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Yes, only his arrogance in assuming he has done nothing wrong exceeds the error of judgement he made in allowing the conflict of interest to arise.
The conflict of interest is clear and his assertion that he can’t see it shows how far removed from reality he is. Judgement clearly in question so he must go.
The idea that the managers at New Smith Capital, of which Mr Roy is co-founder and a Board Member, didn’t consult him regarding the purchase of Betfair shares, particularly after the co-founder’s inflammatory September 21st call-to-arms, seems almost preposterous.
In his defence, Paul Roy is coming across as if he knew nothing about the matter. Yet only the X-Factor, Wayne Rooney and the death of Paul the Octopus has had more recent publicity than the Betfair share issue. Everyone’s talking about it: It’s hardly arcane. Surely someone at New Smith must have spoken to him about it even casually. One phone call? An e-mail?
Surely he would have had the opportunity to say no to the purchase? These are clever men, on the surface.
But it is a lot more than conflict of interest..isn’t it?
He did everything in his power to suggest betfair may bea) Subject to a judicial review
b) Likely to experience reduced profits (more contribution to racing)
c) Subject to limited market development opportunities (other jurisdictions should think very carefully etc.)Therefore having done all he could to depress the share price, in his position as BHA executive, he then tries to buy £40M of the same shares, but manages only to get £5M. Clearly he didnt go far enough.
This is Gordon Gecko territory and could be placed straight into the film ‘Wall St’ as an example of financial malpractice. I am not sure whether i should write the Post, BHA, forums etc or just pick up the phone and call the police.
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Yes he has to go, it’s about time racing stopped employing people through who you know and start employing people who have the skill to do the job or even start funding their own projects to train adequate people for the role.
Paul Roy is inept and incapable.
Just a slightly different opinion
Not sure this is about him being inept and incapable, this is just a judgement thing.
Imo, it would be almost a bigger scandal if New Smith CP had declined any interest in the Betfair IPO, or later in shares, citing that they did
not
want to cause a conflict with Paul Roy’s other interests. NS have a responsibility to their clients (some of which are big institutions/funds etc), & their staff, to ensure they are able to participate in new issues likes this if they want to. Because of the recession, flotations & IPO’s like Betfair’s have been very few & far between, this one seems to have caught the imagination in the city (probably because the model is quite close to a city trading model in lots of ways & many racing people may have overlooked the interesting LMAX online trading system which Betfair own)…..imo you can’t stop New Smith buying shares in Betfair, & you can’t personally blame Paul Roy for them doing so.
In this situation, Paul Roy has interests to declare to both NSCP and the BHA, & in fairness, for all we know he may have declared both interests in advance ?
Where I agree with most others, is that it does makes his position at the BHA untenable. He going to find it very difficult to comment on any aspect of Betfair’s business, without drawing a conflict of interest claim. If he has any sort of moral judgement, he’ll see this & act accordingly.
An equally interesting question, would a good judge be buying Betfair shares a £15.00+ as a long term proposition ?
The 1.00…001 value bet on No No Votes is looking the best of good things it surely is
As for Betfair stock at £15 a share, no I certainly wouldn’t buy. Suspect it’s a ‘mini-bubble’ over-valuation due to the huge demand by those who’ve been twiddling their thumbs waiting for a meaty IPO to emerge
No real difference between this city herd-mentality and the punting herd-mentality when Pricewise puts a ‘strong’ bet up
I believe the stock will trade on unconditional terms from tomorrow. The lil’ bubble may burst as the institutions off-load at a profit to the smaller investors…
…or summat like
I’d agree re the price, med-long term, Drone. Although I think the honeymoon period for these shares may last a little while yet. Could go further forward first.
Your spot on, alot of people have been waiting for a decent float to get stuck into. Hence the comment aabout New Smith, you can’t blame them for being involved, it’s their business!
Suppose we’d better not clog up David’s poll with views on Betfair’s share price.
Suppose we’d better not clog up David’s poll with views on Betfair’s share price.
I disagree. Speculate away, it’s the most interesting bit on this thread. LMAX went live today but have to say I don’t really understand much about it.
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At this stage, David, a price is set for the initial offering of newly created shares, with the proceeds of sale going directly to the company. Once those shares have been sold, any trading is conducted solely between investors
unless
Betfair decide to implement a rights issue, whereby further shares are offered to existing shareholders.
Shares in Betfair peaked at £15.60 from the IPO price of £13.00, but had dropped back to £15.45 at the close of business today.
Thanks AJ
I should have been clearer. I’m familar with the betfair IPO and what it means for it’s shareholders, it was the launch of the new part of the LMAX company that I was unfamilar with.
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And here was me thinking I was actually making a worthwhile contribution for once; my mistake, David.
LMAX is basically a trading platform.
It essentially allows CFDs to be traded in much the same way exchanges allow bets to be placed. Betfair retain a majority shareholding in LMAX, although Goldman Sachs (I think) have taken a 12-12.5% share in the parent company.
If you look hard enough, there are a couple of interesting articles on it dotted around the internet.
I’ll try describe LMAX as best I can, hopefully correctly! It’s going to give retail clients (the public), the chance to trade a couple of financial products directly on-line, which until recently, they would have needed to do through a broker. It’s not bog standard stuff though, it’s relatively high-risk, & can be fast-moving sometimes.
The main things they are trading as I understand it are:
‘contracts-for-difference’ (CFD’s) which are vechiles of a particular investment product, which could be any product really, bonds, gilts, shares, commodoties etc.
&
‘foreign exchange’ (FX) which as the name suggests allows you to trade one currency against another.Re the Betfair shares, if you are the pround owner of some. I’d hang on to them. They really are city favourites at the moment, & their fundamentals are very sound. I’d expect them to hit £20+ at some point in the 12 months. I’d be a bit negative beyond that, maybe a couple of years out. The company is going to be valued quite highly, & alot of expectation would be built into the price…somee negative news re regulation, or taxation, of the business could cause a sharp drop back from a nice high! I’d be happy to hold them now, but wouldn’t want to be holding them in a year or two at well over £20 a share.
In any case, David, there are much more important issues await. There’s two listed races on the AW at Lingfield on Thursday.
Anyone involved in attempting to buy £40M of Betfair shares should not be allowed out at night.
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