Marks and Spencer Finals

[Alaric]

Exactly the same applies, supply one shareholder reference number and all your other certificated holdings will appear.

If you have a name that can be plausibly misspelt or even just mangled, you can end up with more than one list.

[Dod101]

Exactly the same applies, supply one shareholder reference number and all your other certificated holdings will appear.

If you have a name that can be plausibly misspelt or even just mangled, you can end up with more than one list.

Ca va sans dire, as the French would say.

Dod

[idpickering]

Ca va sans dire, as the French would say.

Dod

Or "that goes without saying" as the English would say. https://dictionary.reverso.net/french-e ... +sans+dire

Ian.

[Bouleversee]

Many thanks, Bree.

[Bouleversee]

If i register with Shareview, will i still get a share certificate if i take up the rights and will i have to sell through Equiniti? Their charges are rather high. I'm not sure what you mean by managing them. I don't want my M&S holdings in 3 different places and I dont see the advantage of having portfolios on several registrars as opposed to having one p/f somewhere which covers all my certificated holdings.

[Alaric]

I don't want my M&S holdings in 3 different places and I dont see the advantage of having portfolios on several registrars as opposed to having one p/f somewhere which covers all my certificated holdings.

It's some years since I used these services from Registrars, but as I recall it, there are or were three main registrars, namely Equiniti (then Lloyds), Computershare and Capita. Your portfolio would then be in three places anyway. What I think you could do was to add holdings on the "other two" registrars to one of the others as memo items. That way you could get a consolidated picture of your holdings.

I would have expected for certified holdings and Rights issues that they would send a letter with a form to fill in. If you didn't do anything with it, they would sell your Rights and send a cheque or make a direct credit. To accept the Rights, they would presumably want the form back in the post with a cheque.

[Bouleversee]

Yes, that's what usually happens. Nothing in the post as yet; maybe today. I just wondered if the procedure changed if one registered with Shareview and whether one was obliged to do so. I had an email from M&S suggesting I should. What I don't understand is how trading in the rights can already be happening if they haven't been issued yet. There is still nothing showing on my iWeb account either.

[Alaric]

What I don't understand is how trading in the rights can already be happening if they haven't been issued yet.

The entitlement is known, so provided settlement arrangements are in place, a market can be created. The online platforms seem to vary as to how rapidly they add the entitlement to accounts. ii have already done so and also supplied the online form to indicate what you want to do with the rights.

[Gengulphus]

If i register with Shareview, will i still get a share certificate if i take up the rights and will i have to sell through Equiniti? Their charges are rather high. I'm not sure what you mean by managing them. I don't want my M&S holdings in 3 different places and I dont see the advantage of having portfolios on several registrars as opposed to having one p/f somewhere which covers all my certificated holdings.

It's the company that chooses its registrar, not you (*). So the only way that you can have all your certificated holdings with one registrar is to choose a registrar and then only invest in companies that use that registrar - and even that probably wouldn't do you much lasting good, because companies change their registrars occasionally. For instance, just over a month ago, National Grid changed their registrar from Link Asset Services to Equiniti (Capita morphed into Link Asset Services sometime in the last couple of years).

Your registering with Shareview (or any of the others) won't make any difference at all to whether your shareholdings are registered - they are if you hold them as a certificate or in a CREST account, they're not if you hold them if a nominee account (they're just part of a larger registered shareholding held by your broker's nominee company, and so your broker's nominee company gets to give the registrar instructions about them, not you). All registering with Shareview does is allow you to look at the shareholdings that are registered in your name for companies that use that registrar and some historical information about them (e.g. dividend payments that have been made), to give the registrar various instructions that you could give by letter anyway (e.g. about the bank account your dividends are to be sent to, whether you want to receive annual reports and the like by post or by email, and if the latter, at what email address), and to use any additional services the registrar provides to shareholders. For instance, they generally provide a 'portfolio' facility that allows you to enter details of other shareholdings you have (either in companies that use a different registrar or in nominee accounts) - but such facilities are generally no better than those provided by many non-registrar financial sites. In particular, details of your registered shareholdings will be updated automatically in response to trades you make involving them, but details of any other holdings will generally only be updated in response to edits made by you.

So basically, if you hold Marks & Spencer shares as a certificate and you take up your rights, you will receive various things from the registrar through the post, ending with receiving an additional share certificate, and you can sell them just like any other certificated shares. If you hold them in a CREST account and you take up your rights, your additional shares will be credited to your CREST account and you can sell them just like any other shares in that account. In both of those cases, the details you can see on Shareview will be updated automatically through them.

But if you hold Marks & Spencer shares in a nominee account and you take up your rights, everything happens via your broker, who will tell you in due course about the additional shares credited to your account - once there, they'll be sellable as normal. They won't be in the details of your registered shareholdings held by Equiniti, and the only way they'll get into the other-shares-I-own part of your Equiniti portfolio is if you enter the details.

One other case is that I know at least some of the registrars also act as nominee account providers/brokers, which is presumably what you're talking about when you mention their charges. I've never used such services, so I cannot say with any certainty what services the registrar provides in that case, but I'd guess that it's essentially just a combination of those one can get from a registrar for a certificated holding and a broker for a normal nominee holding. The main reason I've never used them is the high charges you mention; if they ever bring the charges down to a competitive level, I might consider using them - but only if they'll act as a nominee broker for all my holdings and not just the ones for which they act as the company's registrar (which they might or might not already do - but I'm not even going to bother finding out until their charges are competitive...).

