Member Info for Bonz1957

Free 69p mini egg available from Thorntons until Fri 15th. Click on the link, fill in your details and print off your voucher. Simples!! http://www.myvouchercodes.co.uk/codes/grab-an-exclusive-free-treat-egg-from-thorntons/440812 If the link doesn't work, or is deleted, the offer can be found on Martins 'MoneySavingExpert.com' weekly email,and the voucher is available from 'MyVoucherCodes.co.uk'. And while you're there why not treat yourself to a few other goodies, the sp needs all the help it can get at the moment. ATB.

Rosinter, Russia's biggest and only listed restaurant chain, which also has a joint venture with Britain's Whitbread to develop the Costa Coffee brand in Russia, on Tuesday reported a 6.4 percent increase in first-quarter same-store sales, driven by a robust recovery of consumer spending. The result was driven by a 4.9 percent rise in the number of transactions, while the average bill was up 1.5 percent, said the company, which owns Planet Sushi and operates the Russian franchise of TGI Friday's. Consolidated sales grew 10.5 percent to 2.37 billion roubles ($84.64 million) as the chain increased to 374 outlets from 362 at the beginning of the year and 348 a year ago.

Presume you meant £20, or do you know something we don't lol!!! ATB.

We're all entitled to our own opinions, so fair do's to you for coming on with one very different from the accepted norm. When you were saying 250p we were all expecting the decent figures that came out, so hardly surprising we disagreed at the time. We didn't think you would get the 250p you were talking about then, and not sure you will get anywhere near the 350p you are talking about now. Guess we will have to wait for the next trading update to see where this is heading, but for what it's worth i expect to see this generally in the 450-500p range, and not dipping below 400p any time soon. As for LMR, currently 10.5p, i'm afraid i rate them as a complete basket-case along with HMV, and a few others, that i wouldn't touch with the proverbial barge-pole. But best of luck to you if you can buy on the ups and downs. Just make sure you're not left holding the baby when they turn the lights out, as has recently happened to CTT and SPMG to name but a couple. ATB.

Nope. It seems to be going the other way again. Higher highs and lower lows and all that sort of thing. Isn't this share ownership thing fun??!! ATB.

See i've been blown away in the posts race lol!!! I'll try to hang onto your coat-tails for a while but will not have a lot spare time for the forseeable future. Am back in London and back on the pc for a while, so will catch up properly soon - i promise. See my Blackberry post wasn't too bad, just missedoutafewspaces lol!!! And yes, the THT sp doesn't look too clever at the moment. ATB.

You seem to have more information, and more shares, in this one than i do. I only hold about half of what you have remaining, should have been more but i didn't participate in one of the previous RI's - no spare funds at the time - so saw my holding shrink in real terms. Don't seem to do anywhere near as much research as you do, maybe because i would have to do in-depth analysis on over 60 holdings!!! So these days i'm stuck with what i bought back in the 80's and 90's, along with a couple of new ones i've bought when i've spare cash from having to sell a holding, i.e. Cadburys. I try to keep abreast of the most relevant developments, but tend to use the information in deciding which is the worst share in my portfolio when i need to raise some cash. I'm sure any professional, or well informed amateur, would tear my portfolio to shreds. Probably selling half and re-investing in better companies. But i'm not prepared to make brokers richer by churning my holdings to try and gain a few extra quid or a better div. I think what i have is fairly well balanced, mainly Blue Chip - so maybe unadventurous but equally quite safe - and produces a good yield. So while i may have an opinion on something i think i know quite a lot about - see our discussions on MWH - i do very little research other then annual reports, trading updates, broker reports etc. On these boards i tend to answer peoples questions re divs, accounting dates, correct wrong assumptions and offer advice when i can on things like RI's, takeovers, tax positions, etc. So, to finally answer your question, i'm afraid i know nothing more than you do on this one. But the one thing i do know, having invested very heavily in China over the last 10 years, is that whatever sector they decide to go into they will very quickly become one of the world's major players as they account for about 1 in 5 people on the planet. If ever they decided to embrace football we would soon end up with 10 Chinese players in every team!!! ATB.

It completely disabled my desktop and after several failed attempts to get it to boot up in safe mode decided to bite thebullet and pay PC World £40 to do it. 3 hours later I had it back fixed. Spent the last couple of days ferrying the m-i-lto various hosp app's up in Yorks but back to London tomorrow for some normality. Then to Devon next w/end and back up to Yorks for the 18th. Excuse spilling and brevity but not easy on a Blackberry. By the time I get back to normal expect to see you have cruised past my post total. Sorry to see HMV back to 11's hope you sold some of the last batch at a profit. ATB.

Just when you think things can't get any worse, they usually do!!! Seem to be spending all my time currently driving between London, Devon and Yorkshire sorting out problems for everyone else, as well as trying to get my two back from Uni this week. To top it all my pc is down with a virus/trojan "MS Removal Tool" - the only problem we've ever had in over 10 years - so reduced to writing short comments on the wife's Blackberry Torch, when i'm allowed. Will catch up properly next week when hopefully normal service will be resumed. ATB.

Spoke too soon!!

I've just posted my proxy form voting against the three new directors put up by Elliot. I'm more than happy with the direction being taken by the current BOD. ATB.

First 600p close since the RI. Happy days. ATB.

Let's hope they are still making a reasonable profit while under-cutting the opposition by so much. ATB.

Does the devil buy carpets??

Maybe TNI can pick up some of the Sports 70,000 readers. Every little helps!!

