The Lemon Fool

I have a few Proven G&I. They are likely to update NAV shortly, with buyback a few days afterwards, at or marginally inside the quoted spread.

If only all the decent sized mature VCTs had decent liquidity - such as Baronsmead, Ventus (RIP) and others in my experience.

I have some Amati VCT shares to sell via HL (I can’t use any other broker). What is the best way to sell them? Can I do any better than placing a market order?

I tried to sell a couple of VCTs a few days ago via Interactive Investor. They were Proven VCT and Proven Growth and Income VCT. It didn't prove especially easy. The online system said that these shares could not be traded online and provided a link to a list of reasons why not - none seemed to apply in this situation. There was a further link to advice on what action to take, which was broadly a telephone trade at £49 each transaction, instead of £7.99.

I called to discuss it. When I eventually got through I was told, "oh no, it's not like that". I should call the telephone dealers so they could go through the options because of the limited liquidity of VCTs but I wouldn't be charged £49. I was able to sell one (Proven Growth & Income) into the open market whilst on the phone. The Proven VCT, there was no-one making a market price, so I was placed on the buyback list. Both of these were done at the normal web price of £7.99.

I previously sold a holding of Foresight Enterprise without problem, I placed an online sale order, was told online it would take a while to action and heard back an hour or two later it had gone through at the market price.

I wonder if something has changed? The market liquidity has reduced? Or perhaps the takeover by Aberdeen (or whatever stupid name they are using today).

Has anyone else noticed any changes? I am tempted to use Jarvis XO if their process is slicker.

Boots - my experience is that sales can be surprising.

I sold several VCT holdings three years ago when raising funds to buy a house. The only one that proved problematic was long-term-reliable (at the time) top performer Baronsmead, where I was limited to a much smaller sale than intended.

Buying in the secondhand market can also be 'interesting'. Though that's probably because the times one wants to buy secondhand are when a VCT is troubled and on a juicy discount.

I tried to buy some VCT shares to top up a holding and had the same message as mentioned above. I phoned to query and the Trading Desk spoke to the Trade Management team who advised that there were problems dealing innVCT shares. I sent a message to ii and the reply was that due to liquidity and availability issues "some" VCT shares could only be traded by phone. I have queried this asking which VCTs were affected and advsing as most have active buy-back programmes should there be aby issues.

In my view it is nonsense particularly for the more active VCTs.

I await a reply.

ij

Hi All,
opened an XO account and transferred them my certs a few months back to raise funds for some autumnal purchases. Wanted to offload my two Baronsmeade holdings as they have gone ex-div. Emailed Gresham house about buybacks and was given Chris Lloyds e-mail at Panmure Gordon. E-mailed Chris at 13.07 and had an instant response telling me that he was trading until 12.00 but would hold on till 1.30 otherwise I have to wait until next buyback. Spoke to XO and Boom! 13.45 e-mail to say sales completed. Stunning service.
As always, thanks for all your advice,


SB

Great to know, thank you.

I haven't sold any holdings but have transferred 5 VCTs in.

Thus far x-o have been impeccable.

Strongly considering them for my ISAs as well.

Just had an e-mail from chris.lloyd@panmure.com to say that he deals with 40 of the available 55 vcts. So may be a useful contact if anyone is looking for buybacks.

Regards,

SB

With Chris at Panmure do we have to garner his interest first, and then tell XO to make contact with him?

(I'm in the process of depositing a lot more VCT shares to XO!)

Jarvis deal directly with Chris. You may want to check with Chris beforehand to see when there is a buyback. I was lucky that I contacted him twenty minutes before he stopped trading. As the trade went through Jarvis my name wasn't on the deal so he sent me a further e-mail with dates of the next buyback.

Regards,

SB

Great thread here thanks which points me to XO.

Can anyone confirm whether XO did their VCT/buyback trades for £5.95? Seems excellent value in addition to a simple online selling process, if 2 steps rather than 1.

Cheers

I use XO and they do charge £5.95 for VCT sales (probably purchases too).
Service is good.

Thank you.