The Lemon Fool

88V8 wrote:Yes, as we approach CGT time, I have no shortage of losses. IFL (Int Ferro Metal) gone bust, the last hangover from the days when I was into mining shares, Cobham, Centrica, GLIF and others underwater, and of course Interserve. One can only carry losses forward now for four years.

Indeed, what will the IRV share price be. With a 95% loss and being asked to fork out another £18k, it seems that equity holders are being called upon to do an awful lot of the heavy lifting.
Mind you, this is the initial crap offer. A better one was outlined in The Times a few days ago. Think I'll vote against, who knows I might tip the balance.

Of course, we must remember that capital doesn't matter. If I carry on at this rate there won't be any to matter

V8

P.S. to my previous comment, as I read www.gov.uk re capital gains/losses (though the page is undated), one has only 4 years to register the loss (which I did when each occurred) but they can be carried forward and used indefinitely. If anyone knows differently, please advise.

Dod101 wrote:Are you serious Alaric?

It's the impression you get from some of the comments. Unilever and Diageo being rejected on the grounds the running yield was too low.

I'd rather we discussed Diversified Income Portfolios and abandon the hijack of the words High and Yield to mean something specific, which I now understand to be what you might do with a 25% tax free cash sum at retirement.

Alaric wrote:

Dod101 wrote:Are you serious Alaric?

It's the impression you get from some of the comments. Unilever and Diageo being rejected on the grounds the running yield was too low.

You form your own "impressions" but they aren't necessarily correct. but are seen through the prism of your own agenda.

Unilever and Diageo have never been "rejected" by HYPers except in your imagination - indeed I and several other HYP investors who post here own both shares. And in any case, even if what you allege about them being rejected were true, it does not support what you said earlier "I rather had the impression that a share with a dividend yield of 10%, but a year on year price drop of 8% would be preferred to one with a dividend yield of 2% but a price growth of 4%."

Your "impression" of HYP and HYPers is so way off the mark that I wonder why you even bother to post here.

As Dod commented: Are you serious?

Arb.

I declined the IRV open offer. Will be interesting to see if it flies, or if the Coltrane agenda prevails.

Respecting the wish not to sidetrack into CGT, will just say for the record that rereading the HMRC guidance, Bouleversee is right about the four years, and I was wrong.

V8

As mentioned previously, I have holdings in 2 different ISAs. Yesterday, I received two separate letters from IRV's chairman urging me to vote in favour of their resolution, though without spelling out precisely what it was and without mentioning the open offer and dilution. Today, I received two separate phone calls from youngsters working on behalf of IRV (they didn't say who exactly they were working for but not employed by IRV) also encouraging me to vote for the resolution. Things must be getting desperate. How many millions must this be costing the company? They couldn't answer my question as to how much my vote counted if I exercised my vote through my nominee; one thought it would be one vote per number of shares I held but when I expressed doubt about this, he gave me a number to ring which turned out to be Halifax, who said that if my acct. was with them and I asked them to vote on my behalf I would get one vote and the same would apply to my IWeb holding and presumably also with my II holding. So why were Unilever encouraging people to transfer their holdings to certificated form to enable them to have a meaningful vote as, according to what was being said at the time, the Nominee only had one vote on behalf of all account holders? I wonder what the situation is for the institutions, i.e. how many votes do they get for their large holdings?

Getting back to IRV, is anyone bothering to vote? I don't know which proposal is best (tbh I haven't had time to study them in detail) but either way, I will have lost almost all of my money. What we need is for that big chap from Sports Direct to take them over.

Arborbridge wrote:
You form your own "impressions" but they aren't necessarily correct. but are seen through the prism of your own agenda.

Unilever and Diageo have never been "rejected" by HYPers except in your imagination - indeed I and several other HYP investors who post here own both shares. And in any case, even if what you allege about them being rejected were true, it does not support what you said earlier "I rather had the impression that a share with a dividend yield of 10%, but a year on year price drop of 8% would be preferred to one with a dividend yield of 2% but a price growth of 4%."

Your "impression" of HYP and HYPers is so way off the mark that I wonder why you even bother to post here.

