Member Info for drunkensod

Same on T212. Shares now showing as AV. as of about a half hour ago. Just awaiting the cash to be credited.

Been some ride. First bought at 300p and then never thought I'd ever see those levels again after the 'creative accounting' numbers. Bought all the way down.

Out with a £10k profit overall. But what a rollercoaster.

Believe you've hit the nail on the head there Spikey. I hadn't put the two together yesterday between the CMA Chairman leaving and the jump in AV., but the big Unknown to the buy-out was always if the CMA was to block the deal then it'd fall apart and the share price collapses. It does feel that possible blockage is now largely removed.

As a DLG holder as well, now need DLG to follow AV. upwards; AV. at 489p valued DLG at 275p per share. However at this level (512p at time of writing) then DLG equivalent value should be around 281.5p, so feel there's more to come!

Exciting times.

I have no doubt now the investors will accept the offer. Look at the RNS history; big investors holding both AV and DLG. They are already lined up to rubber stamp it.

Just a formality now IMO.

Glad to be rid of DLG to be honest in the next few months; was a huge red blot in my portfolio since the 300p+ days. Was hitting £10k down at lowest point, and took a lot of work to get my Ave down to sub 200p. I was confident it would recover but this has accelerated and can now move on to other investments.

The share price of both DLG and AV are now intrinsically linked by the '0.2867 AV. shares per DLG share' value. The offer made values DLG at 275p based on an Aviva share price of 489.5p.

By my calculations, if Aviva dropped to 480p then to balance the equation the DLG equivalent value would be 272.3p

At AV 475, DLG would be valued 270.9

AV 470 = DLG 269.4

AV 465 = DLG 268.0

.........

AV 402.2 = DLG 250.0

So (by my maths and completely in my opinion) if you bought £10k DLG at around today's 250p mark, the AV. share price would need to drop below 402.2p before you would be worse off after the deal concludes. Assuming the deal completes and as per Spikeyj's comments.

Happy to be corrected (and I'll delete this post if I'm miles out so not to mislead)

Had to offload a few of these as I'm far too heavy in DLG and went through the pain of the Ageas fall through earlier in the year. Couldn't take the stress of the "what if", so has now e

Made 35% profit on the sale and still plenty left in to ride the rest of this rollercoaster.

Taking Hiscox as an example of an insurer that was also recently massively overstretched in terms of it's financial coverage and took a nosedive (albeit from excessively wide wordings and Covid exposures, rather than fundamental poor rating actions); it's taken 4 years for them to recover to their 'pre-disaster' share price.

I've confidence in DLG to turn it all around. I already held some, but have been buying more sub-200p where I have funds to invest. Hardening markets and new leadership must surely have helped with the step-change. DLG to launch on comparison sites to increase potential customer base, and a largely trusted brand.

I've a personal target of 265p, although will consider holding longer if dividends return back to decent levels. Don't intend selling the farm if I'm able to get a decent yield from the crops.

Trust, I ask myself that exact same thing! Been with them for about 10 years, but agree there are cheaper platforms these days for trading that do the exact same.

I'm on HL and they put all divi's in an "Income" pot before transferring to your Trading balance at the start of the following month. You can log on and look at the Income tab, but if you want to manually move to your Trading balance you'll need to log-in from the website as you can't do this from the phone app afaik.

my ***-packet maths:

£300m buy back at current approximate sp of £4.60 = 65.22m shares off the table. against shares in issue of 2.74bn, this is about 2.4%.

likely explains why aviva stated they are now targeting mid-single-figure growth in the dividend as it should increase returns by about this amount on average. theoretically.

2022/23 year end divs were cancelled due to overexagerated performance that fell apart. 2023 mid year div was also not reinstated.

No idea what y/e 2023/24 divs will be; crystal ball got damaged and wasn't insured.

Snippits of news I'd not seen before
£200m cost cutting plans - https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/mg-targets-200m-in-cost-savings-as-assets-drop-28bn-20230309

Charlotte Heiss, New member to Exec Committee - https://www.lawnews.co.uk/legal-insight/appointments/mg-announces-the-appointment-of-charlotte-heiss-as-its-new-general-counsel-and-company-secretary/

Rumours of stabilisation of interest rates may also be giving some stocks a welcome relief.

