Member Info for Grayling

Phil East should be in the bunker by now drawing up a list of deadwood to cull at RR. Now is the time to get big job cuts announced and use the referendum result as an excuse. I suspect similar bunkers are in action at other major manufacturers and financial services companies as well.

Was there any announcement last Friday?

Just ignore this. There are a bunch of losers arguing over this sub-penny share over on the SAR board of which manx is one of the cheerleaders. Sareum have died on their arse since the last bit of positive news back in 2011 which popped them up to .....2.6p. Since then nothing but rumours and denials. CR-UK are involved and they are rank amateurs in this game with a pretty poor track record of getting anything really new into the clinic. AZN are still labouring over the detritus that was their purchase of KUDOS (another CR-UK spin off) with no gain yet from the revolutionary PARP inhibitors they bought it in for.

It was been a poor week and RR fell off a cliff just around 2pm. Normally that reflects a weak opening on the Dow, but not today. Wonder what is going on?

Based on the new Axa deal Phoenix proposes to increase the final 2016 dividend per share by 5% to 28.0 pence. This would increase the dividend per share to 56.0 pence on an annualised basis, which the Board believes is a sustainable level at which to rebase the dividend going forward. The share issue to fund the Axa deal will involve issuing shares representing approx 9.9% of company value.

BAE has secured two contracts worth a total of USD61.7M to handle repair and maintenance on two US Navy ships in Jacksonville, Florida. The two contracts could be worth up to USD68.6M in total if all options under the intended programme of work are taken up by the US Navy.

This deal will be funded by a £190M share placing. Not sure if this will be just open to institutions or a rights issue?

Phoenix Group's shares up approx 3% after saying it will buy Axa's UK investment, pensions and direct protection businesses in a deal worth £375M. Phoenix sees net capital synergies of £250M from deal, cashflows of about £300M between 2016-2020 and £200M thereafter. Sounds like a good deal and it seems the city agrees.

Sorry but if RR is found to have been complicit in the payment of bribes either directly or indirectly they are in big trouble. Ignorance of the law is no defence, nor is the "declaration" of any such payment. As the SFO guidance just released clearly states " A facilitation payment is a type of bribe and should be seen as such. A common example is where a government official is given money or goods to perform (or speed up the performance of) an existing duty. Facilitation payments were illegal before the Bribery Act 2011 came into force and they are illegal under the Bribery Act, regardless of their size or frequency.

Britain is turning to a new way of making sure it doesn't run out of power, one that could turn the energy market on its head: rather than paying utilities to produce more electricity, it is paying firms that guarantee to cut industrial demand. These “aggregator” firms secure commitments from businesses across the country to reduce power usage and then sell the megawatt reduction they secure to power network operator National Grid, which is increasingly favouring this "demand-side response" (DSR) method instead of paying big utilities to ramp up power generation. Aggregators pass on the revenue to the businesses, taking a cut. Aggregators, like Flexitricity, Kiwi Power or Open Energi, have gained traction in the past year after National Grid launched a promotional campaign to raise awareness among businesses about the commercial benefits of DSR and reducing energy usage. They present a threat to the revenue of big power generation firms like Centrica, SSE and EDF Energy, who are being undercut by these newcomers and losing business in Britain's 1-billion-pound ($1.5 billion) electricity balancing market.

RDSB tipped as one of four shares to buy and hold long term. Part of an ongoing series in which senior brokers are asked to give 4 shares they would recommend to an investor with £10K to put into the market. This week RDSB was one of the four chosen by Jonathon Barber (Threadneedle) with a £2K split along with Stagecoach, Pennon and one other plus £2K held in cash. Choice was based on them being in unrelated sectors, scope for price recovery and higher than average dividend yields that are likely to be maintained.

I will reserve judgement as to guilt or innocence in the matter. However, in my view it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that bribes were paid, if not by RR then by agents acting on their behalf, in a country where corruption at the highest levels of business and government is endemic. After all nobody would have fingered GSK as a particularly corrupt enterprise, but they came badly unstuck in China and paid the price.

UK Serious Fraud Office investigation into suspected bribery at Rolls-Royce has widened to include the company's former energy operations in Nigeria.

Oh well that is it. Good luck to all who held on through the takeover and I guess this board will be no more very soon. Whither Comsman!

Inside the City: National Grid’s power surge may be fading: Predictable doom and gloom piece from Danny Fortson. The message is that NG. cannot escape the regulatory and market changes that have forced the energy suppliers they service to their knees and that the party is over. Will not be holding my breath on this one!

How can anyone rate Aviva as a strong buy period!

I love this share. It has never once given me a sleepless night and just keeps paying the moolah on a regular basis.

I got into this via Friends Life and was hoping that things at the merged company would pick up nicely. FLG was a decent growth stock with a very good dividend. In contrast AV seems to be something of a laggard with a non too scintilating dividend policy to boot! I looked back of the history this pm, but perhaps I should have done this before I took the shares. The divi dropped off a cliff in 2012, has recovered somewhat, but is nowhere near what it was in previous years and miles away from the FLG yield. GRRR

Thanks DMD. Well that explains why the updates have ceased. I am glad I got out at just over 77p last week. I already parked the cash elsewhere and will receive a dividend on those new shares mid-June, so happy. I did mull over keeping my stake and taking the liberty shares (I still hold US paper from verizon via vodafone). However, having just endured the second price rise in a year from Virgin TV and also realising that with a bit of internet jiggerypokery I can get most of the content for free, I binned them (and I suspect many more will follow) and who owns Virgin......Liberty Global!

Yes they did, but from market close weds pm to the time that the LSE closed on Friday evening Liberty global had fallen from a whisker off $40 a share to $37 (over 7.5%). CWC simply tracked that fall. By the way, you said the 13th, did you mean May or June and where did the date of the 13th come from?