing cargo before export to ensure that customers were receiving what they were paying for. These days they also act as a check against illegal smuggling of goods and health and safety of products being imported. Several companies came together to form Intertek – one of the original companies was a lamp testing company which was formed by Thomas Edison, along with the marine testing company set up by Caleb Brett and a testing lab set up by Milton Hersey. All of these original companies were taken over by Inchcape during their period of expansion during the 1980s and 1990s.

Intertek is the largest commercial products testing company in the world and has over 1000 laboratories around the world.

Intertek launched Tradegood (www.itradegood.com) in 2012, which is a business-to-business global sourcing community to help buyers and suppliers come together. The Tradegood Café provides video conferencing facilities to help buyers and sellers communicate more effectively.

Intertek was a part of Inchcape until 1996, when  there was a management buyout of the testing services division by Charterhouse Development Capital.

Intertek is a FTSE 100 company

Senior Management

Company Information

Registered Office

• 25 Savile Row
• London W1S 2ES 
• Tel: 020 7396 3400
  
• investor@intertek.com

Registrars

• Equiniti Limited
• Tel: 0871 384 2653

For further information, please visit: www.intertek.com/investors

References and Sources

“Wolfhart Hauser: Executive Profile & Biography”. BusinessWeek. McGraw-Hill. Retrieved 17 September 2009.

Intertek group plc Bloomberg

Lord Sainsbury of Turville (great-grandson of John James Sainsbury) holds a 4.99% stake in the company. The Qatar Investment Authority are the largest shareholder, with 25.999% of the company shares.

In May 2013 they took full control of their banking division, Sainsbury Bank, by buying out the Lloyds holding – see Sainsbury’s Hopes For An Independent Bank.

Sainsbury’s now runs 1012 stores in the UK, which includes 572 supermarkets and 440 convenience stores. They also sell via the Internet with Sainsbury’s Online and have a  £8.6 billion property portfolio.

Subsidiary businesses of Sainsbury’s include the following:

• Sainsbury’s Local - convenience store chain by Sainsbury’s
• Sainsbury’s Central – mini-supermarkets by Sainsbury’s, due to be phased out and be re-branded under the core Sainsbury’s ‘Main Mission’ format
• Sainsbury’s Online - Online shopping service from Sainsbury’s
• Sainsbury’s Active Kids - loyalty voucher scheme by Sainsbury’s
• Sainsbury’s Bank - Financial services from Sainsbury’s and Lloyds Banking Group, established in February 1997

Company slogan: “Live Well For Less”

Headquarters

• 33 Holborn, London, EC1N 2HT, United Kingdom
• Web: www.sainsburys.co.uk

Dividends

Dividends are paid twice a year, with an interim dividend paying in December / January and a final dividend paying in July. Sainsbury’s pays cash dividends direct to customer bank accounts on Pay Date.

Sainsburys run a DRIP (Dividend Reinvestment Plan) that gives shareholders the opportunity to use their cash dividend to buy shares in the Company through a special dealing arrangement.

Registrar

The registrar for Sainsbury’s is Computershare. Call 0870 702 0106.

• Shareholder Centre

Sainsbury’s is planning to take full control of its banking services as soon as next week. It hopes to buy out the Lloyd Bank’s 50% stake in the business. Sainsbury’s will be announcing its annual results on Wednesday 9th May and it is expected that they will be making an official announcement following the reports.

Sainsbury’s has around 1,400,000 customers across a range of products from credit cards, insurance, loans, mortgages and investments.

The top managers are Sainsbury’s are all relatively new to the company. Peter Griffiths heads up Sainsbury’s Bank, in the 3 months following his appointment in November 2012 Sainsbury’s Bank reported that they had increased new business volumes by 37% year on year. David Arden, the finance director, joined in March 2012; Steve Burke, the Chief Operating Officer, started in March 2013 and Brian Monaghan, head of internal audit, joined in November 2012. All have a lot of experience in the banking and finance sector. They currently have several job opportunities in risk, marketing, audit and change / IT. They certainly appear to be planning something big.

Sainsbury’s Bank continues to grow and is in a very strong position to become an independent bank. Also, with the collapse of the deal between the Co-op and Lloyds to buy many of the old Lloyds high street banks, there could be an opportunity for Sainsbury’s to make a move on to the high street.

These changes will not affect Sainsbury’s banking customers, however, if you have any questions regarding the changes you can contact Sainsbury’s bank direct.

Sainsbury’s has made pre-tax profits of £750 million for 2012/2013. The bank has made an estimated annual profit of £25 million.

