Member Info for Grayling

I agree with your opinion of John Malone. However in this instance he is not guilty mlud as JM has absolutely no control or say in the content of these RNS offer update statements put out by CWC. They simply state the facts based on the offer ratio of LGY to CWC shares on offer and based on the current (or average) price of the former. Are you still in CWC? I got the impression (based on how quiet this board had been lately) that most UK holders had jumped ship. I did so last week having spotted an opportunity elsewhere to park the cash and earn more income. How about you?

No you have completely misunderstood the nature of the offer. It is not cash that CWC shareholders are being given, so numbers such as £3.5M or £3.6M are totally meaningless. You are getting paper in the form of US listed shares in Liberty Global and as the ratio of LGY:CWC paper you are getting has already been decided, the true value of the deal to an individual CWC shareholder is thus totally dependent of the SP of Liberty at the cut off date. The cash component is tiny (the special dividend). My question was why have they stopped issuing offer updates? As for propaganda I do not know what you are referring to at all? Who's propaganda? Do not forget that the RNS posts are a legal requirement on the company as it goes through the takeover process, so I do not see how they can be construed as propaganda?

No that cannot be the case. If they set the price at 86p last November why then issue weekly RNS updates telling CWC shareholders how much they would get based on the closing price of Liberty Global the previous day. Here is the text from the (apparently last) April 22nd update: The consideration under the Recommended Offer represents an indicative value of 77.23 pence per CWC Share (including the Special Dividend and using the Closing Price of Liberty Global Shares on 21 April 2016); based on the following: the Closing Price of $37.74 per Liberty Global Class A Ordinary Share on 21 April 2016 and a volume weighted average price of $38.82 per Liberty Global Class A Ordinary Share over the 10-day period ending on and including 21 April 2016

Any idea why these have now dried up? The last one was issued back on Apr 22nd. Is the price now set in stone as an average SP over the period they were giving these out? Is there anybody out there?

So the dividend is to be 71 C shares per ordinary down from 92.7 last time around, so a drop of some 23%. Still the share price is doing its level best to ensure that the number of shares the cash will buy back on reinvestment does not drop by the same %. East's statement yesterday indicated no change in outlook over previous forecasts for revenue, so no surprise good news to come either. Sell in May and go away?

I have not bought anything from NEXT for years now and then it was only the odd T-shirt or tie. The missus used to be a big spender with them on work clothes but last year she cut up her store card stoped buying from them online. She now buys her stuff from Zara and pays cash. My worry is that NEXT have been far too reliant on high interest store card income for years and people are beginning to wise up and nip that spending in the bud. There is also much more competition for online spending on clothes now than there was five years ago. I certainly do not miss lugging away and recycling the bloody doorstops they used to send every quarter by way of catalogues. Could be the next M & S/BHS clothes-wise.

According to the Telegraph RR has engaged Bain & Co to come up with a "secret plan" to rationalise the business and add up to £1BN to the bottom line. No timescale is given and the cuts are said to be as much about reorganisation as simply reducing headcount. see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/27/rolls-royce-considers-secret-plan-to-boost-profits-by-1bn/

Of course it could also be because tomorrows results are set to be a huge disappointment. Let us hope that this is not the case. It could be be a nervous run up to 12 noon GMT :-)

Sold today for a respectable 17.9% profit having held for 12 months. Decided that the cash/US paper mix did not suit me and that I was better off reinvesting the CWC cash in something with a steady dividend yield. CWC has been good to me as I initially held for 12 months 2013-2014 and got out with a 39% yield before buying in again last year. Good luck to all of those who continue to hold here.

Could be because AZN just announced a major $267M licensing deal with US-based Ironwood and Ironwood stock just fell almost 9% on news that its constipation drug Linzess has "hideous issues" and is being linked with numerous patient deaths! Guilt by association?

Back up to £2.50 eh! Between this and Minoan you really do know how to pick em :-)

I personally do not think this will happen as a bidding war would not be in AZN's best interest and Medivation have made it clear that any approach will be regarded as hostile. They have already fended off Sanofi and are also facing mounting political criticism in the USA over the high pricing of the prostate cancer treatment they are peddling.

The world's first life-saving gene therapy for children, developed by Italian scientists and GlaxoSmithKline, has been recommended for approval in Europe, boosting the pioneering technology to fix faulty genes. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Friday it had endorsed the therapy, called Strimvelis, for a tiny number of children with ADA Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (ADA-SCID) for whom no matching bone marrow donor is available. This could be the start of something big. Do not be put off by the fact that this is a niche disease with very few patients. It is the proof of principle here that is vital and this approval is a potential game changer

UK pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca PLC is preparing to join the bidding for California-based drug firm Medivation Inc, according to a report in The Sunday Times. NASDAQ-listed Medivation has a market capitalisation of USD8.38 billion, and the newspaper said the prostate cancer specialist could fetch around USD10 billion. Rival bids are likely to come from Sanofi, Roche, Gilead and Celgene.

It depends entirely on sentiment towards Liberty Global as we move forward. The CWC price now just tracks that of Liberty. If the CWC deal is seen as a good one for LBYT then the SP should rise. If not it will stick/fall. LBTY is trading off a 52 week high of $55 and currently sits at $39, so scope for recovery there if the market moves up.

I came into this share via my holding in Friends Life which had been doing very nicely thank you in terms of both CG and Divi. At TO I was 36% up on FLG. Since the takeover and having used the final dividend from FLG to buy more AV. stock, this notional profit has declined to 27%. The share has been lacklustre to say the least and the dividend is not that great either.

I fail to see how the collapse of the Pfizer-Allergan deal can possibly bring either AZN or GSK "into play"? The deal has collapsed because the US govt are about to tighten up the rules and make ANY deal which involves a possible tax inversion extremely unfavourable to the US-based mover. This would affect GSK and AZN just as much as Allergan or any other non-US target company based in a country with a lower corporation tax regime. I think the recent upswing is just a break in the hammering that both GSK and AZN have received from the markets recently and that was based more on disappointment over progress at both companies in replacing lost revenue from drugs coming off patent than any lack of MA activity in the sector.

Indeed. I see from this morning's BBC news that the DOJ have now moved to block the Haliburton/Baker Hughes deal completely citing that the merger "threatens to eliminate competition, raise prices and reduce innovation in the oilfield services industry". So this goes way beyond a bit of potential shady practice by ValueAct. As for the typhoons this cannot be bad news for RR but also good news for BAE and UK jobs.

What on earth are you talking about?

Gerry557. It seems VA are vigorously denying any wrongdoing and point out that they only purchased shares in both firms after the announcement of the merger was made public. They may have been sober!