Member Info for Grayling

It is not a disaster, but it is worse than a broker downgrade, purely because, like it or not, Woodford is influential both on institutional and private investors. OK he had a very good track record until he went solo, but not so great since then. It smacks a little of panic to me, but lets see.

RR was listed last July as one of his top 10 holdings by value. He then bought more later that year as the price fell prompting headlines like "Why I am buying more RR", so must have taken a big hit on this. I wonder where he will park the cash? Not that I will be following him :-)

Poor old Woody! He is having a torrid time of it of late! Having built up a large stake in Centrica he sold out of that a few months ago citing "better opportunities elsewhere". Now RR have gone and he also has a large stake in Drax, which does not seem to me to be very forward thinking. His stake in GSK has tanked as well and he has been complaining about Witty's strategy there. What next? Will he sell his stake in Astra Zeneca, having played a big part in fending off to takeover by Pfizer last year?

Woodford described the firm's November trading update as "very disappointing" in a blog post, adding "it is now likely that the dividend will be cut in 2016. This has shaken my confidence in the investment case and so the position has been sold across all mandates". Woodford did not disclose the size of the stake sale but said he had held Rolls-Royce in the asset manager's Equity Income and Patient Capital funds.

British income-focused investor Neil Woodford said on Wednesday he had sold his stake in Rolls-Royce, citing problems in the firm's military aerospace, marine and civil aerospace businesses.

Liberty A are standard ordinary shares and will be listed on the DOW Liberty C will be non traded shares of a nominal value that can be exchanged for cash (or in certain circumstances exchanged for ordinary shares). The latter will probably not apply in this case, so cash. The tax implications are that you have to fill in a form which exempts you from US withholding tax on dividends at the full rate (it reduces from 15 down to 5% I think). Not that I would expect LG to be a big divi payer as Malone is allergic to dividends!

Other than the fact that the market has tanked overall today this will not help: BERNSTEIN CUTS ROLLS-ROYCE TO 'UNDERPERFORM' ('MARKET-PERFORM') - TARGET 515p was 602p

According to the BBC FTSE market report at close. RR is up 2.7% amid reports that its biggest shareholder is holding talks about how to boost the company's profits. I presume this means ValueAct? In which case this may be very positive news indeed.

OHLE No simple answer I am afraid. How long do you want/need to hold? If you have a long time, then I would say that today's price still reflects a good entry point for a long term hold. However, if you are likely to be a short term holder say 1-2 years, then RR may not be such a good bet. The next year is likely to be difficult and may be volatile so DYOR.

Thing is its not just AZN its the whole market, so nobody is picking on us in particular. Bad timing though!

Well Nomura put a price on CWC of 62p (up from 58p) on Dec 1st. This seems a little pointless as they are already bought out at around 80p a share by LG. I don't know why they are bothering, unless it just serves to underscore what a good buy this is between now and the TO cut off date, particularly if you can buy in on dips caused by falls in the overall market?

Fair enough. Have a good Xmas and happy hunting next year!

It is worth looking on the RR. website to see if the webex is archived. The Q & A session is the most interesting bit and particularly the issues and questions fielded by the FD. A lot of the perceived problems centred on the income models from engine sales.

Reading these brokers reports is little or no better than reading the articles in TMF or on iii. Within the space of a week they will veer from "Why GSK is a good market play for income investors" to "Why GSK should be avoided at all costs". I am in the scientific writing business and could dash off any number of credible looking "research notes" in the time it takes to have a quick coffee. This stuff is a) lazy b) reveals little or no information that you could not find online elsewhere and c) the paper it is written on is only good for the little room in the house.

Don't know what happened, but these shot up almost 3% coincident with the US markets opening today having lain in the doldrums for the past week or so. This is despite the Nov 30th offer update indicating that the option 1 (recommended) return per CWC share had dropped back to 80.1p from 81.03 on the 23rd.

Blackrock just upped their shareholding above the 5% voting rights limit and have had to declare this via RNS. It was a relatively small purchase but they now hold 5.02%. No idea if this is good or bad.

Thanks Comsman very interesting. I think I will stick this out and take the LG paper. Any cash (either upfront or in the form of redeemed C shares) can go elsewhere. I still have the Verizon paper from the Vod deal and that has done OK. I have also filled in whatever form it takes to get out of the withholding tax in the USA. I don't see LG as a good source of divi income as John Malone hates dividends, but he may push the LG share price up and that will do me fine.

Yes it could be them reducing further. Once they drop below 5% my understanding is that they no longer have to report? So we may never know.

Welcome back. If you go though the posts over the last week you will find some interesting takes from those who watched the live presentation last Weds and what the room on the day felt the problems with the business were. A summary would be that East has no intention of splitting RR which may pit him against VA and secondly that the city finds it difficult to value the engine contracts due to the complex structure of the aftercare packages and how the revenue streams from these are booked as profit.

There was a late declared trade last night just before 5pm of over £2M worth of RR shares at 606p which must have been a sell early yesterday morning. Before anyone rushes in, this was not the standard uncrossing trade (UT) as a result of the closing SETS auction. We may find out more if this takes someones stake down below a reporting level.