Member Info for Bonz1957

You are missing some basic maths. You say "73p windfall to lose 2 shares 11/9) does not bode well to me in simple terms." Whereas in reality you are getting 73p from each of those 11 shares = £8.03, which more closely reflects the value of the 2 shares you are losing. The '9 new for 11 old' consolidation was based on a then sp of 401.5p, so 11 shares were worth £44.165 and after the consolidation you would have had 9 shares at 401.5p plus 11 x 3p = £8.03 - once again £44.165. In your case you own 5700 shares. At 401.5p - the sp at the time the deal was announced - your holding was worth £22,885.50. You will receive 73p per share 5,700 x 73p = £4,161. After the consolidation you will own 4,663 shares which at 401.5p would have been worth £18,721.95, plus the odd 0.636 of a share which will be sold and paid back to you of approx. £2.55. Add those three together and you are back to £22,885.50 - no worse off. The rising sp has worked out even better for you as your 4,663 shares at the current sp of 445p would be worth £20,750.35 which when added to the £4,163.55 you will receive totals £24,913.90 So you are currently £2,028.70 better off!!! What has happened since the announcement is that the share price has risen - which is good news for us all. This has had the effect of slightly skewing the calculations so that it looks like we will be worse off on paper, BUT the 9 shares we will end up with will be worth £40.05 as compared to the £36.135 they would have been worth had the sp stayed the same. Yet some people seem to be upset that their shares are going to be worth more!!!! This whole return of Capital - as I keep saying - is exactly the same as you choosing to sell 18% of your holding. After the event you will end up with 82% of your original investment as shares and 18% as cash. The consolidation keeps the sp the same as before, leaves you owning the same % of SL as before, and leaves the div per share the same. Obviously, as you now own fewer shares your total div take will be less, but then you will have a chunk of money to reinvest wherever you choose, hopefully back into a share - if that is your choice - which will pay a div that is at least equal to what you have received from SL. You also seem to be confused by some basic terms. A Broker is someone that you use to buy or sell shares. As, like me and countless others, you received your shares directly as a customer you would not have used one. Capita are SL's Registrars. Companies use registrars to keep a register of who owns their shares. It is this register that is used to determine who is eligible to receive divs, who to post documents to, etc. There are three main registrars in the UK, Capita, Equiniti and Computershare. There are then two main ways of holding shares, either in certificated form or electronically in a system called CREST. If you hold your shares in a brokers nominee account

Was that me you were alluding to? If so maybe I should change my avatar to Khan lol!! I've never claimed to be an expert investor and hopefully you will see that there is no wrath in my reply to you or anyone else - I only ever try to point people in the right direction. If some people want to see this as free money as they were given the shares for free that is fine. I also received my shares for free, but as I have included their value in my portfolio's worth for several years now I don't really consider being given some of it back as receiving free money, but heyho each to their own. I was only trying to point out to others that there is no free lunch with this deal. As was mentioned by another poster and covered in my last post, yes it does appear that we are going to be slightly worse off in a rising market as the 9 for 11 ratio doesn't work in our favour. We all know that shares can go down as well as up and as I said the shares we are left with will be worth more as a result. Would we rather the sp had fallen by 50p so that we would have made a few extra £'s out of the deal on paper but been worse off? Very often newspaper articles are some way off of the truth. That article was written 6 months ago before all of the facts were known. It should have said that after the deal you will end up with fewer shares, but as the sp will be the same you will still have the same share of the company as before, and when taken along with cash received you will not be any worse off - as long as the sp doesn't move!!. My view is still that even though we may be a few £'s down on the deal on paper, the fact that the sp is currently 40p above the price SL used at the time we will be better off as our consolidated shares will also be worth an extra 40p, which means that our consolidated shares and the cash we receive will be greater than if the sp had stayed at 401.5p. Guess we will have to wait until after 13th March to see exactly how this plays out. ATB.

