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Know the feeling but am rather hoping that the market can rebound strongly later this year. Ther are plenty of uncertainties at present but it strikes me that companies with a UK-centric focus are being unduly punished.

The Russian sanctions and the consequential oil price rises have the potential to affect us all, and could feasibly tip the West into recesssion (like the 1973 oil crisis) but now, unlike then, I believe there are alternative suppliers who can, and will, step into the Russian void. Clearly transportation of gas is a major problem (there's simply not enough LPG shipping) which can't be fixed quickly and needs to be resolved. Perhaps this crisis, once and for all, will force the UK government to sit down and actually come up with a cohesive UK energy strategy. For the last 20-30 years it's felt as if the UK government has avoided making any decisions and instead put its total reliance on the private sector, kept its fingers crossed and hoped for the best. This current government may not be entirely to blame for all of our existing problems (the Conservatives have done nothing during the last 10 years but succesive governments before them did nothing either) but if it fails to act decisively now then it will/should be held accountable for any further debacles that follows. Now is not the time for the Conservatives and Labour to get into a blame game (they are both responsible for this mess); they need to agree a common strategy going forward.

Tinker, for clarification, your capital gain will be computed based on what you receive for the B shares LESS a proportionate amount of your original acquistion cost determined by the formula given in my previous post. I would not be surprised if AV actually annouce the proportion once the B share scheme is implemented.

Tinker, the allocation of B shares to existing shareholders is no different to a bonus issue of shares, in as much that part of your original acquisition cost is allocated to the B shares, and the subsequent redemption of those B shares is a capital disposal for UK tax purposes. There used to be B share scheme where shareholders could opt to either receive dividends or capital, but the government introduced legislation in 2015 to close that scheme down (by effectively treating both as an income distribution for tax purposes). Now, B share schemes are only used to return capital to shareholders and are liable to CGT in the situation I've already outlined. I suggest that you do some further research on the internet if you doubt my comments.

I would disagree that it "isn't a gain at all" if you are planning to retain your remaining shares in the hope that you can sell them at a higher price in the future. If the return wasn't taxed now, you'd simply be increasing your capital gain on a future sale (because the return of capital would, regardless, reduce the base cost of your remaining shares). You also potentially get to use, at least, two capital gains tax exemptions. It should be noted that whilst the share price remains depressed, proportionately more of your original base cost will be allocated to the B shares (because their value is fixed at £1); the exact amount will be computed as follows: Value of B Shares/(Value of Remaining Shares + Value of B shares).

As I say, most long term private investors will hold their shares in ISAs and/or SIPPs which are exempt from capital gains tax and there still remains the possibilty, for those that don't, to Bed & ISA in 2021/22 and 2022/23 (for both themelves and their spouses) to reduce any potential capital gains tax impact

Warthog4, a return of capital by way of a disposal of the B shares is potentially liable to CGT. It's deemed to be a partial sale of your original investment. In the example given by AV, all other things being equal, you'd be deemed to have disposed of 25% of your original investment and the potential capital gain would be computed based on the net proceeds received lesss 25% of the cost of your original investment. However, no CGT will be payable if the investment is held in an ISA or SIPP, or if your total capital gains for the 2022/23 tax year do not exceed the 2022/23 capital gains tax exemption (£12,300). Regardless of whether or not you make a capital gain, if your investment is held outside an ISA or SIPP, you may be required to make a tax return for 2022/23 if your proceeds from sale (of all investments sold in the tax year) exceeds £49,200. So, it is probable that most private investors will not pay any capital gains tax but it is, nevertheless, possible.

Equalisation payments made by unit trusts are treated for UK tax purposes as a return of your original investment.

Tinker, I disagree with your second paragraph. The £3.75bn represents the excess capital generated from the discontinued businesses. Most of the money has only been on the balance sheet for a year or less and, assuming that it has been invested in cash or near cash assets during that time, has not been generating significant income. Therefore, the distribution of this cash, in conjunction with the capital reorganisation, should have little or no effect on the share price (because it's unlikely to have a significant impact on expected future discounted cash flows).

However, it goes without saying that, in distributing the surplus cash, AV is essentially acknowleding that it currently has no better use for the money and does not foresee itself being able to generate above average capital returns from investing the money in its ongoing business or new ventures in the short/medium term. This does not mean that AV might not expand or seek new ventures in the future, it's just an acknowledgement that keeping large amounts of surplus cash on the balance sheet, generating a much lower return on capital than AV's other assets, is in nobody's vested interests.

As regards the 10% reduction in profits from continuing operations, this is predominantly due to AV having booked a £466m profit in 2020 as a result of life assumption changes (in 2019 they booked a profit of £574m for similar assumption changes). These are not exactly one-off changes (it's not therefore booked as extraordinary income) but they are not changes likely to be booked on a recurring year on year basis (exceptional income is no longer separately classified). Stripping out changes in assumptions and modelling, non-recurring items and non-product specific overheads included in Other Life profits, profits from continuing operations have actually increased 16%.