As Dod commented: Are you serious?

Arb.

I agree with you and Dod here Arb. I hold both these in my HYP, and there they’ll stay.

Ian.

idpickering"/"Arborbridge wrote:
Unilever and Diageo have never been "rejected" by HYPers except in your imagination

I didn't imagine it.

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=14274&p=175134&hilit=unilever#p175134

in which

IanTHughes wrote:
...do not try to persuade me that ULVR is a choice for an HYP. It is not and never has been, at least not since 2012 when I started my HYP.

Alaric wrote:

idpickering"/"Arborbridge wrote:
Unilever and Diageo have never been "rejected" by HYPers except in your imagination

I didn't imagine it.

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=14274&p=175134&hilit=unilever#p175134

in which

IanTHughes wrote:
...do not try to persuade me that ULVR is a choice for an HYP. It is not and never has been, at least not since 2012 when I started my HYP.

To which, my response was...

Breelander wrote:Say, for example, a share was purchased in 2011 at a yield above the FTSE average, after which the dividend rose steadily to now be paying out 188% of the 2011 dividend. Was that a good choice for an HYP?

But what if the share price rose to 225% of the purchase price over the same period? Does the (by now) below average 'yield' suddenly make it a bad choice after all? Does 'yield' really matter once purchased, or does a strong dividend growth trump yield?


BTW, those are not hypothetical figures - they are for the Unilever in my HYP.

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=14274&hilit=unilever&start=40#p175177

Alaric wrote:

idpickering"/"Arborbridge wrote:
Unilever and Diageo have never been "rejected" by HYPers except in your imagination

I didn't imagine it.

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=14274&p=175134&hilit=unilever#p175134

in which

IanTHughes wrote:
...do not try to persuade me that ULVR is a choice for an HYP. It is not and never has been, at least not since 2012 when I started my HYP.

Well, he does qualify his comment by saying not since 2012, and I think many would broadly agree with that. He isn't saying he wouldn't buy ULVR because it is in anyway inferior - just that it isn't the right time.

Not only that, but Ian Hughes is but one particular investor expressing an opinion, and not the sole arbiter of what is or isn't desirable in a HYP. In other words, ULVR may have been rejected by a particular HYPer over a particular period, but not by HYPers in general, and your comment was made as a general accusation that a "share with a dividend yield of 10%, but a year on year price drop of 8% would be preferred to one with a dividend yield of 2% but a price growth of 4%."

I just do not see any evidence that that is true. Volunteers anyone? Roll up for a 8% capital drop? ... I thought not.

Arb.

By the way, as far as this particular HYPer is concerned, I am happy to take a slightly lower yield from ULVR than some other companies due to its perceived reliability and dividend increases. I therefore bought when the yield was as good as it gets for this share and that was marginal compared with the FTSE. I have topped up since when the yield was over the threshhold I set.

Ian Hughes and I slightly disagree on this, but we are both HYPers. Let's not make the mistake of generalising from the particular, or picking a particular and saying "that proves it!!!"

Bouleversee wrote:Yesterday, I received two separate letters from IRV's chairman urging me to vote in favour of their resolution.........

Getting back to IRV, is anyone bothering to vote? I don't know which proposal is best

I too received a call just now. I'm surprised that my broker has given out my details, not that it bothers me.
I said I had already voted against.

Atm we're only able to vote on the original offer, as that is the only one that has been put to the market. I might support the Coltrane offer if it is made available, less dilution, and I've lost so much already that another few thousand really wouldn't matter.

As regards this digression about yields, I would never buy below the FTSE average, what's the point. Unless it were a special case such as RBS who when I bought were paying nothing, but in the future had every prospect of resuming a good yield.
Continuing to hold a below-par yielder is largely a matter of whether I notice and whether I can be bothered to do anything about it.
I have in the past shown such shares the door, MKS comes to mind, but we have so much income now that I tend to regard things with a relatively benign eye.

V8

88V8 wrote:I too received a call just now. I'm surprised that my broker has given out my details, not that it bothers me.
I said I had already voted against.

