Friends Provident & Resolution

tabath

But then we get charged fees , and with only a small share holding it eats in to your percentage. I haven't cashed mine yet. What about putting together an Email/ Letter and geting all on here to sign it. Send it to resoltion and the share company?

tabath

Also they're at 88p now and we got 79p!!!!

spacem

Spoke to a few people yesterday and basically the message I got was "if you had under 2500 shares you got cash, sorry if the paperwork never reached you/got lost in the post/equiniti/resolution/friends provident screwed up, but basically there were over 700,000+ shareholders and if a few didn't get what they wanted: tough - there is no possible way to turn the cheque into shares directly".

Computershare were quite helpful, saying I could open an account and buy shares if I wanted to. I got as far as signing up for Computershare but it wants a Shareholder Reference Number, which I don't have, because I'm not a shareholder in Resolution yet.

EileenH

I wrote a letter of complaint to Equiniti last week and asked for the return of my Friends Provident shares. They replied to say that a form of election was posted to me on 8th September and needed to be returned by 30th October and that as no valid election was received by them there was nothing more they could do as under the terms of the scheme late elections cannot be accepted. They gave me a shareholder helpline number for further queries which is 0871 384 2012 and +44 208 495 4613 if ringing from outside the UK (which will be the cheaper geographical option). It's very strange that many people did not receive this documentation. I'm not sure what to do now, I still have the F&C shares that I acquired recently so I may bank my cheque and buy some more F&C shares but I have already lost at least half the value of the FP shares, I'm very disappointed with Equiniti's response.

julianrutherford

Likewise, I have received a cheque but not expressed any desire to sell. How can the default be to sell? This is like the old inertia selling which was made unlawful ages ago. We send you something and if you do not say you dont want it, you must buy it! If the FSA wont do anything about it then who will? Martin - HELP!!!!
Julian

turbobob

EileenH wrote: »

I wrote a letter of complaint to Equiniti last week and asked for the return of my Friends Provident shares

Friends Provident shares have been de-listed as of 5th November 2009. So you can't have them back but even if you could they wouldn't be worth anything. Heres a link to the RNS news item.

My understanding is that the takeover was settled either in cash, as you've received, or in new shares in Resolution (ticker code is RSL). I have read that the share offer was 0.9 Resolution shares for each Friends Provident share.

If you do want to have shares in Resolution (who have taken over Friends Provident) you could just buy them. As at the close today the price was 84.5p per share.

Looking at the figures, say you had 1000 FP shares, and you returned the forms and opted for shares you would have received 900 Resolution shares in exchange for them.
If you did nothing and received cash you would have received £794 for them (at 79.4p per share).
Based on the closing price today, if you took that £794 and bought Resolution shares on the open market, you would get 939 shares (note 39 more shares than if you'd returned the forms.

However you will have to pay dealing costs and stamp duty (@ 0.5%) if you opt to buy the shares on the open market.

julianrutherford

Hi All, I have just spoken to Jason at the Financial Ombudsman Service who says that once the complaints procedure of Equinity has been completed and there is no satisfactory resolution then we can complain to the ombudsman service as the complaint will be about the buying and selling of the shares i.e. they have sold them for us without our permission, rather than the administration of the shares themselves (the registrars actions). Hope this helps!
[FONT=&quot]Julian [/FONT]

turbobob

julianrutherford wrote: »

Hi All, I have just spoken to Jason at the Financial Ombudsman Service who says that once the complaints procedure of Equinity has been completed and there is no satisfactory resolution then we can complain to the ombudsman service as the complaint will be about the buying and selling of the shares i.e. they have sold them for us without our permission, rather than the administration of the shares themselves (the registrars actions). Hope this helps!
[FONT=&quot]Julian [/FONT]

I'm not convinced. The way you are describing it, I would say your complaint is more about the terms of the takeover which had been agreed in advance of anything Equiniti did - i.e. that if shareholders did not return the form, then by default you would receive 79.4p per share for the first 2500 shares held. This is not something Equiniti would have a say over.

Anyway, if they found in your favour, what would you like them to do exactly? If its "give me the number of Resolution shares that I would have got if I returned the form" then see my post above. At the time of writing RSL is 83.75p, so slightly lower than yesterdays close.

jools1_2

it maybe better to bank the cheque as if you leave it lying around and it gets lost i think there is a fee for replacing the cheque. If enough of us complain about this cynically draughted takeover , which was purposely designed to profit from shareholders misimformation or lack of imformation or apathy, then there maybe a case for compensation for the selling of shares without a signature or permission as being unlawful,especially if there is a large number of shareholders affected.10 years ago there was alot of promotional advertising encouraging small investors to invest in friends provident and i stupidly bought £6000.00 worth of friends shares and i was given over a hundred extra shares as a bonus and all i got back when that cheque arrived was just £1950.00,what a great long term investment that was!!! Even more sadly for myself i am also a policyholder with friends and the policy matures this month and after 10 years of paying £35 per month which is an overall contribution of £4200.00 ,guess what !! i am only going to get back £3900.00 after letting those thieves have custody of my money for 10 years. I would have made profit from putting the monthly instalments under a mattress

best of luck to us all

Hovisbap

I too have just received a cheque out of the blue for my Friends Prov shares. I am livid! This cannot be legal, I have never had the chance to take shares in Resolution. Has anyone managed to talk to Resolution to find out what our options are?