You are so right, the 9 for 11 consolidation was set based on a price of 401.5p - this is the price that SL use in their own examples. By my reckoning we lose just under £73 per 1000 shares for each 40p rise above 401.5p, or £1.82p per 1p rise above 401.5p per 1000 shares held! Though at the end of the day the reduced number of shares we are left holding will be worth more than if the sp had stayed at 401.5p. Your crystal ball will need to be at the top of its game to work out how much you would gain by selling now and buying back later once you have taken two sets of dealing costs into account. Sell now and buy back the same number after consolidation - and end up with a greater share in SL - or sit tight and earmark the cash for other ventures? Decisions, Decisions?? FWIW I will be sitting tight, best of luck to all those who try to make a few £'s or extra shares out of this. At the end of the day should we not all be pleased that the sp is going up and that our remaining shares will be worth over 10% more than they would have been only a month ago, rather than worrying about the few £'s we may lose on the deal? We only need the sp to go over 490p for our reduced number of shares to be worth more in total than our original holding, and then the value of the Special div we have received really will be free money lo!! ATB.

Seems like we have more than SL in common. Have held these since they were floated way back when as MFI - did nothing. Change of name to Galiform - still did nothing. Languished for years at 100p or less, but I'm not known for selling so just hung on waiting for a miracle. Now under the guise of Howden they are going from strength to strength.....surely 500p can't be too far away?

Well said GaryJ, and thank you for your kind words. ATB.

It really annoys me that people who think of themselves as serious investors haven't got a clue about the basics of share ownership, don't bother to read official documents, don't read what others have written on these BB's, and then come on spouting complete drivel. The problem is when others then come on looking for advice, read these totally misleading posts, missing those that have fallen off of the first page which often explain the situation in great detail, and are then misled by the rubbish written by others. Fortunately we only have just over a week before this is all behind us, though expect others to come on saying they don't understand what has happened to their shareholding. It happened with VOD, and I'm sure it will happen again. All it takes is the words 'Special dividend', 'Return of Capital' or 'Rights Issue' to confuse people who then get upset when you point out that they have completely misunderstood what is happening. ATB.

Suggest you go to the Standard Life website and read the Circular for the General Meeting on Mach 15th. I have included the link below. Pay particular attention to No.12 in the Q&A section which clearly states "12. What happens to the value of my shareholding? The return of value of 73 pence per Existing Ordinary Share plus the value of your holding of New Ordinary Shares should, subject to market fluctuations, approximately equal the value of your holding of Existing Ordinary Shares. While the number of Ordinary Shares that you hold will be reduced, you will continue to own broadly the same proportion of the Company." When you have read it I would be most grateful if you would come back and tell us how you are getting your FREE money!! http://www.standardlife.com/static/docs/2015/generalmeetingcircular2015.pdf

It's not FREE money TJ as your new shareholding will be worth £5,000 less!!! After the 9 for 11 share consolidation you will be left with only 82% of the shares you hold now. As I keep saying, it is exactly the same as you voluntarily choosing to sell 18% of your shares. You are a Muppet if you think you will make any money out of this. For every £1,000 worth of shares you hold now you will hold approx. £820 of shares and £180 in cash after the div and consolidation. Where is the FREE money????? WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE FAIL TO READ COMPANY DOCUMENTS TO GET A BASIC UNDERSTADING OF WHAT IS ACTUALLY GONG TO HAPPEN?????

Just goes to show what the experts at CityAM know!! Hope too many people didn't take their gloomy comments on-board as Merlin hits an all-time high after GIC takes it's stake to over 5%.ATB.

Well said JM, if many more pile in it will be worth selling to them and buying back when it all settles down. ATB.

Up £10 a share in only 4 months - if only all of my shares had done as well I'd be a Millionaire Rodney. ATB.

LOL!! You comment really did make me laugh out loud. Yes it can be a bit quiet on here as most people seem to be only into shares and miss out on what Investment and Unit Trusts have to offer. My investments are roughly split between 55% shares and 45% UT's, that way I can use far more knowledgeable people than me to effectively choose where to invest my money in markets that I otherwise wouldn't have access to. Over the years I have built up a pretty broad spread covering most sectors of the world from Europe to China, and USA to the Far East, as well as positions in Global Tech and of course Emerging Markets. If only more people looked into what these kinds of funds have to offer then maybe they wouldn't get so disillusioned when the couple of penny share stocks in the next big oil or biotech company they've bought into goes belly-up. The greater the diversity you have in a portfolio the less chance you have of everything going down at the same time, and the more chance you have of being in the right place at the right time. Happy investing, ATB.

