Hargreave Hale Market Maker

[attractioninvestor]

I sold my Hargreave Hale shares last week after holding them for a very disappointing 5 years. The market maker would only provide the published price on 1000 shares - a mere £670! Anything above this they offered 1p less - another 1.5% cut. I wanted to highlight this as a warning to future investors.

This is crazy action and just makes Hargreave Hale uninvestable in future for me. The market price needs to cover at least the minimum shares need for initial investment.

Every other VCT shares I have sold (Northern, Baronsmead) have got full market price - are HH shares the exception or are there any other which have such a terrible policy against shareholders.

[UncleEbenezer]

VCTs have traditionally been illiquid, and the kind of thing you experienced was once the norm. Though as you say, many mainstream VCTs - those that are bigger and more successful after industry consolidation - trade much better nowadays.

I've only ever sold in the secondary market when effectively recycling to buy new, and that's been within quoted spreads on mainstream VCTs such as Baronsmead, ProVen and Titan. But I've encountered what you describe on "vulture" secondary market purchases of troubled VCTs. I certainly pushed the price of Acuity up above its quoted range, and I think I may have done so when I bought Ventus 2 after a couple of failures had hammered it in the market.

[barchid]

Attraction & Uncle
In the past I must say I've always found HH vct to have an effective discount mechanism with quite large purchases of their shares being made, usually on a Friday, which if you look back over their rns history you will see, normally very close to 5% dis.
Interestingly though, I see that their last buy back was for 115,000 on March 1 and nothing since, whether this inactivity is connected with their recently closed top up offer, with presumably some new shares carried over to 19/20 so would be due to be issued this coming week, I don't know but I suspect that could have something to do with it. As a holder I certainly hope it is not a change of policy on the part of HH.
A way that has worked for me has been to offer HH shares I'm wishing to sell as a firm limit on a Friday morning and have usually sold them by just after lunchtime.
A couple of years ago at an Amati agm, one of their investment managers said that if anyone was having difficulties in selling shares they should call Amati direct, I guess they would tell them at what price to offer them so the Amati broker could buy them back in.
HH is a very similar product to Amati and I've always found them very approachable so perhaps the going direct route might be worth a try.

[barchid]

Attraction
I see that HH have apparently restarted their buy back programme with the RNS announcement on April 10 which states that very nearly 313,000 shares were bought back, the fact that on the 11th there is another RNS stating the amount of new shares issued in 19/20 from their recent offer indicates to me that the offer to purchase new shares creates a "close period" within which they can not buy back their own stock.
I do think that HH have one of the most effective buy backs of their vct's, but it also shows how illiquid these instruments can be when there is no buy back in operation, something for investors to always bear in mind.