Penny knew they were in the **** back in November, hence she sold about £250k shares when the share price peaked about 222p. I missed that; I've made it a rule to never trust a share when the directors start offloading.

Down about 30% here and my 2nd biggest holding after Aviva. Long hold and will look to bring my average down during 2023/24 tax year with the belief insurers are cyclical (seen it many times) and dividend will be reinstated at some point, albeit I expect at about half the previous level. But yes, I agree it appears they bet their reinsurance chips on red, and the wheel came up black. Pretty damning of those steering the ship.

I'd maxed my isa allowance with averaging down on DLG over this last year. Now at about 225p breakeven.

Have this morning sold my DLG shares from my ISA and rebought in my regular shares account, as with no divi there's no tax considerations. Have used the ISA money to top up AV. shares for the dividend.

Will resell and rebuy into the ISA when the new tax year kicks in. I've no doubt the divi will be reinstated quickly here, and the share price will start to recover when it does. Same happened at AV. when the final 2019 divi was cancelled 3 years ago at the start of the pandemic.

IMO & DYOR

To support the c.40% increased dividend in 2023 onwards. These moves are the foundations for that action, and so will also (theoretically) support an increased share price

Yes, but i think you get £12k capital gains tax free allowance per annum vs £2k divi allowance, so for most I suspect using the cap gains allowance would be more tax efficient as not everyone's shares will be protected by an isa

As someone previously commented, the share price will only move significantly when there are new developments. Part one of this should come 4th April once the announcement is made which confirms the arrangements for the B-Share proposal. Part two will be if/when it is approved by shareholders on 9th May, the same date as the AGM. This pushes it forwards to part three, the cut-off date for share ownership, confirmed as 6pm London time 13th May for payment no later than 31st May.

I personally don't think the B-shares are fully priced in, only because none of us yet know for sure the actual terms of the proposed agreement. We are only speculating, as is the rest of the market. We've had indicated a 4-to-3 consolidation as an example calculation to maintain share price stability; it could yet turn out to be a 5-to-4, or 6-5 or something else as deemed appropriate to maintain SP with the reduced £3.75bn cash held from the bottom line.

Waiting for the blue touch paper to be lit 4th April and 9th May. Until then, keep reading the tea leaves , and hope the awful situation out East gets sorted positively for all the right humanitarian reasons.

Share price should reflect market cap; assuming the company value stays same then share price will increase. In theory.

I agree I think sp will go up to reflect the increased dividend, but really it'll just remain status quo mcap. I don't believe the b-shares are fully priced in yet. Once announcement is made 4th April about the b shares then it'll fly for the days to the record date 13th May.

And for whoever was bashing Amanda for her £500k purchase at £3.80ish, seems she saw the bargain price and has made a tidy 10% paper profit. That on top of the £1m purchase when she came on board. Just wish I had those levels of cash to invest in the first place!

Since the share price crept over £4 mid-December, the buyback seems to have stalled somewhat. Ave. buyback price to date is c.400.5p.
There has only been one RNS reported in 2022 for a paltry £6,400 / 1,525 shares (they were buying £9m-11m shares daily late Nov/early Dec)

My point is Aviva have committed to spending £1b on the buyback, to complete before 31st March, and there's still c.£340m in the pot to spend. It took 10 weeks at the start of the buyback in August to spend £340m, and we're now about 10 weeks to the end of March.
Either, Aviva are not reporting the buyback in daily RNS's, or someone has put the brakes on with the shareprice now over 400p. So will Aviva rescind their direction to spend the extra £250m, or will someone soon open the taps and there's soon to be £7m shares a day being hoovered up?

Aside, I sliced a chunk at 426p hoping to buy them back sub-400p. Opps; seems we've got a new support point here at 434p building.

"(probably teetotal and celibate)"

Excuse me? I'm just giving an update on where we are with buyback. No need to be abusive. If you don't like the facts then sell up and leave.

I have a sell target at £4.30 for first tranche. Clearly you are more optimistic than I am.