Standard Life demutualisation

Not necessarily. They'll need to get 75% of the members to vote, and half of them to say yes. Or something like that. Far from a foregone conclusion.

Define 'best'.

Most money. Some advisers might suggest keeping the shares indefinitely, others might say, best get shot of them pronto. A number of people I know have had their fingers burnt badly on the stock market. I myself only have the thirty-odd shares from Abbey National when it changed to a bank about ten (?) years ago. I have no experience of buying or owning shares apart from them.

MM

Not a good enough definition. Most money *when*?

Returns on the SL with profits fund have been extremely low over recent years. So another question might be: is it worth staying in the w/p fund even allowing for the potential windfall? In fact, I wonder if the whole demutualisation thing isn't just a ruse to prevent a mass exodus (that and the mva).

Fred

In message , MM writes

Nobody has any idea yet. Wait until the prospectus is issued and the pundits can make a guess at the market value of the shares.

Well if we could predict the movements of the stock market then we wouldn't be hanging around here!

Your choices (Assuming that the floatation goes ahead.) are:

1. Take the money and run.
2. Hold the shares to sell later.

If you have no pressing need for cash (To pay off debts or reduce a mortgage) then you could hold the shares. As you also have Abbey shares your portfolio will be entirely in banking stocks. You might want to think about selling all your shares and putting the money in a shares ISA. That would get you some exposure to other sectors. If you're worried about investment risk then a cash ISA may be a better bet.

This advice is worth what you paid for it.

In message , Anthony Cunningham writes

Except for the Standard Life shares, of course, as Standard Life isnt a bank.

So what is

Tch, your slipping here Ronald.

It is a small unquoted bank that, being a bank, is already incorporated and, therefore, can not demutualise and is not the subject of the demutualisation of The Standard Life Assurance Company.

All its shares are all held by The Standard Life Assurance Company.

Its shares are not available to the public and will not be available when its parent demutualises. The demutualisation is of the Assurance Company, not the Bank. The Life Assurance business is very very substantially larger than its banking subsidiary, which is a mere minnow.

The demutualised entity will be listed in the 'Insurance' sector not 'banking'.

Sigh, Financial Sector stocks then. The original point (That the holder of such a portfolio would be exposed to only one sector of the economy.) still stands.

If you had excess cash in the bank, would you use it to buy Standard Life shares? Answer that, and you have an answer to your question............