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Some weird stuff going on. Got offered .033 to sell £15k on HL, then .0327 to buy £5K. Needless to say, did the latter

I am not so sure that the next RNS is going to have as big an impact as people seem to think. I would love it to, of course, but the problem for me is that the content of the next RNS is pretty much nailed on. The hard lifting has been done and BIA approval for QHE as operator is only a question of when, not if. And the company have already said that they are ready to drill as soon as they get the green light. So an RNS stating that BIA have approved QHE as operator and that the EWT has started should not come as a great surprise to anyone. It is the RNS giving the results of the EWT that could light the touch paper

Although I understand the frustration with the dividend performance, it is a mistake, I think, to concentrate on this in the case of Shell.

Over the past decade Shell has seriously reduced the number of shares and this continues through the buy-backs

The dividend is now much the smaller part of the return to shareholders.

Using the end of August number of shares (from the Shell website), the dividend of $0.358 per share costs the company just over $2bn. But to this must be added the $3.5bn spent on share buybacks, which represents about $0.6 per share

So the total quarterly return to a shareholder is $0.96

Using an exchange rate of £1 = $1.34, this is about £2.86 per annum. And at a share price of £27, this is an annual return of 11%

Of course if Shell stopped the share buy-backs and paid the whole amount as a dividend, things would be much more visible and shareholders might prefer it although doubtless loud calls would be made for yet higher taxation of Shell….

But if things continue as they are, this will have to happen at some point, if only because at this rate of buy-back Shell will have no shares left in about 14 years time.

However, we may not get there: they could decide to issue more shares to purchase another company

Having wondered if Chill would ever come back, I am tentatively positive about the outlook.

Just looked at the Chill.com site for the first time in ages and it is such an improvement on previous attempts. It is now a very professional site and I am starting to believe that it really could become the Amazon of well-being.

Interesting to see the SP hopping around and rising a lot today on what seems to be a very low level of trading. I suppose this could cut both ways but for now, wonderful to see Chill up, running and in the blue

Good luck to all

Hi all and a Happy New Year to one and all

Well another year ends and Shell has bought back just over 400 million shares this year, slightly fewer than last year's 480 million but impressive nonetheless.

At a rate of 400 million, it will take 15 years to buy all remaining shares, except mine so I remain on-track to own the whole company by 2040. Excellent news

More seriously, I wonder when the company will decide that the sharebase has been reduced enough and begin to payout dividends to the full potential if the buybacks stop

Will we hear such sweet music in March?

Although the current situation is far from ideal (to put it mildly), I was encouraged by the 5th Sept RNS.

First, I think Nick Tulloch is good appointment and will strengthen an already strenghtened Board.

Second, the plan to update on trading etc before the AGM will allow us a glimpse of what is really happening rather than having to listen to the speculative fantasies of various people

And finally having recently placed an order through the Chill website, I can attest that it worked perfectly

GLA

Over the past 6 years, Shell has bought back 2 billion shares!

Amazing to think that if they continue at this rate, in 18 years time I will own the whole company....

Hi RKB

You can add another 517,000 votes for the resolutions

All the best

I don't think anyone picked up on this but it is an interesting question.

Current buyback is $3.5bn and there are just over 6.4bn shares (down from 8.3bn in July 2018). So the buyback is about $0.55 per share. Divi is $0.34 per share.

So if all money was distributed to shareholders as dividends, it would be about $0.89 per quarter, which is $3.56 per annum (or £2.85 at £1=$1.25) = about 10% of current share price

No wonder they think Shell is undervalued

I sincerely hope that Swann and Somerton are meeting today to negotiate a solution to this mess. Both have been crucial to Chill's resurrection and I think that both will be crucial for its future. The most obvious way out seems to be to meet Swann half way and replace either Russo or Taylor with one of Swann's team. Legal action that results in either Callum leaving or a guy influencing a quarter of the shares being pushed outside the tent is in no one's best interest. If anyone here really does have Callum's ear, tell him to be sensible and negotiate

Hi NSS

We had a brief discussion about buybacks a while ago.

