Member Info for LordAdam

freedom ... i see that my friendly attempt at banter regarding your stuck caps lock key was not seen as such but rather some kind of attack on you personally, which indeed, it was not. i'm sure that there are many folk here who would be happy to send you an old usb keyboard if you'll let us know where to send it.

in the meantime can i point out that the automated forum monitoring software both looks for and logs the excessive use of capitals as a form of shouting, and as such thinks of it as a form of abuse to decent upstanding folk ... consequently your present keyboard problems necessatate us other folk to using all lower case to bring the caps/lower-case ration back to normal.

This was a conversation from a friend:

Friend: HEY THERE WALT! HOW'S IT GOING???

Me: Dude... caps lock...

Firne: WHOAAAH THANKS!!! NOW I DON'T HAVE TO KEEP HOLDING THE SHIFT KEY WHEN I TYPE!!!

I'm suspicious ... it's unusual for a company to alter its articles of association, one of the principle documents first created when a company is formed and that governs how it conducts itself as regards governance etc. The RNS today gives notice that they've posted articles to the NSM, but as yet they aren't there.

I wonder what's going on here, nothing untoward I hope ...

Swim Fan ... sorry to break the bad news but in the recent RNS we have this ...

"As the Group's proposed final dividend for 2019 of 4.3 pence per share, which was due to be paid on 3 July 2020, requires approval at the AGM, the postponement of the AGM means the approval of this final dividend to shareholders will be postponed accordingly.

Whilst Balfour Beatty benefits from a strong financial position, in light of the market uncertainty arising from COVID-19, the Board will keep the appropriateness of paying the final dividend under review until the rescheduled AGM, with a final decision dependant on the prevailing circumstances at the time."

Most (if not all) other builders have suspended/cancelled their dividends, it may well be that Balfour will go the same way.

Nice to see that the board are continuing to draw their rather large salaries ... meanwhile ... me, who relies on dividends has taken a 100% cut in income for the whole year ... and probably a reduced income thereafter as the dividend is "rebased".

Interesting to see isn't it how every builder regardless of cash position is cancelling the dividend at the same time ... kind of smells doesn't it.

Quite the case of "I'm all right Jack, pull up the ladder".

Nice to see that the board have taken a temporary 20% cut in their rather large salaries until site work is able to recommence ... meanwhile ... me, who relies on dividends has taken a 100% cut in income for the whole year ... and a reduced income thereafter as the dividend is "rebased".

Interesting to see isn't it how every builder regardless of cash position is cancelling the dividend at the same time ... kind of smells doesn't it.

Quite the case of "I'm all right Jack, pull up the ladder".

The setting of the dividend is for the board to decide/recommend and the shareholders to agree (AGM) ... the FCA (and anybody else) can say what they like -- they can only exert pressure, not dictate.

However, if the government were to introduce a change to the Companies Act that would be different.

There's no financial reason for SLA to pull its dividend.

No, the dividend that was going to be paid to those Vistry holders on the register the day before we got onto it, has been postponed (see VTY RNS of 25 March). They won't be getting that. Which means when it is paid, those of us who obtained Vistry shares as part of the deal will get a look in.

Maybe I'm cynical, maybe naive ... but I think the story plays out something like this ...

Big crisis, lots of publicity, doom & despair everywhere, everyone's expecting cuts, austerity, hard times uncertainty ... what a perfect opportunity to 'rationalise' the dividend, cut it back, trim it ... we'll be retaining capital to bolster the coffers against the upcoming tide of uncertainty.

Then later ... what a perfect opportunity to buy back the companies stock ... (aside: let's use the money that we were going to pay to those saps, the shareholders, to do something that benefits us) ... just tell them that you can't get a rate of return like we can by buying back our own shares, they'll swallow that ... oh look the EPS is rising, well don't we look like good'uns ... rising EPS ... and would you know it, our bonuses are linked to EPS ... well I never.

Let's do it ... oh best run it past the legal boys ... umm ... problem ... it's so dodgy that the law forbids it, yep, Companies Act 2006 says we can't do it ... but, wait, there's a get around .. all we have to do is get the saps to pass a motion at the AGM saying they don't care ... oh, and good'ol legal bods they put it in the AGM the last time around, and every time they fall for it -- big rubbing of hands, what do you know, we can do it afterall.

Plan spending your bonus folks, it's going to be a good year .... for us.

I know many will have seen the RNS today cancelling the second interim dividend of 41p that would have been paid on 29th May to holders on the register on 27/12/19. This cancelling of a dividend which has already passed the exDiv date seems to be a fashion with builders at the moment ... and is much to be discouraged.

But leaving that aside ... there's a real question here. When GFRD and VTY did their thing, the old VTY shareholders kept the final dividend all to themselves by fudging the exDiv date to before the merger was complete and pushed the GFRD holders out in the cold, even though the new VTY shares ranked pari passu with the old ones ie were identical.

Now when VTY do get around to issuing a dividend again ... seems to me they will have to do it for all of us, regardless of the GFRD/VTY thing. In that sense, this could be an advantage to a GFRD investor. But only if the board can't come up with some crazy scheme of issuing a dividend or capital return to people on the register at a time in the past.

Does anyone know if and how they could do that ... ?

Don't think that the government will step in because of the global importance of RR. Sadly it won't. There's a long line of globally important companies that have folded or passed into 'global' ownership before the government stepped in.

It won't step in because of the national importance of RR ... which of course is what it should ...

There's no shortage of competitors for RR who would be only too glad to see it go to zero.

Normally this share is as quiet as this board ... very sedate and very calm ... even in this present market its been relatively well behaved ... until today ...

6-7% swings ... What's behind it folks?