And now I've had a letter from IRV, urging me to support the offer.
High noon.

I already voted against, not going to change.
One imagines the directors polishing their CVs even as I write.

V8

Alaric wrote:

idpickering"/"Arborbridge wrote:Unilever and Diageo have never been "rejected" by HYPers except in your imagination

I didn't imagine it.

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=14274&p=175134&hilit=unilever#p175134

in which

IanTHughes wrote:
...do not try to persuade me that ULVR is a choice for an HYP. It is not and never has been, at least not since 2012 when I started my HYP.

My response to this incorrect assertion has, quite rightly, been moved to the Biscuit Bar:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=16663

Ian

Thoughts on a windy Sunday sipping Malbec:-

I had a partial escape with IRV, because I sold when at least I had some capital left: I lost about 66%.

The question on my mind is: why did I sell? Well, actually, it was the stop loss which triggered, but why did I put a stop loss on? It was largely luck, I'd guess. Having already having sufferred a disaster with Carillion, I expect my antennae were a bit more sensitive. If I hadn't had CLLN, but only IRV, it's quite likely I would have just held on.

I don't think there is a general lesson I can learn from what happened. Maybe, withdrawing from that particular sector*, and the confirmation that you win some, and lose some in this game - and that's why we have a broad portfolio.

--00--

The other thought I had walking this morning in Surrey was, "By 'ec, it must be bracing where Ian P lives now!"

Arb.


*but I have also to beware of "sector erosion" as written about by Gengulphus. Giving up one sector after another as they become bad boys, can only mean I end up with very few of them after a time.

Arborbridge wrote:*but I have also to beware of "sector erosion" as written about by Gengulphus. Giving up one sector after another as they become bad boys, can only mean I end up with very few of them after a time.

Far better 'sector erosion' than big losses. Fear of sector erosion is no compensation for a large loss. Just congratulate yourself on your sale, even if it was a bit late. I have using the same parlance, eroded myself out of telecoms, however counter intuitive that may sound.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:

Arborbridge wrote:*but I have also to beware of "sector erosion" as written about by Gengulphus. Giving up one sector after another as they become bad boys, can only mean I end up with very few of them after a time.

Far better 'sector erosion' than big losses. Fear of sector erosion is no compensation for a large loss. Just congratulate yourself on your sale, even if it was a bit late. I have using the same parlance, eroded myself out of telecoms, however counter intuitive that may sound.

Dod

But, I thionk the thrust of the argument is that sooner or later most sectors will achieve the unholy state of disaster. So sector erosion tends towards zero investments! Whether one can, over a period of decades, distill out the most reliable sectors and just keep those is a moot point.
And the problem doesn't stop there, because it is quite possible in principle to have a share which remains a good one even though it is in a sector which has seen other shares dive. For example, there's nothing wrong with food retail - indeed the problem is not the sector but that some companies are apparently doing quite well (Aldi, Lidl,) , at the expense of those we might invest in.

Anyhow, my text was that Interserve shows there's a lot of luck here. I blunder about in the semi-darkness and just hope I won't stub my toe too often.

Arb.

Arborbridge wrote:Anyhow, my text was that Interserve shows there's a lot of luck here. I blunder about in the semi-darkness and just hope I won't stub my toe too often.
Arb.

Wind the clock back ~2 years....it's not just us who didn't recognise that Interserve was F.U.B.A.R.

viewtopic.php?p=33065#p33065

As you say, " nudge, nudge".

Hi all

New to the forum, so please bear with me.

I am not an invester so no next to nothing about shares and investments, but my mum has some shares in Interserve, which she acquired from my late father. She has now had this open offer (19 for 1 subscription shares) and must make a decision by midnight tomorrow night (12/03/19). Neither of us really understand what this offer represents and the implications of accepting or rejecting it. I've read all the comments in this post and most are just confirming that Interserve are going down the hole, which I think is kinda obvious, looking at the share price history.

Can someone give some laymans advice on what course of action would be the best. Default option is do nothing and option 2 is exercise the subscription shares in full or in part?

Please help