Royal Mail Shares

torbrex

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

Did anyone who has applied online (I suppose all of us) see anywhere for dividends to be reinvested, please? I just saw a place for a bank account for dividends to be sent to, and perhaps foolishly, I put in those details.

I am hoping that the option to re-invest the dividend will be available by the time the divi comes round.

IronWolf

I just read an excellent article on the RM share issue, anyone buying into this would be advised to read it.

http://thejoyfulinvestor.blogspot.co.uk/

IronWolf

Edit@ double post

Paulgti6

DSA wrote: »

As I understand it you have to open the account, once open then deposit money, and then once showing in account fill in the online form to request the shares.
.

When opening my XO account, it allowed my to complete the online form to request the RM shares before having any money on the XO account. It just said i had to ensure money was there by 5pm on 8th October.

It also didnt take 2 days for my debit card transaction to clear, just a few hours and it was showing in my XO account.

I did not however get any email confirmation that they had received my application for RM shares, just an on-screen acknowledgement. It doesn't show up in my order history either....

chucknorris

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

Did anyone who has applied online (I suppose all of us) see anywhere for dividends to be reinvested, please? I just saw a place for a bank account for dividends to be sent to, and perhaps foolishly, I put in those details.

I've elected to go via the Equiniti nominee account as I am used to them with my previous work company shares, and I didn't want to pay any non-trading fees (like we have to with iii, for instance), and I didn't want paper shares floating about.

Did I make a mistake?

Thanks to all who have posted. Interesting thread. I've requested £2,000 which technically I could afford to lose and is just sitting in my bank account as an emergency fund (but I have access to other money if required).

Looking forward to be back in the share game. I love the risk element of this sort of gambling. Don't think this is a long-term share unless the dividend is maintained. Who knows.

Good luck!

Because I don't know how many I will be allocated, I opted for taking the dividend as cash. I would have preferred to have opted for reinvestment, but the problem I was trying to avoid was being allocated only a small proportion of the £5k that I applied for, resulting in a disproportionate fee payable for reinvesting the dividends. For example if I was only allocated £1,000 worth of shares and the dividend was worth 6.1% i.e. £61, I didn't want to be paying a fee of around £12 for only £49 (£61 less £12 fee) worth of shares.

afwone

Paulgti6 wrote: »

I did not however get any email confirmation that they had received my application for RM shares, just an on-screen acknowledgement. It doesn't show up in my order history either....

Yes, that was my experience registering for the offer with X-O. I suppose we just have to trust that their systems work.

As an X-O customer of the last couple of years I have not had problems with them, and I have been happy with the service. There has just been the occasional glitch where the value of an investment is wrongly recorded as £0 or on one occasion given a value on the screen several hundred times more than it should have been. These tended to correct themselves after a day or two without me raising it with them.

blinko

I have had a good experience with XO though bear in mind it is a cheapy outfit hence why the costs are so low

DSA_2

Transferring out of Equiniti appears to require payment of a £35 fee.

However, you surely don't have to use Equiniti if you apply direct? Presumably you can hold the shares yourself and transfer the certificate in if you wish to sell them later?

I would be a little concerned if they wanted to charge me just to go to a shareholders meeting. I also wonder if I (later) used x-o to purcahse shares in another company which have additional shareholder benefits (e.g. discounts with BT) whether or not I would actually be entitled to those benefits.

Reaper

DSA wrote: »

I would be a little concerned if they wanted to charge me just to go to a shareholders meeting.

They do, as discussed above. XO is a "bare bones" stock broker. Cheap but anything more than the basics is unavailable or chargeable. If that does not suit there are plenty of more expensive stockbrokers offering a more comprehensive service.

I also wonder if I (later) used x-o to purcahse shares in another company which have additional shareholder benefits (e.g. discounts with BT) whether or not I would actually be entitled to those benefits.

Cheap brokers like XO tend not to pass them on due to the admin involved. Hargreaves Lansdown do and have a list of shareholder perks here:
http://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shareholder-perks
However note that BT, who you mentioned, are unusual in excluding all nominee accounts, even HL.

NeilB

I deposited this afternoon with x-o.co.uk and it took about 5 minutes (from a Barclays account) to appear in the x-o account as available funds. No email or anything saying they had my application for RM shares had been accepted but as others I did get the 'Thank you for your application' on the page once completed.