Pianista, a couple of possible explanations ... LSE have been having a lot of trouble with their site recently and trade lists haven't been kept up to date ... and secondly, although I don't think it applies in this case, the market makers can delay posting the trade information to the trade list for various periods of time dependant on the size of the trade.

I reject your implied criticism ... I'm very well versed in the arguments in favour of buybacks, its a debate I've held many times over the years, and I still continue to hold the views that I do. My judgement is that I'd rather have the certainty of an income distribution which I can bank, invest or spend as I see fit as opposed to a manipulated share price which may or may not provide some capital gain at some point in the future or may not as the case may turn to be.

SLA increased it's buy back rate recently as the SP fell ... at least that seems sensible in terms of traditional investment thinking ... but don't hold your breath. Assuming they don't run out of money, which of course they would, it would take about 5 years at the present rate to repurchase the whole company ... and use £5-6 billion of cash! At the previous rate it would take between 10-15 years.

And of course, even then, you wouldn't own the company outright, as I and others would be holding onto our 'golden' shares!

I'm on record and still say, buy backs are not a good idea for us small investors ... they are a sign of a inward looking and self-serving board ... at least here in SLA they are maintaining the dividend rather than sacrificing it on the altar of self gain, but in reality of course they could be increasing the dividend, guaranteeing it for future years, or even, as they should be issuing a return of capital via a special dividend.

My one, and only, complaint about the chat filtering system on the LSE site is that there's no provision to filter messages based on content.

Mercifully, I now don't see what that timewaster Exstatex posts ... I have all the postings filtered out by the site ... but sadly I still see folks replies to him, many of which actually mention him by name. Now if I could filter by content as well, then all mention of him would disappear from my life ... oh, and wouldn't that be bliss?

iWeb charge a fixed £5 per trade and no ISA fees or annual charges ... cheaper than HL who want £12 per trade (drops to £6 if you trade enough) and want an annual percentage of your ISA for a fee. (Apologies if I've not got the HL fees correct)

But, if you're thinking of daily trading ... be warned, most private investors, retire from the field having made a net loss.

Mike

Some times you just have to look back into history ...

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Picking stocks? Sometimes the decision is a no-brainer

Shell is paying out pretty much all its profits to shareholders

Extract

When Shell announced an 80pc drop in profits last week, its shares rose by 6pc, making it one of the best performers in the FTSE 100. That might sound perverse, but it makes complete sense when you consider that the oil major had become what I call a “one-decision stock”. That’s a company for which the decision to invest is so dominated by one consideration that anything else is academic.

In the case of Shell, the consideration was very simple. Would the company maintain its $1.88 (£1.30) dividend? Shell’s shares have fallen so far in two years – from a high in May 2014 of 2,592p to a low last month of 1,278p – that holding the pay-out would provide a new investor with an income yield of almost exactly 10pc.

With the monetary policy committee at the Bank of England now unanimous on keeping interest rates at their 300-year low of 0.5pc, a sustainable 10pc income is as close to a no-brainer as equity investment can provide. By the time the results were announced Shell’s shares had rallied a bit from January’s low point so the yield was “only” 9pc, but it was still firmly in “one-decision” territory.

Shell’s chief executive Ben van Beurden was never going to guarantee the dividend in 2016 but he could hardly have been clearer about his intentions. Cutting capital expenditure by a quarter, shedding 10,000 jobs and selling assets worth $40bn is a set of measures with only one aim – to ensure that he does not go down in history as the first Shell boss to cut the dividend since 1945.
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... and that's from Feb 7 2016 ... 4 years ago almost to the day. They didn't cut then, they won't cut now ... every share bought back, if not bought back would fund the dividend for 10+ more shares, plus there's always script dividends and lots of folk would bite their hands off for them. Back then oil was £35 and there were more shares in issue.

Mike

Just been looking through the trade lists for the day ... now there's an interesting activity for you!

Firstly, two things that most will know, but I will re-iterate for the newer members ... market makers have the option to delay posting the trades that they do when the release of the information might influence/distort the market. They do of course use this for their own purposes and delay posting buys or sells preferentially depending on what suits them!

The second thing is that the trade lists show the price of the deal, but not whether it was a sell or a buy -- that's a matter of interpretation and many sites produce a guess based on whether it is above or below the middle of the bid/offer prices.

Put these two things together and you get things like a listed buy of 11,090 shares at a price of 200.386 at a time of 12:34 (when the price was really more like 188) ... which was in all probability a *sell* of 11,090 shares at 200.386 at something like 11:03, maybe 11:04.

Trawling through the lists I can see that the rapid fall in price at about 11:03 was the result of a large amount of selling at that time, almost certainly triggered by limit orders at ... would you believe it ... 200p!

The moral of this story is, if you are going to use limit orders yourself, then set them for 199.95 and not for 200 ... that way they go to the front of the order queue for dealing!

Anyway, from what I can see, today's fall was triggered by amateur profit taking, followed by a little bit of panic selling as folk saw the 200 highs being retreated from.

I'm not a chartist ... being more of a chicken entrails man ... but I wouldn't be surprised if this didn't reattempt a climb through 200 in the next few days if the market is reasonably positive.

Mike

IMB have a very long history of maintaining a progressive, increasing, dividend policy even through the 2008 period when everyone else was cutting dividends IMB held to their steadily increasing pattern. At times this has resulted in very high yields when the sp has dipped. But the same is true of BATS as well.

Looking at the director's holdings ... the CFO has a fair wack in there ... about £4,000,000 worth!! So there's a guy with a real interest in maintaining both the dividend and the share price! (Afteralll he's getting approximately £400,000 in dividends each year.) Plus of course as CFO he really does have power to influence how the game plays out.

The next time that I have cash available in the ISAs I'll be seriously thinking of topping up here!

Mike