Maybe the fact that the company working on behalf of Shell chose to buy back over 5 million shares on Thursday (5,099,257 to be precise) and only 68,654 on Friday had something to do with the price marching up on Thursday and back down again on Friday.

I imagine that the buyback programme will get back into full swing from Monday in which case I reckon your 26.45 buy will prove to be a good decision

That said, the recent drop in oil prices probably didn't help either

Good luck anyway

It all depends on your definition of "much" but the number sure goes down

In Sept 2018, Shell had just over 8.3 billion shares (A and B combined) in issue. At the end of Sept 2023 the number was just over 6.6 billion

In Sept 2023, almost 20 million shares were bought back and cancelled.

You can follow progress on https://www.shell.com/investors/information-for-shareholders/share-buybacks.html

The only real question is why is the dividend lower now than in 2018 given the huge reduction in number of shares...

Just sawa tweet about this and looked at the website. There are now 4 brands in addition to Chill on chill.com

The website is also much easier to navigate with a drop-down menu for the brands.

There seems to be real progress here now. I wonder if all these new brands would not have warranted an RNS but maybe it is sufficient that they were already mentioned previously

Just waiting for the official vapes launch now but this is gradually improving all the time

I have been invested in this share for a long time because of the Australian assets. In the past, every time that Mosman has started to communicate a lot and enthusiastically, a placing has followed. I really really hope that it will be different this time and that organic growth will mean financing new project from current assets. We will see

Yeah these young CEOs are always such a disaster....like that guy Zuckerberg

I seem to see things differently to a lot of others here which probably means I have it wrong……

I currently have 13,210 shares in an ISA thankfully, so no CGT worries.

Those shares currently produce a dividend of £2,912 per annum.

Post consolidation I will have 10,040 shares. The company suggests (subject to confirmation etc) that the dividend will be increased to 31p. If so, I will then get a dividend of £3,112 per annum.

AND I will have cash of £13,433.

At an SP of £4.35, my current 13,210 shares yield just over 5%. At the same SP, my new 10,040 shares would yield 7.13%.
I am quite happy to hang in and get 7% per annum. However, in the past Aviva’s yield has rarely been 7%, so it is quite possible that the SP will rise.

I guess the proof of the pudding will come in October when the interims are announced. Will the dividend be increased in line with the new annual rate of 31p or not?

If I am missing something here, please help!!

I agree with you Hitman. As far as I can see the situation is roughly as follows:

Assume the SP is £4 for the sake of argument. The dividend is 22.05p = 5.5%.

They give you a quid and consolidate the shares. Assume you had 100 shares to start with. Original value £400, consolidated value £300 plus £100 cash. No obvious gain (or loss)

BUT on 2 March (see the Results announcement RNS), Aviva said that the dividend would increase to 31.5p in 2022.
If the SP stays at £4, the dividend return would increase to 7.85%. If this happens it would already be a major gain but I don’t think the SP would stay at this level.

To get the percent return back to 5.5% the SP would have to increase to about £5.70

Be interesting to see the combination of SP and divi% that finally emerges

Hi Dave, Good to rehearse again all that this company has going for it. I already have a big (for me) holding here and was going to add this year's ISA allowance when the price began to drop so I am holding fire for now until it stabilises. I fully intend to buy the shares so I am grateful to whoever is selling and pushing the price down. My only worry is timing because I have a feeling that once this starts on the journey back up, it may move rather fast because I suspect that there may be a number of people like me. We shall see - in any event, I am now just curious to see the figures in July, not that they will be the be-all and end-all for me because I realise that this is going to take a few years to mature. The other thing I would add is that I recently had to contact customer service in the UK about an issue and they were so helpful and professional that my faith in the company rose even higher.

Brilliant, thanks Bellers. Just used the code for 2 packs of tropical gummies and it worked fine.

OK thanks, looks like I had better join that group