Alliance & Leicester Shares

Well, the first news story I came across (from July:

said that the Santander offer valued each A&L share at 299p.

That's over 400% increase on 59p, or about 37% per annum, simple interest. So I don't think you need to bother with interest tables and the like, as your parents have obviously done far better than the return on 59p in any savings account over the eleven years of ownership. And presumably there were also dividends to add to that return.

-Neil F.

July:

> said that the Santander offer valued each A&L share at 299p. >

Thanks, Neil. Do you know where I can find out whether it *was* 59p when they bought the shares? I went to the A&L site and search through the internet, but the furthest back I can go is 2003. I couldn't find any other earlier share prices for A&L.

As for the share price today - I went to the A&L site and it says that it's 317p. I will see what they offer for the conversion.

In message of Wed, 27 Aug 2008, phuile writes

The offer has already been announced - it is ONE Santander share for every THREE A&L shares.

So the value of the take-over depends on the value of Santander shares. On the date of the announcement that valued A&L shares at 299p.

The current A&L price probably reflects the current value of Santander shares.

I believe the actual exchange of shares will be some date in October subject to all regulatory approvals etc.

David

Figures a bit out there: opening price on first day of trading 520p Total dividends since219.3p.

Someone else can work out what's what, but I d reckon you're just about getting your money back and would have been far better off in a savings account.

Tiddy Ogg.

Do you mean one Santander share is now trading at 520p and therefore you will be getting something like 173p per A&L share? Can someone explain because I am not too sure about these things.

Thanks!

Hi all, I've just found out from another forum that the share price when A&L floated was 533p, so the A&L share price is actually worth less now. Apparently, the share certificate says 50p on them, but I don't know as I haven't seen the shares.

Can someone enlighten me on this?

Where can I found historic share prices dating back to 1997? How can I also find historic data for dividends paid? I can only find them dating back to 2003.

Also, there seems to be different dividends figures - Which one should I be basing my calculations on? Currently, I am using what they called "Total Dividend per share" but I only got about 5 years of data instead of 11 years.

I think my basic question is that whether my parents should sell their shares now? Or should they keep hold of them. I think what they want is to have at least the equivalent of an amount if they have stuck the money into a savings account for 11 years. This of course, will have to include the dividends, which they have recieved through the years.

Thanks again for any additional advice.

In message of Thu, 28 Aug 2008, phuile writes

No! You won't get any money (pence per share) for A&L shares unless you sell them. What you will get is one third of a Santander share for each A&L share.

Currently A&L shares are about 327p cumdiv. They go exdiv on 3rd Sept, and if nothing else changes in the market then they will drop by 18p on

3/9/08 (doesn't always work like that though).

So the market value is currently about 309p and since Santander are about 930p, that seems to tie in.

eg lets say you own 900 A&L shares (and you don't sell them before 3/9/08).

1) you will receive a dividend of £162 on 6/10/08 2) after 3/9/08 your A&L share will be worth 900 x 309p = £2781 (Subject to market forces) 3) in October you will have 300 Santander shares in stead which are currently worth 300 x 930p = £2790.

HTH

The only money you will receive is the dividend.

David

All shares have a face value. 10p is common. You can just ignore this number.

Not easy. But Tiddy Ogg has said 219.3p for the dividends

Depends on whether you're a tax payer and what rate. You can no longer reclaim the 10% tax but you might have been able to in the past (not sure, someone else will confirm). If you're a tax payer then you'll need to pay any extra tax due.

Ditto for a savings account although in that case you can reclaim all the tax (or avoid paying it R85? in the first place) if you're a non tax payer.

Well it looks like they'll be down. 219p+327p= 558p

Assuming they paid 520p then putting that in a bank at 5% pa interest they'd have around 880p now

But whether they're up or down shouldn't affect whether you should sell or not. Instead you should be deciding if you think going forwards, holding the shares will outperform selling them and putting the money in a savings account.

Tim.

As others have said, there's no point in basing your decision on history. They're worth what they're worth - and today's decision, surely, should be based on what your parents want to achieve in future.

Fairly secure, if modest, return by selling and popping the money in an interest-bearing account? Or hanging on?

I'm hanging on - Santander appear to be one of the few banks whose share price has held up well. They pay divs every qtr, and these have been good, too. The Spanish tax thing can be a bit of a pain (you end up paying more tax on the divs than you do on UK shares, unless you go to the trouble of filling in messy "foreign income" tax forms).

For the record, A+L divs since flotation amount to 4.37 (net) per share. But if you insist on examining history, you need to account for the extra income if these divs had been reinvested each time. And, of course, the relevant tax rates of each parent.

Finally, if you're a Lewis Hamilton fan, it's a no brainer :-))