(*) That's basically because companies have a legal duty to maintain a share register, containing details of all the shares in issue and who owns how many. Companies can in principle do the job of maintaining their share register themselves, and very small unlisted companies often do. But when a company becomes traded on a stock exchange (let alone more than one), the job becomes a specialist one, requiring efficient systems to handle all the trades generated by the stock exchange(s) and the economies of scale provided by doing the job for multiple companies, and so companies outsource the job to a company specialising in the job - i.e. to a registrar. And indeed a good number of unliosted companies do the same, because the same arguments can apply without being listed on a stock exchange. E.g. an unlisted company might want to provide an occasional trading facility for its shareholders, and providing such facilities is definitely something that economies of scale apply to.

Gengulphus

[Gengulphus]

Yes, that's what usually happens. Nothing in the post as yet; maybe today. I just wondered if the procedure changed if one registered with Shareview and whether one was obliged to do so. I had an email from M&S suggesting I should. What I don't understand is how trading in the rights can already be happening if they haven't been issued yet. There is still nothing showing on my iWeb account either.

The registrars have issued the rights - it will have happened overnight - so trading in them is happening. How soon they show up in online accounts depends on the speed of the broker's systems.

Gengulphus

[Bouleversee]

Thanks, Geng. Even I realise I can't choose the registrar. I already have a nominee holding (iweb ISA) and a certificated holding and I wondered if I registered on Shareview and applied for the rights through them I would end up with a Crest holding as well (I don't have any shares in Crest and t.b.h. don't really understand how it works). I don't want to trade through Equiniti or any other registrar on present terms but might at some point wish to transfer my certificated holdings to an existing nominee account to hold, sell or bed and isa but also want to have my whole certificated shares portfolio where I can see the c.v. and profit/loss situation etc. on one page quickly, without having to click on each holding. I think I read that one can do this on LSE and it sounds as though I could do it with Shareview; it's finding the time to do it that is the problem.

Nothing in the post today re the certificated holding and still nothing on iWeb. I find it odd that it doesn't happen simultaneously but not worth losing sleep over.

[Alaric]

I already have a nominee holding (iweb ISA) and a certificated holding and I wondered if I registered on Shareview and applied for the rights through them I would end up with a Crest holding as well

Shareview is an Equiniti service and Equiniti are Registrars for M&S. I'd imagine all that would happen is that you get a certificate for the shares issued as part of the rights in the same manner as if you sent in a paper form.

Crest holdings cost money and many Brokers appear to be trying to phase them out for their clients, or at the very least demand an arm and leg in fees. There was a recent thread.

[daveh]

Thanks, Geng. Even I realise I can't choose the registrar. I already have a nominee holding (iweb ISA) and a certificated holding and I wondered if I registered on Shareview and applied for the rights through them I would end up with a Crest holding as well (I don't have any shares in Crest and t.b.h. don't really understand how it works). I don't want to trade through Equiniti or any other registrar on present terms but might at some point wish to transfer my certificated holdings to an existing nominee account to hold, sell or bed and isa but also want to have my whole certificated shares portfolio where I can see the c.v. and profit/loss situation etc. on one page quickly, without having to click on each holding. I think I read that one can do this on LSE and it sounds as though I could do it with Shareview; it's finding the time to do it that is the problem.

Nothing in the post today re the certificated holding and still nothing on iWeb. I find it odd that it doesn't happen simultaneously but not worth losing sleep over.

The rights are now showing in HSDL (they weren't this morning) so I'd assume they will be there in IWeb now too. However the corporate action notification isn't there yet so I can't decide what I'm going to do yet. I'm almost certain I'll take up the rights (there is enough cash from recent divis to pay).

They are showing as having a purchase price of 76.124p and are showing a loss of 50%

[csearle]

Your registering with Shareview (or any of the others) won't make any difference at all to whether your shareholdings are registered - they are if you hold them as a certificate or in a CREST account, they're not if you hold them if a nominee account (they're just part of a larger registered shareholding held by your broker's nominee company, and so your broker's nominee company gets to give the registrar instructions about them, not you).

...

Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to explain that. C.

[Bouleversee]

At last I have both notifications of entitlement so it's decision time. Has anyone changed their mind as regards taking up the rights or not?

[Fluke]

At last I have both notifications of entitlement so it's decision time. Has anyone changed their mind as regards taking up the rights or not?

I'm going to tail swallow, I have 315 rights and following one of Gengulphus's excellent posts on the subject some while ago I've worked it out like this based on prices first thing this morning. Please let me know if there is anything awry.

315 rights @ 36p

share price was 221p

Exercise price was 185p (221 - 36)

185 is 84% of 221

315 x 0.84 = 264

sell 264 @ 36p = 95.04

Buy (take up) 51 @ 1.85 = 94.35

[kempiejon]

At last I have both notifications of entitlement so it's decision time. Has anyone changed their mind as regards taking up the rights or not?

I have MKS split between ISA and unsheltered, That ISA gets no more new money and all the dividends have just been spent so no chance to take it in full even if I wanted to, most likely I'll lapse, I have thought about a tail swallow in the ISA but at a sub average yield probably not, unsheltered I'm not having any more MKS so will lapse my rights.

[daveh]

At last I have both notifications of entitlement so it's decision time. Has anyone changed their mind as regards taking up the rights or not?

I've decided to take up the rights, it's not a large sum and is easily covered by the uninvested dividends sitting in my ISA.

[Bouleversee]

Thanks for replies. I may take them up as the cost is only about £400 in total, though without much conviction. However, I note from the FT that the Chairman of Ocado, Lord (Stuart) Rose, (also former Chairman of M&S) has sold 450,000 of his Ocado shares, value £5,557,938. That still leaves him with 752,284 Ocado shares but it rather suggests some lack of confidence in the tie up; more a crop than a trim, methinks.

[MDW1954]

and following one of Gengulphus's excellent posts on the subject some while ago I've worked it out like this

You couldn't point me at that post, by any chance, could you? Or even give me a clue as to where to find it?

MDW1954