Member Info for Rumpel

Nolo - I am no longer with HL (moved a few years ago) but, and hoping not teaching you to suck eggs, don’t you have to move it manually from one account to another (income to capital?) as HL only do so once a month (about the 10th?) I am going from memory and a current HL client may be able to be more detailed. The bottom line is that I’ve not heard of such a long delay in receiving a dividend.

Welcome to the Barclays share register! Dividend details can be obtained from the Investor Relations website of the company. You could also use the Dividend Max website though bear in mind that sometimes the info is not totally accurate. Same sources apply if you have other shares.

Robleo - your logic stacks up on buying more shares if the price is lower and gaining a higher income. The point I was trying to make was that if you are looking at maximising your income based on yield alone, then that yield calculation should be based off the current price not the price at which you bought those shares. If you ‘got’ 6% yield on shares that cost £1000 and those same shares are now worth £2000, then the yield is now 3%. If another share is yielding 5%, then the rational thing would be to dispose of the original shares and then invest the £2000 into the other shares. Your dividend income goes from £60 to £100.

Of course, not many will look purely at the yield in absolute terms (for instance, many will also consider if they believe if it is sustainable) so my figures are only an illustration of just a single aspect that many investors will consider but the thrust of my point is that ‘your’ yield based on the purchase price isn’t rational to use in investment decisions.

By all means calculate the yield based off your purchase price - and calculate whatever other figures you wish to as it’s your money - but if the only factor (and, of course, it is not) that determines whether you hold a share is the highest yield, then you really should be using the current price for your yield %age even if you get a much warmer fuzzy feeling using a yield based off your lower purchase price (congratulations on the price rise, btw!)

Courdelion - Just a couple of things from your earlier post. First off, I found that it was a very thought provoking last sentence about “your future fortune to be sitting on the shoulders of such a small number of people”. It’s been said that it’s about mgmt first, second and third but seeing it expressed in that way brings it home. Often difficult for the private investor to make a true assessment of the C-suite as we’re not close enough to know who contributes what to the performance of a business. Is it all the CEO or is the CFO driving it (or, being negative, damaging the business!)

Re: diversification. You state “…not solely a means of maximising returns…” it seems to me that you contradict your statement with your subsequent comment “…accept a lower reward by spreading the risk among different companies”? I don’t wish to be a pedant but just making sure I have not actually misunderstood yourself? The sun may have got to me today!

For me, I would say diversification would normally be the latter in that you’re accepting a less optimal outcome on one measure (eg dividend income) to improve on another measure(s) (eg ‘safety’ of an overall level of income on an ongoing basis).

Ultimately, everyone has their own investment goal plus their own view / assessment, measure and tolerance of risk all of which can change over time.

Clued - if you’re interested to learn more about the buying and selling of a company / assets, then try searching the web on terms like “asset or share purchase” and “sale and purchase agreement” and then follow whatever rabbit hole you care to dive down. I’ve not looked at the Kenya situation but am guessing it was a share purchase. Also bear in mind that there could be statute that requires the landholder to pay for environmental clean up even if the current owner did not cause the pollution. Personally, I haven’t got a clue on Kenyan law!

I posted this on 6 Dec last year so will be interested if Driftking decides to explain their comment this time round…

“Driftking - I see you’ve been on this board for a while and have raised the issue of the dividend sustainability on many occasions so I am assuming you will have read many posts about the issues with IFRS etc for the insurers. If you keep making the same point, you’ll keep on getting the same answer. On an aside, looks like the latest Fool piece (by Harvey Jones) on LGEN would do well to read this board!

Obviously, when it comes to investing, each to their own based on individuals’ personal circumstances and risk assessment of information available to them.”

Hi Shark,

I can’t speak for a SIPP provider and can’t vouch for who is the best provider for ISA and GIA but I am something of a switcher keen to encourage platforms to continue to offer transfer incentives to investors! That has seen my journey from HL to Barclays Smart Investor to Interactive Investor and T212 and most recently to IG (under a 1% cashback on value transferred offer). The transfer incentives have been alongside efforts to reduce fees to the platforms (holding and dealing charges) with IG getting my business against the backdrop of II increasing their flat fee and a rather underwhelming credit interest rate. As your research will have shown you, IG are attractive in all those areas.

I’ve not used the IG website as yet but a few trades in via the app have all been fine and not cumbersome to use. The II app gave you the option of showing daily profit/loss which I liked but I will live to learn without that knowing I am saving myself £14.99 monthly platform fee, no commission on trades (the reason why I had a T212 account if I wanted to trade regularly with small amounts) and credit interest at 3.75% vs 1.75% (from memory). I only ‘trade’ in shares, not funds.

Hope that helps.

By profit, I mean a profit on a share held outside of an ISA.

