Marconi shares

dunstonh

Thinking maybe it was more recognised now that in the past banks and financial advisors have not always done what was in the best interests of their customers.

No its not. Plus, no bank financial advisers of any bank held permissions to give advice or transact in single company shares. So, this sounds like it would be a more specialised service. Maybe a private banking or stockbroking service. A few of the banks did operate discretionary fund management for larger investors. However, those were portfolio services that held shares, ITs and funds as part of a wider portfolio and not large single company holdings in isolation. And not done via financial advisers but DFMs.

I suspect your recollection or your explanation of what you had is not consistent with what was actually the position. It was a long time ago after all.

eskbanker

JGHdaisy wrote: »

I asked here for thoughts as my mum keeps on at me about the ads in the papers about mis sold investments.

It's pretty rare on here for anyone to recommend engaging with any ambulance-chasing claims companies but if you've exhausted all other avenues and are prepared to forfeit 30% of anything they get back for you, you never know.... But whatever you do, don't pay anyone anything upfront to go after this for you!

dunstonh

eskbanker wrote: »

It's pretty rare on here for anyone to recommend engaging with any ambulance-chasing claims companies but if you've exhausted all other avenues and are prepared to forfeit 30% of anything they get back for you, you never know.... But whatever you do, don't pay anyone anything upfront to go after this for you!

The biggest issue is that
1 - the FOS found nothing wrong. They are more consumer friendly than a court.
2 - It is more than 15 year ago. Limitation applies.

jimjames

JGHdaisy wrote: »

Next time I come into money I will be keeping it very safe and far away from any investments of any kind.

Sadly ignoring investments completely because you made a mistake previously may make you feel better but certainly won't make you richer. Long term the only way to beat inflation is investing. If you'd actually held the portfolio till now you'd be likely sitting on a tidy profit even if the Marconi shares did bomb out.

Malthusian

JGHdaisy wrote: »

As marconi went down the tubes we lost all the money invested in them. We stuck with the portfolio for a time after the shocking losses following 911 but in the end walked away a few years later as we just couldn't take the stress and worry anymore.

Absent any information about what the other 90% was invested in, that was the bit that caused you to lose money, not the advice to invest in the stockmarket, or even the fact that they didn't diversify your investment as much as was possible, even by the standards of 17 years ago.

I strongly suspect that by "we were young enough to make the money back in future" the Ombudsman at the time meant that you had no reason not to hold on and wait for the market recovery, no pressing need to spend the money and therefore no reason to turn your paper losses into real losses, and they were right.

By keeping all your cash under the mattress you are again losing yourself money from an almost identical mistake. If you carry on making the same mistakes you will be significantly poorer. There is nothing "safe" about holding cash over a long term timeframe; inflation is no joke.

aldershot

Lesson:

Difficult to know the exact dates but £10,000 invested in the FTSE all share at the end of 1999 (high point of the old cycle) slumped to around £6,300 at the end of 2002 but would be worth around £21,000 (dividends reinvested) at the end of last year. It's obviously up a bit more this year too.

Take the long view with simple investments with the lowest charges and don't be tempted to tinker because you don't know what the future will bring.

AnotherJoe

What were the other companies you bought ?