Video firm hopes it’s game over for Aim short-sellers
THERE’S an online petition doing the rounds calling for short-selling of Aim-listed stocks to be banned.
For the uninitiated, short-selling is where investors bet on a share price fall. They do this by borrowing shares from another investor for a fee, selling them, then buying them back at a lower price before returning them to the lender.
The petition, which has so far amassed more than 3,000 digital signatures, may seem a desperate attempt by a disgruntled Aim punter to stop his personal portfolio falling further, but it has won backing from a surprisingly high-profile name.
David Braben, chief executive of video games firm Frontier Developments, took to Twitter to claim that short-selling on Aim is ‘very damaging and subject to abuse’, urging his followers to sign the parliamentary petition.
Braben is an unlikely supporter of such a ban given his company’s shares have soared from £39million to nearly £350 million in less than six years and it barely has any shares out on loan to short-sellers.
Is he starting to get nervous about his firm’s own chunky valuation?
DOMINO’S chief executive David Wild, who burns through finance chiefs faster than most of us take to digest one of his 13.5inch pizzas, will face tough questions from shareholders on Tuesday when he reports annual results.
Franchisees have threatened to cut back on store openings until Wild gives them a bigger chunk of profits. And, according to analysts at Liberum, they are sticking to their word – only three outlets have opened this year.
The company prepared investors for bad news at the end of January by warning that profits would be at the lower end of guidance.
So analysts have already pencilled less dough into their forecasts.
THERE’S been plenty of speculation about the future of Standard Life Aberdeen’s co-chief executives, especially after a poor performance in the past year. Does having two bosses ever work? Who’s in charge?
But a big announcement on the future of either Martin Gilbert or Keith Skeoch isn’t in the works, I’m reliably informed.
New chairman Douglas Flint clearly believes both can turn the giant around.
Wednesday’s annual results are likely to show outflows of £40billion, leaving £555 billion of assets under management. Plenty of work for Gilbert and Skeoch to share between them.
jamie.nimmo@mailonsunday.co.uk