Scancell founder says the company is ready to commercialise novel medicines to counteract cancer. Watch the video here.
Apart from your own ISAs there are other ways.
1. Spouse has their own ISA allowance, and transfers of capital between spouses is free of capital gains tax afaik. Obviously transferring any money to spouse means it isn't your own money anymore, so that's an aspect to consider.
2. There is SIPP. Obviously once money goes in, it can only be taken out in accordance with pension rules, such as currently going to be age 57. However if you are looking really longterm, then SIPP should be at least considered before discarding the idea. Sales of particular holdings can be done, and then reinvested in other shares or into funds.
Tricky to say what will happen. Prices do normally drop upon ex-div, obviously then trading without the dividend value, but that doesn't always happen when market sentiment is buoyed and there is a hefty share buyback in progress as is the case here, and also the expected extra 21 cent special dividend upcoming, on top of what has become the 'normal' 10 cent quarterly dividend. On t'other hand any further bad news of China will adversely affect this asian-focussed business.
As always, global affairs will affect the entire market, and we've now got several skirmishes in play across the world. Nasty things, wars.
'Simply Wall street" is not written by a person, it's just a collection of snippets from a multitude of websites & chatrooms pulled together into a so-called 'summary'. So, the various elements of the summary are not written by the same people, it's just a collection of opinions, not necessarily all analysts or professionals. The SP will break out eventually, when the market does; barring wars, volcanoes, asteroid hits.
Razzledaz, they are actually very different businesses, Barclays/Llyds/NatWest vs HSBC. So HSBC doesn't necessarily move in general with sector movement of UK-based banking, because the majority of HSBC profit generation is in its Asia business. I don't think the others have a comparable international profit base?
A new owner of Aviva might decide to buyback all preference shares; adds risk. Remember 2018, proposing they could do so 'at par'. Sadly I missed getting some when it was sub-par a few months ago, but I'd have had to take into account the stamp duty & dealing fee.
I've always found that when I get good money coming in, someone is waiting in the wings to take it off me. Most recently that has been electric tariffs; we now search for fixed rate deals in the same way as we sought fixed rate mortgages.
@AiveandKicking re. paper share certificates - not for much longer probably.
EU already legislated to end paper certificates by 2025, and UK had a task force look into digitising existing paper shares (whilst preserving share owner rights as holding shares via a nominee company has such drawbacks). The taskforce reported that converting to digital shares could be achieved within 6 months of government issuing a date to make that mandatory, if it so wished. Change cometh.
I've got both types of holdings; mainly went digital when my bank introduced internet share dealing at much reduced costs over branch sharedealing a couple of decades ago, however they later stopped the branch service altogether and thereby stopped any dealing in paper certificates. Having made internet dealing their only way to do it, they then shamelessly introduced quarterly account fees, just to hold a dealing account, knowing we had no way else to do it at the time. Fortunately competition and choice has improved since.
Gwm121 - I think you confused lgen dividend with Aviva, both go ex-div same day this week, LGEN div 5.71p, Aviva div 11.1p.
agree with the essence of your post otherwise.
As regards what drop LGEN might have on ex-div, I'm expecting more than just the 5.71p. It's a long time til the next one paid, June 2024, so for instance a basic discounted cashflow would have to account for nearly a ten-month wait, not just 6-months for twice-annual dividends, if the share price was going to be valued via dividend valuation model. As for valuing by supply&demand, the likes of us with our relatively small holdings are often happy to hold, but big funds? - investment funds & pension funds are looking for quicker hits, so I would expect a sell-off as they move to something else, which in turn would depress SP here. Investment management sector currently on a downward trend, indeed the whole market is. 6% cash bonds look appealing. Only my ramblings - DYOR as someone often reminds us.
Armani, re Preference shares - the dividend is a fixed amount per share and paid half-yearly, the share price works more like bonds than company shares. That means SP doesn't go up any better however much better the company does, and is likely to stay lowish whilst bank base rates are high, and potentially rise when base rates are low. The market in them is small, literally 10 or 20 trades a day would be a busy day, so when it comes to selling there isn't necessarily a good deal around, and the buy/sell spread is quite wide. Unlike Gilts having no stamp duty, pref shares do. There are several articles on the subject if you care to google. Also, the future cannot be known as to whether the company might buy out all the pref shares to be rid of having to pay out the dividend; they once said they might, and again a bit of googling back to 2018 will tell the story.