“My advice is never buy shares outside an I.S.A” - appreciate that rational investors will be investing to make a profit but bear in mind that if you make a capital loss on a share held within an ISA then I believe you can’t offset it against a profit. Probably more relevant to the higher risk, speculative investments (rather than the dividend paying VOD) but I have one share of mine that I particularly wish was not in my ISA! At the time of buying, I had those greedy multi bagger eyes and not wanting to let the Chancellor have any of the profits I was sure to make…

KatieD - the forums of the various life insurers have tended to have, every so often, the topic of dividend cover. No offence to other good contributors but the one who always springs to mind is Meconopsis. And also the substack of Gordon Aitken.

KatieD - if you are looking at companies with an eye on their dividends, I would make sure that any yield calculations take into account any dividend cuts that have not yet fed through into the figures. For example, I knew that this was the case when I first bought some PSN a few years back.

Good luck on your investing.

Gerry - I think I understand where you’re coming from and why you track the dividend over your purchase price. It seems you probably reference that calculation more than I do, however, when we’re investing our own money, we get to choose how we monitor and if your approach works for you, especially if it can stop you making rash decisions you may later regret, then that’s important. We have our own individual risk appetite, after all, and these forums can be good for gaining ideas from others to help shape our approach to investing.

Gerry - I would define ‘yield’ as annual historic dividend per share over current share price, expressed as a percentage which I believe is the market standard way of calculating yield. I appreciate some will, for good reason, adjust the annual dividend figure if there has been a dividend cut if they are assessing different shares by comparing yields.

When you calculate your buy yield (which I think you also call running yield), what does that tell you about a share and what do you do with the answer? For openness, I also have a column in my spreadsheet with this calculation but it only gives me a warm fuzzy feeling as, fortunately, most of my shares have increased in price since I bought them. It doesn’t tell me if they are a worthwhile investment to continue to hold, sell or buy more.

I do agree with you that investors buy shares for different reasons whether it is because we think the price will increase or pay a (hopefully) reliable dividend income or simply emotion. And the factor of share price growth is why I think the total return calculation is important and why my non-empirical approach has led me to continue to be invested in some companies where the yield has dropped (as share prices have risen) rather than pile all in to the likes of LGEN, SDLF etc which have higher yields.

Gerry - Couerdelion will come back with a better worded reply but the yield is based off the current market price and therefore whether you bought at 231 or 240 is irrelevant for the calculation. By all means calculate the dividend over your purchase price but if you are using yield to determine the highest dividend income on your investment, then your purchase yield is not the calculation to make. Say you buy share A for £10 and gets a dividend of £1, the yield is 10% on that £10 price. If share B is also £10 but only pays 75p - a yield of 7.5%, then share A is the higher paying share. If your £10 share A increases to £20 but the dividend stays at £1, the yield falls to 5%. If share B has stayed at £10, you can sell share A and buy 2 of share B at £10 each and get a total dividend of £1.50 - yield stays at 7.5%. Notwithstanding your purchase yield is 10% on the first share vs 7.5% on the second, it makes sense to turn your £20 of share A into £20 of Share B to improve your dividend income by 50p.

As others have intimated in posts over the last few days, the total return (capital change plus dividend) is a better measure of how good your investment has been.

Hope that is a little bit clearer than mud!

tu***bey - which lenders do you suggest that the mgmt approach to get this sensible secured loan? i would think you are in an extremely small minority with the view that such a loan is available on terms that would make it sensible whether it’s the financial cost or doesn’t tie the company up in knots.

Alessandro - apologies if you are making your Pentland purchasing / inside trading comment based on something else but the recent holdings notification stated "Shareholding increased as a result of not participating in Share buyback". This was covered at the start of this thread.

Birdsong - appreciate we’re talking hypothetically about all other price moving factors not being in play in your dividend scenario but you only end up with more shares buying ex div if you didn’t reinvest the dividend into more shares. If you’re not comparing these two scenarios then you are not comparing apples with apples. Obviously, there are ‘leakages’ from your cash to consider such as stamp duty and commission costs. These points were made by Vistaman and Courdelion.

If you do reinvest the dividend, you would end up with the same number of shares and the yield will be the same and won’t be higher forever as you are saying if you were to buy ex div.

Welcome to the forum, Gordon. I suspect many that read this board, along with the other insurers, have been enjoying your sub stack, finding it really informative.

Svend - the CEO 2025 review stated “ The Group’s average daily net debt in 2025 was £733.7m (2024: £698.1m) which was higher than targeted, due to the delay of a number of Partner Funded deals towards the end of the year, as well as challenging Open Market conditions impeding the pace of working capital reduction.” Quite a difference to the reduction reported in the net debt figure at their year end.

I’ve not pored through the financials so it may be that I have cherry picked a number unfairly but, for me, it’s a useful reminder that balance sheets are simply a snapshot in time.