The Britned power cable between Britain and the Netherlands began commercial operations on Friday in a key step towards creating a single European power market that can better manage big swings in green energy output. The 1,000-megawatt cable -- a 600 million euro ($849.2 million) joint venture between Britain's National Grid and Dutch TenneT -- is part of a larger project to improve links across Europe to help manage variable supply from renewable energy sources across the region. 'This is good news for our energy security, for UK renewables and for consumers,' British Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said. 'It plugs the UK directly into a wider European electricity market, allowing us to import our peak needs cheaply rather than hold expensive plant in readiness.'

As if further evidence was needed to show all is not well in the Newspaper industry, Sport Media Group shares have been suspended. SPORT MEDIA GROUP PLC SUSPENSION OF SHARES Sport Media Group PLC (AIM: SPMG.L) announces that, at the request of the Company, trading of its shares on AIM has been temporarily suspended from 1 April 2011 7:45am pending clarification of its financial position. The Company has experienced an insufficient recovery in trading since the adverse weather in December 2010 (as announced on 25 February 2011) with consequential pressure on the Company's working capital position. This has led to uncertainty around ongoing support from its bankers. The Company is working with the bank to resolve these issues and will update the market as soon as practicable. The Company further announces that Robert Johnson, Executive Director, has tendered his resignation from the Board of the Company with immediate effect, to focus his attention on the operational management of the Digital Division. He remains a Director of Netcollex Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, and Telecom2 Ltd, a 51% subsidiary of Netcollex Ltd.

You're correct about things being addictive when it's all going well. When the markets turn for the worse i tend to throw it all in a box, turn the pc off, and come back in 6 months!!! Sorry if i confused you re CGT. Any liability the previous owner may have had to the tax was wiped out when they died. As far as the Tax man is concerned you aquired them at the price they were when the previous holder died. So if they died on Feb 4th when the sp was 550p that is your base cost, ie the cost at which you aquired them. If you were to later sell them when they - hopefully - rose to 750p, then you would have made £2 profit a share on 5730 shares, or £11,460 profit. As the CGT exemption for 2011/12 is £10,600 you would only have to pay 18% CGT on £860, or £154.80 on a sale worth £42,975. Of course you could sell them over two tax years and have nothing to pay, or keep them for the long term to provide a really substantial nest-egg. If you were to elect to receive the SCRIP alternative - you would need to get in touch with the companies Registrars and lodge the relevant forms before June 3rd, the record date for the Aug 17th div - you could receive between 340 and 350 new shares for the next two divs. Then in the following year your divs would be based on over 6000 shares, and so on. Of course you need to do your own sums as you may prefer to keep your existing number of shares and take the £2000 a year you would receive in cash divs. Unless of course you are a higher rate tax payer and then you would have an addional income tax liability at the end of the year. Complicated isn't it?? Virtually all of the information you will need can be found at http://www.nationalgrid.com/corporate If you go to the 'Investors' section and then go to 'Shareholder Sevices' , 'Dividend Payments', and view 'Ordinary Shares Div Payments' you will be able to view the SCRIP div terms and conditions, with the Registrars details on the final page of the pdf. The very best of luck with whatever you decide Michelle. You could not have been left shares in a better company IMHO. Although these 'boards' are full of people who would try to persuade you that some small oil/mining/biotech share is the next sure fire winner and you should invest every penny you can lay your hands on!!!! Remember the golden rule: 'Only ever invest money that you can afford to lose', and an awful lot of those very tempting 'penny' shares either go nowhere or go bust!!! ATB.

Just one small correction to Wyvil's post re dividends. The 24.84p Final div paid last Aug did not take into account the effect of the Rights Issue that took place in June '10. The RI offered holders the chance to buy 2 new shares @ 335p each for every 5 existing shares they held. So the previous holder of your shares would have either participated in the RI and received the new shares, or sold the 'nil-paids' and received a cheque which you, or the estate, may have thought was a dividend cheque. The effect of the RI can be seen by clicking on the 3 month share chart above and redrawing it for a year. You will see the steep fall in sp around the middle of June '10 from 625p to 500p which takes account of the extra shares @ 335p. This is in no way an indication that anything was wrong with the company at that time, it is purely the effect of the RI. Obviously with 40% more shares in circulation they will not be able to maintain the div at last years level. This can be seen by the fact that the 2011 interim at 12.9p was less than the 2010 Interim which was 13.65p. So the next div, the 2011 Final due in Aug, is likely to be around 21-23p. The good thing about NG is the yield is around 6% - one of the very best in the market - and they have stated that they intend to grow the div at 8%, year on year, for the forseeable future. If you hold 1000 shares, your next two divs, Aug '11 and Jan '12, could be worth (at 36p) £360, or may net you 60 new shares if you take the SCRIP alternative. Apologies for 'teaching you to suck eggs' if you already know all of the above, but i didn't want you to see a lower div being offered in Aug than was the case last year, and thinking that everything was not rosy in the NG garden!! One final point. You say the original holder of the shares aquired them at around 150p, so depending on the size of the holding they were possibly sitting on quite a CGT liability, which will have lapsed upon their death. Your base cost for these shares will be the price on the date they died, and can be found by going to nationalgrid.com and looking in the 'Share Price' section. ATB.

My you have been a busy posting girl today, at this rate you'll overtake me by the end of the week. Then you'll be my favourite poster - as if you aren't already lol!! I did reply to your last post earlier today, used up all of my 3000 characters and checked me spilling and evryfin, but LSE had signed me out and i lost the lot!!! Had to go and lie down in a darkened room for the afternoon crying. Cheered myself up later with a couple of Thornton's bars, 2 for £1.20; Almond Marzipan and Turkish Delight, Yummy. Will re-post 2moro when i have more time. ATB.