Values on the US stock markets actually make quite a lot of impact on income streams from UK-managed investments, because many funds hold 50% in US stocks, some a lot more. Even so-called global funds are heavily weighted with US stocks & bonds, with 50% not out of the ordinary. Top 10 holdings lists are almost predictable before I've opened the factsheet; Apple topmost, followed by Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia, Meta, Tesla, United Health, Berkshire Hathaway (who itself holds 40% Apple).
Fund values go down, so do the percentage management fees chargeable by the fund managers & fund platforms. Revenues slip.
Where a company both uses shares as remuneration and has employee/director sharesave or share purchase schemes, then shares are being created - and adding to dilution for other shareholders. Buybacks of shares which are then cancelled counter this dilution effect. I don't have time today to dig through the Accounts and RNS to tot up number of shares created for issue vs number cancelled in the buybacks. Has anybody done this? would be interesting to show figures covering a decade to capture the scale of creation/cancellation, which won't always occur in the same year.
I'm not totally against buybacks for this reason; they can almost be viewed as essential.
When first announced, estimates were maybe 23 cents. The sale however has been put back to later in 2024, and may slip further due to same reasons of Canadian purchaser requiring to increase capital adequacy under regulatory control in uncertain economic situation, and if there's a recession. French sale faltered due to same/similar, and has ended up with not the entire show now being sold but HSBC retaining portions.
Slow n steady is a really good name, mine was just because I like science stuff.
Armani, I have no details any more than we can web-search, and your Times link seems around the right time, however if they had 'only' 50,000 customers to refund for overcharging and they started in 2007, you'd have thought they would have cracked on to get finished and avoid reputational damage lingering; just get it behind them.
There's a universe of provisions headings in the accounts, as expected for an insurer; both general insurance and life, the risk of paying out is inherently uncertain and a comprehensive set of provisions would be normal prudence in any case, but also required under accounting standards, plus of course required by regulators. However without an entry in notes-to-the-accounts specifying the issue we're talking about, I'd perhaps go for 'other' which was £331m 2022, down from £397m 2021. I can't say it is though, and can't say what's high enough as there's no info on how many policyholders affected, how many more discovered, how many yet to go through.
My own example is a small policy 3+ decades ago with a firm later among a string of mergers & ownership changes. The problem seems to be Aviva, or CU or NU preceding that, having not entered the taken-over policies onto their computer system with the original charging structure, perhaps they applied their own higher charging structure. That sounds likely, because myself as a young parent and super cost conscious would have signed up with the firm which I did instead of NU precisely because the bigger firm was more expensive, had higher investment charges on the invested element of the policy, or gave less life cover for the same premium, because that's what I'd most likely have been comparing. They wouldn't detail what the refund was for though, just repeated the amount is in the letter; 3 years worth of premiums paid doesn't feel minor, odd. It could do with the boost though, large proportion in 'safe' bonds!
For one of our own long-term (very long) life policies, hubby has just had a refund letter equating to nearly 3 years worth of premiums, letter saying it's to do with charges taken too high over several years. It's a large sum to be just 'charges'. A bit of internet searching leads me to occasions in 2014 & 2018 reporting something similar, and that overcharging was known about in 2007, with Aviva stating don't worry we've set aside funds to cover refunds and we're working through them, may take a decade. Now 2023.....
Putting my investors hat back on, have to wonder what profits over the decades have been overstated, and whether the setaside still in the accounts is high enough.
Today 26th June, in total
- "Since the commencement of the buy-back, the Company has repurchased 157,896,054 ordinary shares for a total consideration of approximately US$1,200.3m."
They do an RNS daily on this, as they have to report to market.
