LSL Property Services PLC Sharesave

duncan32

Hello,

My wife has received the opportunity (along with everyone else in her company) to participate in the above. It means we would need to save a set amount every month for three years (between £5.00 and £250.00 each month), get a guaranteed tax free bonus and at the end of the 3 years get the chance to buy shares in LSL at a discounted price (or just withdraw the money and tax free bonus).

We have until 5th January to join, if we so wish.

Does anyone have any advice? Has anyone joined anything similar? This would be the 1st time we've done anything like this. It looks to me like it is the same as having an ISA to be honest with you, but with the option to buy cheap shares at the end of the 3 year period (and then sell them straight away if the share price has gone up in the interim!?!).

Anyway, I'd really appreciate some feeback if anyone has the time. Any questions that I should be asking, perhaps?

Thanks in advance.

Duncan

Chrismaths

Sharesave is a nice scheme - in essence, you pay money into the scheme, where it gets tax-free interest - as you say like an ISA. At the end of the scheme, you can either take out the money, or you can use it to buy shares in the company, usually at today's price. So if the company goes down in value, you just take the cash, but if it goes up in value, you buy the shares, and either hold on to them (possibly putting £7,000 of them directly into an ISA), or sell them in the market at the prevailing price - basically a free "call" option on your company doing well.

As to questions, ask how much interest will be paid on the cash whilst it is in the Sharesave scheme, and ask when the price of the share purchase will be fixed.

duncan32

Excellent. Thanks for that advice. So, it is nothing sinister then, in your opinion.

I must say that due to the size of the company my wife works for, I felt that it was all above board.

I will find out about the % interest. The price of the shares is fixed from the start of the scheme (fixed at £1.74, which is a 20% reduction on the current price apparently).

Thanks again,

Duncan

Madiba_2

Its quite a common place thing, BT at least used to do it, Abbey used to (now their parent company does it) I've got 2 on the go and they're fantastic.

The one I have maturing in 2009 at current prices will turn my £100 a month (£6000 it will be in the end) into £15500 over 5 years. Not bad.

Bare in mind you are normally allowed up to £250 a month max. So if they do another one next year and you've maxed out, you cant take part. However, if the share price for your company is considered quite low at the moment, its worth putting more in this year's.

duncan32

The thing that concerned me was that at the end of the 3 years could they just not offer you as many shares as you'd like to buy? Say I put £100.00 a month in and wanted to buy £3600.00 of shares, but they only allowed half that or something. It all depends on demand I suppose.

Anyway, sounds better by the minute, so I'm thinking I may max out my input into this rather than save into an ISA.....?

Cheers!

Duncan

regularsaver1

I have a sharesave maturing on 1st Jan

I can buy the shares at £5.74 as they were 3 years ago - and sell them for current share price just over £11 - so I get the profit and my savings back, and a little bonus

I have 2 others as well. One for 5 years and one for 7 years

I only did £30 a month - and was alloud to purchase 192 shares - the value of my savings. This is run through the bank i work for. Others may be different, although some use my bank.

duncan32

regularsaver1 wrote:

I have a sharesave maturing on 1st Jan

I can buy the shares at £5.74 as they were 3 years ago - and sell them for current share price just over £11 - so I get the profit and my savings back, and a little bonus

I have 2 others as well. One for 5 years and one for 7 years

I only did £30 a month - and was alloud to purchase 192 shares - the value of my savings. This is run through the bank i work for. Others may be different, although some use my bank.

Thanks for that.

I have decided to go with £100.00 a month. I could afford a bit more, but at the end of the day its nice to keep a bit in reserve for unplanned events.
Let's hope that at the end of the 3 years they let me buy £3,600.00 worth of shares and that the value has gone up by the same amount as yours have!!! That will be a tidy profit!!!!:beer:

Duncan