Shares with Benefits

JC9485

Hi are there any online share accounts where you will receive shareholder benefits such as M&S discount vouchers for holding M&S shares?
Thanks.

LobsterMemory

Generalising, no.
That's because when you buy online, the registrar sees it as a buy from the online stockbroker and lumps everything together as a nominee account so can't distribute perks to individual holders

masonic

Yes, some providers do offer this, for example Hargreaves Lansdown and The Share Centre (soon to become part of Interactive Investor). Your example of M&S is not a good one, since the shareholder voucher scheme was discontinued as of last month.

marlot

Deleted.  Just realised that masonic already posted the link

bowlhead99

The cheapest execution-only brokers holding your shares in a nominee account electronically don't pass on the perks, and some of them don't even pass on the invitation to attend the AGM unless you pay them a fee for the hassle of getting you a proper invite.

Some brokers do give you the perks, for example Hargreaves Lansdown are 'reassuringly expensive' for transactions and have a page on their website summarising what perks are available from where. 

I used to have an account with TD Waterhouse which became TD Direct, and they had full pass-through on the perks. However they later got taken over by Interactive Investor who don't mention perks in their FAQ anywhere, not sure if they do them. Since leaving TD/II, I've moved most of my accounts to AJ Bell, who explicitly say in their help pages that they don't pass them on. I do have one paper cert where I want the perks. Oh, other than my VCT holdings which I generally always get as new issues in paper form, and which sometimes have perks for the portfolio companies they own.

clivep

We hold Mitchels & Butlers shares in our IWeb ISAs. A few years ago I found out that they distributed a booklet of 20% off vouchers to shareholders for use in their establishments (Harvester, Toby Carvery, etc.). I contacted IWeb and they arranged for us to get ours and since then we've been receiving them annually.

JC9485

Thanks for the replies everyone. That's all very helpful.

M&S was available last time I checked (last year) which would have been one of the ones I would have been interested in having, typical.