Member Info for Bonz1957

Thanks for the tip on DHL emails, i'm a good boy and only ever open ones from me mates - which is about 2 a month :( lol!!! Your m-i-l must be well chuffed with the rise in BP and BT today, i know i am. Just returned from a day at Goodwood drooling over precious metal and priceless cars from the past to find they had both had a good day along with a near 10% rise in LLOY - my 3 largest holdings in numbers of shares - so i'm chuffed to bits!! It won't last for long before Greece or Ireland or a natural disaster sends it all south again, but it's really nice to have a great day once in a while. Short post tonight as i've all my 'month ends' to do, early night, and back to Goodwood tomorrow. ATB.

Did you?? Be honest!! Could have bagged you 180p in a couple of hours. ATB.

Bit of a hiccup in the last month but nice to see it back above 600p. ATB.

Hope you enjoyed your gin(s), were they Sipsmiths :) hic! ?? Before i forget, have a good couple of weeks off - see i do read your posts - are you going anywhere nice?? Or will you only tell us when you get back where you've been to avoid stalkers following you?? lol. Now to business. Wouldn't disagree that £1.95 P&P is not unreasonable, especially if buying larder items for an occasion. However not likely to tempt me to buy a bag of my favourites once a week. Still think they would generate a lot of volume from small bars sold in the big multiples. Let's make a date to meet up at the inaugural factory visit, and let's also hope that the freebies and shop offerings are a better deal than those to be had at Cadbury World!! Not sure when that RNS appeared here, if mulledwine has already posted a link and quotes i tend not to look any further. I posted the previous days one about 'Refinancing and Outsourcing' just after lunch so that one must have been up quite early. Have noticed that our LSE can sometimes be a little late with the news, but it's a small price to pay as most of the posters here are such lovely people lol!! Talking of which, i noticed with some sadness your gentle tumble down the 'Top Posters' list :( Coincidentally your decline seemed to start with Netley's disappearance!! Was he a secret admirer?? Were his attentions reciprocated?? You can tell me, i promise i'll keep your secret!! Don't get me started on 'irritants'!! I can make Victor Meldrew and Mr Angry look like well balanced individuals. It would take the whole of three or four posts just to tell you what has gone wrong here over the last couple of weeks. Share certs going missing, registrars losing handed-in ID, Student Loan Co forms being wrongly read, hassles moving money out of my own accounts, problems with ID requirements to open another account with a Co i've been with for over 10 years and already hold 3 accounts, even more hassles trying to open accounts for the family to tuck away their share of recent share sale proceeds, 2 'Power of Attourney' forms returned because thay didn't like the way they were structured even though there was nothing in the guidance notes to say different, trying to satisfy an unhelpful landlord who was looking for any excuse not to return my daughters deposit on her student digs AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!! I need a holiday as well but as that is not going to be possible this year will have to content myself with 3 days at Goodwood this w/end - cars not horses - and the F1 GP at Silverstone next w/end. Enjoy your break, i'll keep an eye on HMV, DEB and EO for you, although unless you're going somewhere exotic i'm sure you'll pop in from time to time. ATVB.

Nope. Afraid not, just one of the original 'Sids', bought these along with just about every other privatisation back in the 80's and 90's. As most of them were the utilities, i have quite a defensive backbone to my portfolio, so am reasonably sheltered from the worst the FTSE has to offer at times. Always regarded my investments as my pension, so like you i can withdraw up to the CGT limit each year as required. But unlike a pension i am not tied into an annuity, i was able to retire in my late 40's, i could if i wanted take the whole lot out, plus if there is any left i can always leave some to the kids. And before anyone bangs on about the tax advantages of a pension, well that disappeared when Brown stole the dividend tax credit!! Most of my shares have been sheltered in PEPS and ISA's, and i always took full advantage of the 'bed and breakfast' rule before that was withdrawn, so HMRC can go whistle!! ATB.

Cheers. ATB.