Further reading:

Sainsbury’s in talks with Lloyds over Sainsbury’s Bank control

Sainsbury’s To Bank On Lloyds Buyout

J Sainsbury Plc.

Aberdeen Asset Management sponsored Dragon Boat

Aberdeen Asset Management is a fund manager from Aberdeen, founded in 1983. In March 2012 they joined the FTSE 100 Index.

Over the last 20 years they have expanded rapidly and taken over several competitors, such as Murray Johnstone (2000), Edinburgh Fund Managers (2003), some of Deutsche Asset Management (2005), Glasgow Investment Managers (2007), Goodman Property Investors (2008), part of Credit Suisse Asset Management (2009) and some contracts from RBS Asset Management (2010).

Aberdeen Asset Management have been able to manage their expansion as they outsourced much of their administration to Henderson Investment Services, who have since been acquired by BNP Paribas Securities Services. They are now an international business with over 2000 employees in 31 offices around the world. The headquarters remains in Aberdeen.

Aberdeen gain publicity in part by sponsoring sporting events. They sponsored the Boat Race from 1999 to 2001, and in 2010 they started a 4 year sponsorship of the Dad Vail Regatta. In March 2012 they started sponsoring the Scottish Open golf tournament. They also sponsor Edinburgh Rugby Club and several other boating events and golfers. On 29 March 2013 its funds under management amounted to £212.3 billion (US$322.4 billion, €251.1 billion). Source: Aberdeen Asset Management PLC 31 March 2013

Company Information

Company headquarters:

• Aberdeen Asset Management
• 10 Queens Terrace
• Aberdeen 
• AB10 1YG
• Tel: +44 (0) 1224 631999
• Fax: + 44 (0) 1224 647010
• Website: www.aberdeen-asset.com

Shareholder Information:

• Investor Relations: www.aberdeen-asset.co.uk/aam.nsf/investorrelations/home
• Registrar: Equiniti

Dividend Information:

2 dividends are paid each year, an Interim (Ex-date usually in May, Payment date in June) and a Prelim (Ex-date in December, Payment date in January).

City Link was running at a loss for 5 years and fell into debt. However, in the first 3 months of 2013 businesses started to improve. Better Capital have said that they will now invest £40 million into the business.

Operating losses were at £31 million in 2011 but recovered slightly in 2012, with operating losses at £26 million.

City Link is based in Coventry and was founded in 1969 by 2 mini-cab drivers who arranged a network of cab drivers to pick up parcels from trains to allow a UK nationwide parcel delivery service without the costs of driving cross country.

Company Information

• Registered office:- City Link Ltd, Coventry Airpark, Siskin Parkway West, Baginton, Coventry, CV3 4PA.
• http://www.city-link.co.uk/

Rentokill Initial

Rentokill Initial is a diversified pest control company. It is a FTSE 250 company (although did feature in the FTSE100 in the past) and was founded in 1903 by an entomologist who had developed a new way to kill beetles. The company was to be called Entokill but in 1925 when Harold Maxwell-Lefroy tried to register the business he could not use Entokill, so opted for Rentokill. 

The company changed its name to Rentokil Initial after BET made a successful hostile takeover bid in 1996. BET decided to retain the Rentokill brand.

Following the same of City Link, Renotokill plan to focus on their core strengths of pest control, hygiene and workwear.

Rentokill Initial Company Info

• Rentokil Initial plc (LON:RTO)
  
• 2 City Place Beehive Ring Road, Gatwick Airport, England RH6 0HA
• +44 1293 858000
• http://www.rentokil-initial.com
• Registrar: Capita Registrars

There are now 3 main registrars in the UK:

Capita

Written enquiries: Capita plc, 71 Victoria Street, London, SW1H 0XA

Capita investor relations team:

• 020 77991525
• email: corporate@capita.co.uk
• http://www.capita.co.uk

Equiniti

Written enquiries: Equiniti, Aspect House, Spencer Road, Lancing, West Sussex, BN99 6DA

Equiniti shareholder contact centre:

• Tel: 0871 384 2030
• International callers +44 121 415 7047 
• http://www.equiniti.com/

Computershare

Written enquiries: Computershare Investor Services Plc, The Pavilions, Bridgwater Road, Bristol, S99 6ZZ.

• Phone number depends on which company you invest in – see their list of companies and contacts.
• Share Dealing Customer service: 0870 707 1606
• http://www.computershare.com

Paternoster Square and the London Stock Exchange

Today ThisIsMoney.co.uk reported that only 38% of fund managers actually out-perform the market. What is worse, many actively managed funds are under-performing. Investors are not only losing out on stock market losses, but also wasting money on management fees.

