A serious shareholder revolt at SwissGlobal Assets Mgm tried to lower payments to managers and executives of the fund which was founded by my late friend Gilbert de Botton. He invented a new category of fund for high-net individuals, run with public disclosure of its performance (published in the Financial Times.) He also created variations of each popular fund in different jurisdictions so tax and regulatory compliance was improved, while the actual investment decisions were standardized. Since Gilbert died young, these innovations have led to rebellions by shareholders upset that poor GAM performance was not penalizing the guys running the fund.

?Shareholders in AstraZeneca are trying to cut the 68% higher bonus granted last year to CEO Patrick Soriot as a relic of his signing up with the UK firm 4 years earlier. Over 39% of votes were negative. When he joined he spoke of a $45 bn revenue goal which is a long way from coming to pass to block a takeover bid from Pfizer which would have limited his pay. He also failed to produce earnings per share of $4.20 last year as promised.?

France’s Tobam plans to market to US investors an anti-benchmark emerging markets fund engaging in stock picking and balance. It will seek maximum diversification by asset classes via stocks which have a low correlation to others it buys, rather than tracking indexes and also expects there will be lower costs and less trading. The manager, Ayaaz Allymun, used to run a fund based on the same concept but it was liquidated in 2014 and it has ranked poorly. Tobam has $8 bn under management and its fund will be launched together with BNY Mellon and FundVantage Trust. 

After terrible Thursday it is ferocious Friday, another day with too many quarterly results to deal with. The US economy grew at an annualized 0.7% in Q1, the lowest rate in three years. The supposed “Trump Bump” has proven to be a fantasy pregnancy. We have news from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark (a full house!), Mexico, Canada, Israel, Britain, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Bermuda, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, India, Hong Kong, Australia, and a few other places like San Diego.

*Tomra Systems, a Norwegian maker of reverse vending machines and sorting systems for everything from recycling to pharmaceuticals, from potatoes to ores, reported a good Q1, but  was distorted because of its Compac sorting acquisition last year. In constant currencies, revenues rose 19% to 158 mn Norwegian Kroners before tax, up by 5 mn from prior year, nipped by lower margins and higher operating expenses as it brings on Compac. Operating expenses hit NOK 475 mn up from 421 mn they year before, of which NOK 4 mn was for Compac. Like for like currency-adjusted revenues rose 5% in collection and 8% in sorting solutions.

However TMRAY eps came to NOK 0.58 vs prior year 0.54 and cash flow from operations rose over 3% to NOK 122 mn. The order intake from sorting (excluding Compac) hit a new high of 682 mn in the quarter. The backlog is NOK 875 mn, up 6% y/y without Compac and NOK 1.139 bn including it. NOK consolidated Compac startingFeb. 1. The USA was the fastest growing market up 6% y/y. More tech below.

*Before the door on trading slammed I doubled up on Autoliv at $106.805/sh, the Swedish airbags and auto passive security firm. It fell sharply back 6.8% to $99.98 today despite beating on EPS and revenues. In Q1 it earned $1.65/sh vs consensus (Capital IQ) expectations of $1.56. It revenues hit $2.61 bn while the forecast was for $2.57 bn. Like for like growth was 4%, however and prior year EPS had been $1.66. However, the sales figure was a record for the auto safety firm, boosted by troubles at competitor Takata. Operating margin came in at 8.4% and Q1 operating profit at $217.6 mn easily also beat forecasts which average $211 mn.