Wouldn't disagree with your observation that "Thorntons 'products' are comparatively expensive" as have always thought that they could offer some reasonably priced count lines as well as their more upmarket Continental selection, etc. Am sure they could offer say 100-200g bars that could be sold in supermarkets alongside the likes of Cadburys and Galaxy. Surely there must be other people apart from me who are happy with a solid bar of chocolate and are not always looking for it to be wrapped around a praline or ganache centre!! As far as them saying they want to concentrate on other events and occasions, and not just Xmas and Easter, i don't think i've ever seen them sell cakes in their stores. Yet quite a few times have bought a Thorntons cake from Asda or Tescos costing no more than one of their own 'Finest' offerings and have found them to be exceptional value and really yummy!! Maybe there is room to increase sales of non-chocolate items. They could do a lot worse than try to poach some ex-Cadburys people from Kraft and work on developing a smaller, more focused, product range that would appeal to the supermarkets and chains. As well as their traditional large boxes there is a huge market out there for bars and small countlines to sit alonside the offerings from Cadburys, Mars, Nestle, etc. Am sure there is more profit to be made along those lines than selling Halloween lollies and the odd choc in the shape of a Xmas pudding!! Personally i would be more likely to pick up a bar with my weekly shop, petrol fill-up or magazine purchase in WHSmiths, than i would be to buy online. I would have to leave my purchases of Viennese Truffles to when i was passing a store or franchise. While we may eventually see Thorntons presence on the High Street dwindle away to nothing with only stores in the larger shopping centres, i for one would be very sorry to see the brand disappear altogether. We have recently lost Cadburys to the Yanks and seen some of it's production moved to Poland, as well as control of the company moving to Switzerland resulting in an estimated tax loss to the country of £60million a year. So i shall be doing all i can to keep the sales of Thorntons ticking along and would encourage everyone else to "Buy Thorntons"!! ATB.

Not too worried about the poor yield here as CNA and NG - one of the very best - make up for it. And as you quite rightly say one can forgive the low yield if the sp is rising. With the Greek problem only seeming to get worse and adversely affecting our banks it's almost getting to the point we have to start feeling sorry for those that bought into the recent RI's at 43p!! Am reasonably protected from a lot of the current pain as mainly hold blue chips, although BP and LLOY are doing me no favours. I feel sorry for those mainly invested in AIM, the smaller oilies and supposed recovery stocks, as there seems to be a lot of grief in those sectors at the moment. ATB.

Censorship. Obviously LSE have cottoned on to my substituting numerals for letters in rude words, so just in case you were wondering what the asterisked word was i can tell you it started with 'sh' and i used a '1' before the 't', although why it didn't substitute the 'e' as well i have no idea. Anyway didn't mean to offend anyone, was just using a phrase what i had heard on the telly!!! Would try a different way of spelling the word, maybe starting with a '5' but don't want to end up getting banned!!! ATB.

Do you seriously think i read the papers, especially the red tops?? Haven't read a national paper in the last 10+ years. Got disallusioned with the constant salacious ****e about bonking vicars, bonking footballers, benefit cheating CHAVS, made up stories about celebs, and pics of people who didn't fit the stereotype that we're all supposed to aspire to. I may look at the sports pages or even at the business section of a quality, but apart from that all they are fit for is lining the cats litter tray and mopping up spills!!! I may possibly be the only person in the world who couldn't give a shiny ****e for any gossip about so called celebs, talentless people whose only reason for existence is to fill the otherwise empty tabloids. Neither do i have any interest in what Andre, Jordan or Katona did next!! So that rules out half of the satellite channels as well!! Rant over :) The only vouchers i ever get to see are those that appear on money saving websites, i'll leave reading the papers to you. We're in the middle of a mini heatwave down here in London - although anything over about 15 degrees is too warm for me - so am sheltering indoors trying to find paperwork to organise. In the heat i just dissolve and become a sweaty fat bloke, not an attractive sight!! Markets are dull, Greece still casting it's foreboding shadow, am suffering from the recent falls in BP and LLOY, so tend not to look too much and hope things will be better in few weeks. But BSkyB is rising on talks that Murdoch may have to bid up to £11 to win control, so there is a little bit of blue in my sea of red!! ATB.

RNS Number : 1535J Thorntons PLC 27 June 2011. Completion of Refinancing and Outsourcing Agreement. Refinancing: Thorntons PLC ("Thorntons or Company") is pleased to announce that it has agreed and signed new committed bilateral revolving credit facilities totalling £57.5 million to replace the existing bank facilities of £52.5 million which mature in August 2012. The new facilities, which mature in October 2015, remain unsecured. One-off costs of approximately £400,000 in connection with the fees for organising the new bank agreements and the write-off of the remaining unamortised arrangement fees of the previous facilities which were due to expire in August 2012 have been incurred and will now be included in the financial results for the year to 25th June 2011. Warehouse and Distribution Outsourcing Agreement: Thorntons also announces the decision to outsource its Distribution and Warehousing function to DHL, a leading expert in the distribution field. Thorntons expects the outsource to deliver a net benefit to Thorntons in excess of £5 million over the six year contract through utilisation of DHL's established operating network. One-off transition costs of up to £680,000 will be incurred in the first year of the contract. Thorntons Chief Executive, Jonathan Hart, will be presenting his strategic review of the Thorntons business to analysts and major shareholders at 11am on Tuesday 28 June 2011. Thorntons will be announcing its 4th quarter Trading update on 13th July and its Preliminary Results on 7th September 2011.

