Member Info for Grayling

More like watching paint very slowly discolour, crack and then peel off the wall :-)

Good.
The customers will all return to Centrica hopefully.

Not so I am afraid. If your energy provider goes bust you are "allocated" a new provider by OFGEM the regulator and the "big six" are excluded. We were with IRESA and were routed into Octopus Energy. They have been OK so far and it is still the case that you pay less by staying clear of CNA etc. Of course this may change.

Nice to see that the absolute drivel quotient has been maintained on this board into the New Year :-)

The ninth independent energy challenger Co to go under following the collapse of Iressa. When are the Govt going to realise that their incessant meddling in this sector and attempts to open up more competition are doomed to fail in the long run at huge costs to the rest of us in bailing them out and refunding all the bill credits they owe to disgruntled customers?

The ninth independent energy challenger Co to go under following the collapse of Iressa. When are the Govt going to realise that their incessant meddling in this sector and attempts to open up more competition are doomed to fail in the long run at huge costs to the rest of us in bailing them out and refunding all the bill credits they owe to disgruntled customers?

Well for once the delay in the dividend payment did not result in disadvantage. I thought we would be reinvesting today into the teeth of a DOW-inspired rally. But no Blighty is plumbing new depths instead!

Sorry but not a good benchmark at all. VOD unlike LLOY is not primarily a UK-facing business any more with the UK contributing only a small proportion of cashflow/sales/profits. The fact that they pay their dividend in Euro's and not sterling is the big clue! See "For the financial year ending 31 March 2017 and beyond, dividends will be declared in euros and paid in euros, thus aligning the Group’s shareholder returns with the primary currency in which we generate free cash flow.

Call it what you like, but this is no longer an investment basically administration by another name.

"Do you think there could be a moderate / large sell-off of the smaller GSK Bio. for a switch into the new larger entity?" You misunderstood my point. Although the spun out division will be bigger (due to the Pfizer add on) at £10bn+ in sales it is still dwarfed by the remaining Pharma business with £22.5bn in sales so the answer to your question is a likely no to disinvestment and a yes to will it be big enough to remain in the FTSE100. It may be that the demerged and combined healthcare Co is also big enough to be a FTSE100 Co as well but I am not sure of that.

"So you think we will end up with 2 seperate shares that hopefully will equal the value of a GSK share ?" Yes that is exactly it. One thing to bear in mind is that the de-merged healthcare entity will be significantly bigger than the former part of GSK as it has the Pfizer component as well. Thus earnings and dividends might grow faster than those provided by the standalone GSK Pharma business. They may balance each other out (one higher one lower) but I think there is scope for a higher yield over the two separate companies than we enjoy from GSK as it stands.

At demerger you will be issued with shares in the new entity (GSK healthcare) based on your current holding of GSK stock. I assume that the new entity may take it's share (or possible more?) of GSK's net debt burden along with the assets. From that point on you will have holdings in two distinct companies and the present level of dividend will be made up of two separate payments say 60p from the Pharma group and 20p from GSK consumer healthcare.

What a little ray of sunshine you are today. If you look at the 2017 numbers Pharma + vaccines accounted for sales of £22.5bn, while the consumer healthcare business (including Horlicks, which is to be sold to Unilever) made only £7.8bn. The synergy and cost savings in the Pfizer tie up will grow that business to £10bn plus and GSK have the controlling interest. I don't see this as weakening the core GSK business enough to make it an automatic takeover target.

A good proportion of institutional shareholders have been calling for this kind of move for years and IMHO the tie up with Pfizer is just the sort of deal that was needed. This now leaves the drug development business as a stand alone effort, which will be much easier to value and judge performance that when it was tied in with the consumer side of the firm. Anyway Mr market likes it, which in the current state of play is some small comfort given the dire state of the rest of my portfolio.

Must be regional then and dependent on what else is available. Went to our local Tesco yesterday morning and it was very quiet indeed. Moved on a couple of miles down the road to M & S foodhall.....rammed solid.

If you're leaving please still say goodbye
And if you are leaving can you leave me my silver jubilee mug
My old flag
My dark woods
My sunrise

If you’re leaving can you please say goodbye
And if you are leaving can you leave your number
I'll pack my case
And get in a cab
And wave you goodbye

Only Rees-Mogg can actually remember the Corn Laws and surely he had had dinner with Robert Peel!

Getting nervous over at Capita, Mitie, G4S etc?

As the mighty Quo would say! When will it all end?

I am all for it personally. How else do you pay for all the infrastructure that London needs? A few billion here a few there new railways, roads. Taxes will need to rise even more post Brexit just to cover the costs of the lorry parks and warehousing for the food we need to stockpile. Still we can all eat our own fish, although personally I cannot stand mackerel and herring and that is all we seem to catch these days.

Most of the numbers on LSE this am are a mess with incorrect closing prices and therefore incorrect gains and losses. As I write this RMG are down 2.7p on yesterday's close.