I'm watching & waiting a bit - market indices generally falling, Europe & Hang Seng down, Canada been down a little (Aviva have insurance business in Canada?), UK CPI out tomorrow, and MPC for UK base rate next day Thursday 22nd, USA were on holiday yesterday (Juneteenth) and yet to see that reaction this afternoon to 2 days of falls, knock-on effect to FTSE, big investors generally hanging back.
My opinion only, I'm no longer a professional.
"Since the commencement of the buy-back, (announced 9th May), the Company has repurchased 131,390,962 ordinary shares for a total consideration of approximately US$994.4m."
994.4m vs 2bn announced, so we're not quite half way then. I suppose we can expect another month of daily buybacks, and hopefully share price upside.
Half Year Results due 1st August.
The Market I think has the jitters any time there's to be a new head coming in? Change is unsettling and all that, no certainty as to how a new head would alter the business, the direction, cost cutting, acquisitions, offloading non-core businesses possibly, a re-focus on what exactly is core. We also have to assume that policies will be gone over with a fine tooth comb as to reinvestment, share buybacks, dividend policy....
The chap was at HSBC before Santander, at HSBC from 2007 to 2020, with several roles around the firm, and globally; he had a stint in their Hong Kong operations as well as roles back in London, and also sat on the Boards of their French and Turkish operations. One role was in their UK Wealth Management section, involving both asset management and insurance. His first HSBC role was in Mergers & Acquisitions. They didn't move him from one role to another because they had difficulty with his work! He was being fought over to become the head of each function.
He brings substantial background and experience. I particularly like the global knowledge as I think some company heads can be a little too insular in the UK and not properly understand international markets & opportunities. I also welcome the fact he has background in wealth management, asset management, M&A, but also from working in a business which has multiple divisions involved in differing sorts of business, and which included Real Estate. Banks are not just about lending.
Also a real people person; always consulting and gathering views from staff on the ground, to find out what was really going on in the business as opposed to possibly-crafted carefully-worded reports made from the heads of various sections & geographies back to head office. He undercut the middle management heads and went straight to the staff to hear the actuality of how businesses were running, and problems being faced or what was working well, in the outer regions as it were. Top Bloke; probably no surprise that I was among those staff underlings out in the sticks who gave views and was listened to, given how I'm talking him up! It doesn't matter whether our ideas & criticisms were eventually part of company policy & business direction (some were), it mattered that we were listened to, and that was a great motivator for working in the business; more effort was given, more income drawn in, costs were minimised, the company didn't have to pay more for the extra effort. Clever bloke. I almost feel excited to find out how LGEN will have changed over the next 3 to 5 years of my shareholding, but I'm going to have to settle for the pleasure of a cup of coffee now it's elevenses.
New to this forum, been taking a little look at this trust today, but they have an awful lot in Bonds, and I guess that is why the price is continuing to tank. Well over 60% bonds, albeit government bonds not potentially risky corporates. Their strategy will probably have seen them right in previous years, and since the 1960s they will have been through many stock market shocks, so the experience is there.
My feeling is too-heavy on bonds, and central governments have not yet started on the rate reductions which would have started to lift bonds. Hence it's been given a place on my future watch list, but well down the page I'm afraid for the time being. If they could guarantee keeping the bonds and waiting a year, might that have tempted me at today's price? not sure, think it has a little further to fall, and a year before central bank rate reductions start to make a difference
FYI - share buybacks are paid from post-tax profits, not pre-tax, so no there is no company saving in corporation tax.
As an aside, share buybacks didn't used to be possible, only made legal in UK 1981 / US 1982.
Exciting times to be working in finance, banking, and accounting.
Buybacks have some advantages over dividends as distributions, where the share price can be raised and which acts as a defence against takeover suitors.
I think buybacks are essential (?) for companies operating routine share creation as part of directors' compensation & employee pay, and the large sharesave schemes for staff, otherwise the dilution effect escalates year on year.
Last October a policy think tank proposed a 1% tax on share buybacks, as shareholders are paying less tax on dividends not being distributed.
A further slant on the discussion is that dividends are spent in the economy by recipients, thereby keeping money circulating, and increasing revenue (tax-take) from VAT on that spending, or if dividends reinvested then at least a little stamp duty taken.