West Somerset railway shares

vmaxnick

My dad has left a large quantity of shares in the West Somerset railway. I am having a hard time understanding if these shares have any value at all and if they have, how to sell them. they are not listed on the stock market. This is about all the info i can find: http://westsomersetrailway.vticket.co.uk/article.php/292/shareholders
From speaking to the company (a PLC) their attitude is, you give us money and we print you a certificate. I know that my dad thought he was buying a share of something, this seems more like a charitable donation.

grey_gym_sock

in effect, it looks like more of a loyalty scheme: buy some shares, and you get discounts/freebies - and also the satisfaction of supporting the running of the railway (if that's something you're interested in).

the application form for buying shares ( http://westsomersetrailway.vticket.co.uk/shopimages/articles/extra/Share%20Application%202014_3.pdf ) suggests that a shareholder is free to sell their shares to anybody else, presumably for whatever price they can agree.

however, it also says that shareholders are entitled neither to dividends, nor to any distribution if the company is wound up. this would appear to be designed to give the shares minimal value, except for discounts/freebies.

the company is presumably prepared to issue plenty more new shares, at 10p per share. you could try to undercut them: suppose somebody would like 1000 shares (for the shareholder benefits), which would cost £100 direct from the company; you could offer to sell them 1000 shares for less than that. finding potential buyers would be the tricky bit. (and would your dad want you to do that, anyway?)

(as an aside, the company doesn't own the freehold on the railway - it just leases the land from the council - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-27484808 - so it may not have assets of great value. though this doesn't make much difference to the value of the shares, if there is no way for value to be paid out to shareholders.)

WestonDave

The plc won't have any significant assets (and none that are saleable) and as there is no dividend stream from the shares they are to all intents and purposes worthless. If they were first issue ones you might find someone would be interested in owning some for a small cost, but in reality they are a souvenir of a donation rather than an investment. Many of these heritage lines have these share issues as a means of raising a sum for a certain project - if you have a £1m share issue towards extending the line to the next station it gives it a defined edge. Probably the only one ever vaguely worth owning for investment reasons is/was the Paignton and Dartmouth Steam railway which has always been run on a commercial basis rather than as a preservation charity. Even then I suspect there is little value in the shares.

vmaxnick

The chap interested in buying the WSR shares please pm me with your email address. I've tried several times to reply to you via pm but no items are shown as sent.

puk999

vmaxnick wrote: »

I've tried several times to reply to you via pm but no items are shown as sent.

Under Edit Options in your profile, check the Save a copy of sent messages in my Sent Items folder by default option. Alternatively when you send a message, underneath the editable text box check the Save a copy of this message in your Sent Items folder. option. If you've tried these already and it's still not working, then I have no idea what's wrong, sorry.

Expect you know this already, but just be a little wary of people contacting you via PM to transact.

Porcupine

The WSR is going through something of a battle at the moment - here:
https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/west-somerset-railway-developments.11128/page-17
is an explanation of the two bits of the WSR who are at loggerheads, and read the 216 pages of the thread if you want the gory details. The AGM account from one of the protagonists if you want a quick flavour of the kind of things going on (allegedly, I have no idea who is right).

Bottom line is, your shares are potentially useful to somebody who wants to engage in a bit of shareholder activism. How much that is worth I have no idea.