TinkerT, you are ignoring the fact that the existing shares will be replaced by new shares as part of the return of capital. The issued share capital will be reduced by approximately 25% (in the example given by AV, you would receive 3 new shares for every 4 shares you currently own). So the share price (new shares) should not fact reduce, all other things being equal.

AV is returning surplus capital. It's already shrunk it's business, by selling all of its overseas businesses (excluding Ireland and Canada) and requires less cash to maintain/expand it's remaining business.

BodRuncie, of course the market cap will be changing. At any given time, the market cap of AV is, in principle, determined by the discounted value of expected future cash flows PLUS its net assets. The cash is part of AV's net assets and, as such, AV will, in principle, be worth £3.75bn less after the return of capital. However, the price of each new AV share should, all other things being equal, be the same as each old AV share (because the issued share capital will have been reduced by 25%) and the eps and dps should increase proportionately i.e. the eps and dps should increase by approximately a third.

When ABRDN announced the sale of some of its Phoenix holdings in late January they said they intended to return the net proceeds (the gross proceeds equate to about 12pps) to shareholders as soon as practicable after 1 March. Given the way the share price has been steadily falling since last year's results I think I'd prefer to have the cash in my hand (dividend) rather expended on buy backs that might do nothing to change the prevailing market sentiment.

What really irks me is that when ABRDN announced their new dividend policy last year the share price didn't actually fall as I'd expected and actually briefly rose above my purchase price. I considered selling but thought the market must know something I didn't; what an idiot I was to think that the market actually had some hidden insight ;-)

I'm now in for the long haul and, if losealot keeps averaging down, that long haul seems to keep on getting longer

Losealot, given your stated track record, please stop averaging down. Think about the rest of us ;-)

Just noticed over on the NASDAQ website (https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/mxct/short-interest) that, as at, 31 January ~3.15% of the issued shares are currently being shorted. Would love to know who's lending them shares. Wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be my execution only broker (although I can't find anything in the terms and conditions of either of my brokers to suggest that I have given them permission to lend my shares on their account); wouldn't that be just typical ;-)

Andrbea, I doubt that it would be Putin's long term plan is to cut supplies to Europe and increase supplies to China (assuming that there is sufficient gas line capacity). Russia does not want to become reliant on China (as Europe shouldn't have allowed itself to become reliant on Russia). Putin has no intention of becoming the junior political partner in the China/Russia entente. However, from a Western perspective, cancelling Nord Stream 2 and reducing gas supplies from Russia could now prove to be an effective strategy in making Putin more "logical". He clearly wants power and all its trappings and does not want to become beholden to any one country (however amicable, or not, their current relations). China needs oil and gas but has been heavily investing in Africa and other parts of the globe to try and secure those supplies; so although it may be more reliant on Russia in the short term than it may wish in the longer term it could be in a position to call the shots if Russia ever became overly reliant on China as a customer. The ideal scenario for Putin would be to have China, Europe and even possibly India all beholden to him; guaranteeing all the power and the wealth as long as the oil and gas lasts.

Aviva is now UK, Ireland & Canada focused. It disposed of its remaining European businesses (France, Italy & Poland) in the latter half of 2021. So what European exposure are you exactly referring to? Yes, okay, UK & Ireland are in Europe but Aviva's businesses in those countries is hardly affected by what's now going on in Ukraine

Why are you panning Warren East? Back in August 2018 RR was trading at £10 per share (before problems in the design of the turbine blades of the Trent 7000 became apparent; an engine that was designed long before East took over). East is not to blame for the pandemic and everything else that's subsequently followed. For the last 2+ years he's been trying to plug the cash outflows; there's no magic fix (unlike GE, RR wasn't in a position to cross-subsidise it's civil aerospace losses from it's financial arm).

Civil aerospace is in the doldrums and East can't solve that; all he can do is bide time and wait for the eventual upturn. Furthermore, most of the current engines in production and/or development and the pay per flight hour arrangements were in place long before East took over the hot seat.

Neither Rose nor Rishton had the foresight to foresee either the pandemic or the seismic shift to much lower emissions. How could they? East's actions over the last 3 years can only be truly judged 10-15 years from now. Has he set RR on the right future path? Only time will tell, but what's certain is that East has managed to navigate RR through probably the most difficult civil aviation market since WWII and (up till now) prevented it's total collapse. At the height of the pandemic RR was on the verge of financial collapse and East has had to make painful decisions to keep the company afloat.

The latest accounts available at Companies House for Interactive Investor Services Ltd ("IISL") for the year ended 31 December 2020 indicate revenues of £121m (PY: £84m), profit before tax of £42m (PY: £10m), total customers of 276k (PY: 272k) and average revenues per customer of £440 (PY: £333).