The data was published by Which? They looked at the performance of 96 actively managed funds which specifically aim to beat the FTSE All-Share index over the last 10 years. Of these, only 37 managed to beat the FTSE All-Share Index.

So, if fund managers are not actually making good investment decisions on your behalf, what is the alternative?

Time To Invest In Passive and Tracker Funds?

There has been a rise of tracker funds in the last decade. These funds simply track the stock market and buy shares as they rise and sell as they fall. This reduces risk, although also reduces the potential big increases too. But for many people risk minimisation is more important. This all sounds like a good idea, but …. who are the tracker funds tracking?

If everybody put their savings into tracker funds and then sat back and let the complex algorithms take over, what exactly would the computers be tracking? We need dealers and traders, fund managers and small investors to take risks and research new businesses, to try to determine which stocks are going to succeed, and which may be failing. Without some element of research, analysis, guess work and gut feeling, the market would surely grind to a halt. The tracker funds would have nothing to track, and all possibility of making a profit from the stock market would end.

The debate over whether you should go passive or active will no doubt continue for many more years. However, be warned – if too many people put their money in passive funds, the stock market will itself become pacified.

Manage Your Own Funds

Maybe a better solution is to manage your own funds. You could place 50% of your investment into a passive fund to reduce overall risk, and then have some “fun” trying to beat the top earning fund managers at their own game. If you need to tips, just watch Trading Places. Or read our yet-to-be-written article (coming soon ….).

References

Investors could be wasting millions on fund managers as ‘just 38% beat the market over the last decade’ - ThisIsMoney.co.uk, 23 April 2013.

Most active fund managers fail to beat the market - Which? research shows just 38% beat FTSE All Share

The Tweet appeared on the Associated Press Twitter page first, which read “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured“.

According to CNet.com, the Associated Press Twitter feed was hacked. However, it is important note that in truth, it may just be a case that the password was guessed after many automated attempts, and no actual “hacking” took place. Although we have not been able to confirm this yet. What we do know is that the main @AP Twitter account is current suspended, probably while Twitter admins reset all the passwords and clean out any false Tweets.

AP Twitter Page Hacked

The Anonymous group posted their own Tweet of the news:

Of course, the nature of Twitter is that such “news” was quickly re-tweeted (the Anonymous Tweet had been re-tweeted 582 times by 8.30pm on 23rd April 2013)  and many people beleived that this to be true. The result was stock market panic and traders started dumping stocks, fearing a repeat of the market collapse that followed the 11th September 2001 attacks in America.

Both @kingsthings (Larry King) and @NewsBreaker announced “HACKED: Face tweet about explosions at White House & injured #Obama sends stock market plummeting”

Newsbreaker site update: BREAKING: Stocks Freefall After False Reports of Explosions at White House, President Injured

The Wall Street Journal reported the stock market dive;

DJ30 Industrials drops 100 points after fake Tweet

It is amazing how quickly the mainstream media and blogs picked up this news and published. Just to reiterate – this was made up, it did not happen. There have been no attacks on the White House. Stop dumping your stocks and shares, stop panicking, carry on.

Of course, one question that may remain unanswered - did the hackers predict the fall in the stock market, and did they capitalise on it by purchasing falling stocks and then selling once they recovered again later in the day?

The plan will allow people to borrow up to 95% of the value of a house. There will still be some means testing to ensure that people can pay back mortgages.

People in the South East may find it harder to borrow still due to high house prices.

With the average price of a house now being  £238,293, this means that around 5180 people will be able to get mortgages in the next year when the policy kicks in.

Great news for renters, as while mortgages are hard to get, most people who are renting are paying far more in rent for their house than they would pay if they owned it.

Latest: at 11.49a, M&S has risen again and is now at 400.30p, up 7.46%.

After the morning surge the share price fell back down again, and looks to be settling at around 3.5% up on the day.

Overall the UK FTSE is doing well, but one company is struggling today. Sage Group, who make software for business (mostly Accounting, Payroll, CRM and ERP) and it the UK’s largest listed software company, saw a fall of around 3.5% in the first hour of trading.

Monday morning is a day that sees the retail sector looking more buoyant and the IT industry experiencing some choppy waters.

We do not know what is happening with Sage, but with the growth of free software tools and some good cloud based premium solutions, Sage may be another company that is suffering from the growing dominance of the Internet and modern software solutions.

This is not the first time Sage Group has made the news after struggling – in July 2012 Sage announced that growth was lower than expected as its expansion into new European markets never really materialised.