No, didn't sell out, am a long term holder not an active trader. An odd investment strategy i admit, and not one that most would be able to get their heads around, but it works for me. Always regarded my investments during the 70's-90's, mainly the big state privatisations, as my own self select pension. The money was put away to provide an income later in life when needed, and have only ever sold when one of my holdings has been the subject of a takeover. So my last sale was Cadburys and no doubt soon i will have to sell BSkyB. Bought BG when it was first floated back in '86 for around 130p. With all of the susequent demergers i now own BG, Centrica and Nat Grid, and am considerably up on the deal, although i dread having to sell one of them as working out the base cost would be a nightmare!!! Am also regarded as a dit of a dinosaur by many as all of my holdings are in certificated form, which would make quick sells and buy-backs very difficult. And, as i've always taken divs as new shares when available, i have a mountain of paperwork!! But it does mean that with a yield of around 5-6% some of my holdings have doubled in size over say 14-16 years. Pity BG has such a poor yield and does not over a SCRIP or DRIP or i could have had many more shares. I have the highest regard for anyone who can make money out of being an active trader, i just know i would make too many mistakes as i'm not prepared to put in the time to analyse things properly. Yes i could have ended up with some free shares if i'd sold BG at 1550 and bought back in now, but as my base cost is somewhere around 50p the only question is how much money i make when i sell, and not if i make any. Like you i'm also suffering at the moment with BNC and LLOY. But my BNC shares were free as i was a customer of Abbey when they floated - i was one of those people that back in the 80's and 90's opened accounts with every building society there was in order to make a killing out of the free shares that were on offer when the old mutuals converted to banks - and my original holding of lloyds was by way of TSB shares when they floated plus the recent RI's so hopefully i am just about at break even. Guess the real point i'm trying to make is that if you are able to put some money away for the very long term, say 20-30 years, and pick some sound stocks with a good yield, then you will build up a better nest-egg than putting it into a savings account. Yes i have made a lot of money on some, none on others, and even lost money on some shares, but overall i have achieved a very reasonable return on my investments. And, unlike a pension pot where you take 25% as a lump sum and have to buy an annuity with the remainder, with my shares i can sell the lot in one go if i so wish. Although to avoid paying HMRC any CGT i would only take my allowance out in any tax year and supplement that with others that are in PEP's or ISA's. Apologies for rambling, don't really do short posts!! ATB

Pity you hadn't held until Mar/Apr when it peaked at 1550p, but hindsight is something i'm not blessed with either!! IMHO i would think we're pretty close to the bottom now and any buy-in price close to 1250p could turn out to be a bargain. But i'm usually wrong - look at BNC - so the sp will probably dive back down to 700p!! DYOR and ATB.

WTF do i know??!!

If only we could all add an extra '0' to our holdings!! IMHO should see this rise once the turmoil in Greece is finally resolved. ATB.

Who's your new friend?? I may get jealous!! And on our board!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcJSAxxPF-s ATB.

The UK government has signed up Britain's largest housebuilders and lenders for a new 500 million pound($812.7 million) loan scheme to help first-time buyers onto the property ladder, housing minister Grant Shapps said on Monday. Companies such as Persimmon, Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey are among the 100 housebuilders who will sign contracts this summer, enabling them to offer homes for sale through the government's FirstBuy scheme. Lenders backing the project include Lloyds Banking Group's Halifax, Nationwide and Barclays.

http://www.money.co.uk/article/1007145-9-national-express-coach-tickets.htm

Are your div figures correct?? As the div i received in May was approx £135 and i only hold around 650 shares!! The rate for the last div was Euro 0.228766 or £0.20234, so with a holding of 5000 your div should have been Euro 1143.83 or £1011.70. Very different from the figures you quote!! Or do you only hold 500??

Back down to prices last seen nearly 5 years ago. Harry needs to get into the transfer market - soon. What can Levy/ENIC do to salvage something from their dwindling investment??