In 2019 IISL incurred exceptional one-off transaction and integration costs of £9m arising from the acquisition of the direct to consumer customer list and associated customer-related assets and liabilities of Alliance Trust Savings Ltd.

Total customers excludes dormant accounts (in the 2019 published accounts customer numbers included dormant accounts). Interestingly, it would appear that IISL has added another 130k active customers between 01 January 2021 and 30 June 2021 (according to the RNS issued by Abrdn). This would appear to be mainly due to the acquisition of of the direct to consumer customer lists and associated customer-related assets and liabilities of Share plc and EQi. IISL appears to have acquired the Share plc business in 2020 but its customers weren't migrated to IISL's platform until in February 2021; I believe the Share plc business traded in a separate, wholly owned subsidiary up to 31 December 2020 and its figures weren't consolidated with the results of IIISL detailed above. EQi's business was acquired in June 2021.

Bottom line, IISL is currently generating in excess of 3.5x the annual subscription from each of its existing active customers and there's no reason to doubt that it won't be able to generate a similar return from it's newly added customers in due course.

In NWG's H1 results issued in July, they committed to looking to pay at least £1billion in distributions (either by way of ordinary or special dividend) for each of the next three years. The interim dividend cost about £364m so, in principle, that leaves about £636m to distribute, which currently equates to about 5.6p per share (they've reduced the number of issued shares since the interims).

I therefore wouldn't be surprised to see an ordinary dividend of (say) 3/4p and a special dividend of (say) 3/2p per share; they may take the opportunity to "inch up" the final ordinary dividend from the 3p paid at the interims or simply match it, which gives them more opportunity to reduce the special dividend at a later date if the market takes a downturn. Regardless of the results, I don't think they'll go much, if at all, beyond 6p total; they want to be progressive dividend payers going forward and wouldn't want to over egg the dividends this year just to have to scale them back next year because the results might not be as good as this year (they want a steady improvement building one year on the next).

I think Putin is simply an opportunist who sees the chance to bolster his flagging support at home against "foreign aggressors"; he likes to be seen as the strong man. The reality is that NATO has been camped on USSR/Russia's doorstep more or less since the end of WW2 and the chances of a co-ordinated land invasion of Russian territory by NATO forces is virtually zero. It's hard enough for them to come up with a proportionate response, if any, to the current threat of Russia invading Ukraine!

Now I could understand Russia being concerned if NATO was to propose to basing nuclear missiles or strategic bombers in the Ukraine but I don't beleive that's ever been proposed. In reality, although this might not help Ukraine in the event of a nuclear war, these assets are actually better based further from Russian borders (less vulnerable to conventional attack, more time, relatively speaking, to respond and more time to check and double check before launching a counter strike minutes can still make a difference).

Bottom line, the number of troops, planes etc. that NATO might be likely to base in Ukraine are highly unlikely to be any threat at all to Russia but they might make it more difficult for Russia to re-annexe Ukraine.

I'm not convinced that Putin currently needs or wants to re-annexe Ukraine by invasion but, as is every dictator's want, the opportunity to launch a patriotic war at a later date, to bolster waning public support at home ,should never be discounted (even Maggie Thatcher, not that I'm suggesting she was a dictator, was able to reap the benefits of such a war).

Actually, that should have read "Spill the beans Svend"!

Knowing my luck "ihwlptd" probably got some deep Nordic meaning ;-)

I'm with Tune. Spill the beans Sloan!
What does "ihwlptd" mean? It's probably obvious but can't fathom it for the life of me ;-)
I think we all understand "wtf" so no need to tax the censor ;-)

I was the term "peg back" in relative terms. We'll never really know what impact the government's actions have had on house prices but I'd be very surprised if they haven't taken some of the froth off. The government's actions aren't aimed at reducing property prices per se (could you imagine the to-do in the Home Counties if house prices started falling; there'd be plenty of Conservative MPs exiting stage left) but to try and reduce house price growth relative to wage inflation; trying to make houses more affordable over the longer term by stealth. I think more needs to be done.

The rate of new house builds has been a problem for decades and unless housebuilders are coerced into using their land banks the economics just don't add up; the housebuilders have absolutely no financial incentive to reduce the supply-demand gap (as far they are concerned they are making the optimum number of sales to maximise profits). If the government wants to get serious about increasing the number of new builds then they've got to start financially penalising housebuilders; something akin to an additional annual tax of, say, 1-2% of the market value of any land owned, or contracted to buy, over, say, 3-5 years old). This would certainly give the housebuilders pause for thought; their natural response might be to put off buying the land until they intend to develop it but that always risks a competitor stealing a march and opportunities to buy large parcels of development land are becoming more scarce. I don't think opening up the green belt should even be considered until the housebuilders' existing land banks have been significantly reduced.