What to do with Santander shares?

thestens

Hi. I have 41 Santander shares (formally from Alliance and Leicester). I have been asked if I want to sell them by selling my rights off market and receiving cash. As my yearly dividends are very low, I think this is what I should do. Am I correct here?

jimjames

Another option would be to gift them to charity if the value is relatively low. There are schemes available to do this.

barak

thestens wrote: »

Hi. I have 41 Santander shares (formally from Alliance and Leicester). I have been asked if I want to sell them by selling my rights off market and receiving cash. As my yearly dividends are very low, I think this is what I should do. Am I correct here?

Your reference to "rights" makes me think you may be referring to the scrip dividend option for February - rather than an offer for your existing holding. :undecided

http://www.santander.com/csgs/StaticBS?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1265288589956&cachecontrol=immediate&ssbinary=true&maxage=3600

furndire

I'm in the same situation, don't understand the letter that was sent.

scubaangel

Yup, it refers to the scrip divi. It means that they're selling 'new' shares and you will get a bit of extra cash for them but you'll still have your current shares.
IIRC The other option is to try to have the scrip divi used to buy new shares (although last time you needed to have 75 shares to buy one new one). Am quite hopeful myself that my share account will have enough in it to actually start increasing my share holding after the latest scrip.
(shares gifted to me as a baby, whole thing is utterly beyond me so I've decided to treat it like a savings account of sorts and all my divi goes in to a share buying account).

elektra

can anyone tell me what the default option is - i.e if you take no action.

I ask because I suspect that there is post I have not dealt with somewhere - off to hunt for it.

scubaangel

elektra wrote: »

can anyone tell me what the default option is - i.e if you take no action.

I ask because I suspect that there is post I have not dealt with somewhere - off to hunt for it.

The default is usually that you get a bit of extra cash as they sell the rights for you. The alternatives are that you take the opportunity to buy more shares with your own money (post them a cheque). Or use the money from the scrip to buy more shares.

switch76

The scrip dividend gives you 3 choices and is instead of the usual dividend payment.

For each share you currently own, you get one right.

You can:
1) Sell your rights off market and receive the cash minus 19% tax (default option if you haven't chosen anything in previous scrip dividend issues)
2) Sell your rights on market and receive the cash minus broker fees of about 0.3%
3) Get issued new shares.

Personally I'd get new shares. If you do need the cash, I think selling on market is better than off market because of the tax.

Also although the dividends don't seem that much, they give a far better rate of return than you would get in a savings account at the moment.

sabretoothtigger

I think they pay out about 10%. Why its so much is the bank is Spanish and many fear spain will fall into the sea because they have too much debt.

Thing is to me this is wrong, we know this bank as british because they took over so many of ours [abbey, rbs, b&b, a&l ] They did this all over the world, Ive read they are in fact largest in Brazil and have far more money there then in Spain. Socgen is more spanish then santander itself

Brazil is doing well so far as I know and even the uk side of Santander ive never heard bad of.
When they took over B&B they only grabbed the nice parts and dear old government was left with the dodgy loans


So anyway I rank the shares - too cheap
dividends - likely to continue

I would generally favour getting more shares or at least holding the ones you have unless you know of better

The default is usually that you get a bit of extra cash as they sell the rights for you.

depends on the broker, mine never asked me just got more shares and told me a month later.
I actually wanted the cash, since the price varies so much I like to take cash and buy when I feel its lowest


Another point is its common for Santander to encourage share ownership. They seem to be alot better on dealing with risk and cashflow then customer service. So what may happen is they actually float the entire uk division as a separate bank.
I know they already have shares but thats for the entire company. Often they sell off parts of their bank to stop themselves getting bloated like happened to RBS.

behemoth banking
http://www.google.co.uk/finance?q=santander&restype=company&noIL=1

THE_DOCTOR_4

Hi,

I have 100 Santander shares which I'm not sure whether to keep hold of these or to sell them?

I've been very dismayed to see the Santander share price drop so very much this passed year, with very significant share value reduction.
(I'm sure my 100 shares were worth around £1000 a year back, but now seem to be around £600, so quite a drop in their value!)

Does anyone see Santander share value going back up, or should I cut my losses and sell them?
(Oh to have a crystal ball!)

LadyNovelist

I have shares in Santander through their Nominee Service. I need to sell, and am not sure whether to sell on- or off-market. The 19% Spanish tax for selling off-market to Santander seems steep.

Santander's performance seems to be falling, but I assume that decine would be reflected in the amount Santander would pay to me if I sold off-market.

Anyone else in the same quandary?