From their RNS of 24/2: "As described in our Final Results announcement made earlier today, the proposal is to make a Return of Cash to shareholders of 95 pence per ordinary share, which will be paid on 2 April 2015. The proposed 95 pence per ordinary share would be the third payment under the Capital Return Plan, and is an acceleration of the payment previously intended to be made on 6 July 2015. The Board proposes to effect the Return of Cash through a bonus issue of B Shares and/or C Shares in the same manner as the previous Capital Return Plan payments made in June 2013 and in July 2014. This is intended to enable shareholders, subject to applicable overseas restrictions, to elect to receive their Return of Cash proceeds as either a return of capital (the "Capital Option (B Shares)") of as dividend income (the "Income Option (C Shares)") or any combination of the two. Subject to shareholder approval being obtained, for every one existing ordinary share held at 6.00pm on 19 March 2015, 95 pence is to be returned through the issue of either one B Share, which will be redeemed by the Company for 95 pence, or one C Share, on which a dividend of 95 pence will be paid, after which the C Share will be automatically reclassified as a Deferred Share. The Deferred Shares will subsequently be repurchased by the Company for an aggregate consideration of one penny and cancelled." They are bringing the payment forward from July to avoid new legislation which comes into effect on 6th April which will effectively stop companies from offering a B/C Share Option in future. The B shares will be issued after the close of play on19th March and will be cancelled on 20/3 without ever feeling the warmth of the sun upon their backs - the life of a B share is indeed a short one!!! ATB.

95p is all they will ever be worth. As far as I am aware they are issued and then immediately cancelled and you are sent the cash. The whole B/C share exercise is just to give you the choice as to how you want the cash you receive to be treated by the Tax Man, either as Income or as a Return of Capital which will be treated under CGT tax rules. ATB.

Go on, you know you want to!! ATB.

Hardly news as TEM have been buying back their own shares almost every working day for months now. ATB.

Great news on the div, that makes 3 of my holdings that have announced a return to paying divs in the last couple of weeks - LLOY, RSA and now TNI. As you know I do love a good div, even better if they offer a DRIP which is likely to be the case with LLOY and RSA. With the market looking like it may break 7,000 any day and still on the way up have decided to spend some savings on my two as the interest rates are so bad and leave the shares invested. Wouldn't disagree with Lego's theory, but as you say you can also make your own luck if you put in the time to monitor things. Of course it is relatively easy in a rising market to look good, the trick is to be on the ball when it goes in the opposite direction - not something I have ever managed to do!! ATB.

NO. Whichever option you choose you will get cash. The choice is between having the cash treated by HMRC as either Income, or as a Return of Capital which would be taxed as a Capital Gain. Your choice will depend on your personal tax situation and will be to minimise the tax you have to pay, if indeed you have to pay any at all. You will end up with approx. 82% of the number of shares you currently hold after the consolidation. This topic has been covered to death recently, so suggest you read back through recent posts where the implications of the choices are clearly laid out. You may want to elect for the Return of Capital Option (B Share Option) if your income is sufficiently high and you wish the cash to be treated under CGT rules. If you want the Income Option (C Share Option) then you do not need to do anything as this is the default option. ATB.

Of course if your total sales and any 'returns of capital' for the year are less than the £11k CGT allowance there will be no need to do any complicated calculations - unless you really want to. Since if your total sales are less than £11k then obviously any gains you have made will also be less than £11k, so no need to work out or declare. I usually have some sales and make small gains most years and have always declared the total amount received while completing my Self Assessment form, but as they have always been below the thresholds I have never been asked by HMRC to complete the CGT section of the return and show any calculations. ATB.

I do hope Certificated shares still have a future as 95% of my Portfolio are held in that form!! Next time you need to sell a Certificated holding have a look at X-O.co.uk, they will accept a Cert for free then once it is credited to your trading account they have one of the cheapest dealing rates around at a flat rate of £5.95. I have used them a few times recently for new issues and trading and have not yet experienced any problems. Looks like that list was quite useful with TNI up 30% since you first posted it - next time you get some good tips please let me know. ATB.