If you've got some shares in HBOS are they now non-existant?

[zwiggy]

dh has some shares that he has had since he had a griffin savers account as a child with the leeds and when it merged with Halifax he got 200 shares. Never done anything about them cos we are both financially inept. What happens now?

[Nagapie]

I think the Halifax shares will be of zero value now and you will receive Lloyds shares in its place - not 2,000 shares, but at a ratio equal to what LLoyds/HBOS have agreed ..

[Soprana]

I believe (well, DH told me he heard on the radio) they're now worth 80% of what they were before the takeover. Glum.. I have some too.

[zwiggy]

gosh not 2000 - just 200! and we are trying to sell our house. god its rubbish.

[Nagapie]

Sorry - skim reading - imagined another 0 - wouldn't that be good!!

At least they weren't shares in Lehman's!!

[unfitmother]

Ours have been converted to Lloyds shares.

[zwiggy]

unfit - is that good?

[LadyMuck]

HBOS shares were still trading today. The merger had been announced but not yet executed, as at the very least the HBOS shareholders must get to vote on this. I would have thought that HBOS shares will continue to exist until at least that time.

Zwiggy if you look here I think it will tell you what to do. The good news is that if your dh did not actually claim his HBOS shares after the 2001 merger then it looks as if they were sold and he should get some cash - probably a lot more than his HBOS shares would now be worth.

[zwiggy]

we did claim the shares if thats the same as sending a cheque to them?

[LadyMuck]

Have you been getting dividends?

Anyway the phone number is on the link in my earlier note.

[Chopchopmissy]

OK thicko over here - are Halifax BS and HBOS the same people or not

[LadyMuck]

Halifax merged with Bank of Scotland to form HBOS in 2001. You should not still have Halifax shares. If so you need to claim the cash. You might have HBOS shares which are still tradeable, but will ended up being converted into Lloyd TSB shares

[MadameCastafiore]

Yes Halifax Bank of Scotland and HBOS are one and the same.

[Chopchopmissy]

No I have was thinking of mortgage wise - is there such a thing still as HAlifax Building Society (sorry dont live in UK am not usually this dumb!)

[MadameCastafiore]

No Halifax and Bank of Scotland merged years ago and then took over clerical medical and then rebranded that part to Insight Invetsment and then that part merged with part of Rothschild and then Lloyds TSB bought them - you following?

[LadyMuck]

Certainly the Halifax brand is alive and well. I don't think that it has technically been a building society for some time, but people wiill have accounts and mortgage with Halifax. I think that I still have an account with them somewhere...

[LadyMuck]

MadameCastafiore!

[MadameCastafiore]

What am I rumbled do you know who I am or something?

I am an opera singer nothing more my dear!

(Oh they also own something called Allied Bank of Australia or something like that and lots of other things that will be sold off I reckon - thats all I know for now folks!)

[Chopchopmissy]

Ok so if I have a Mortgage with Halifax am I ok with all this malarky going on

[LadyMuck]

You still have a mortgage. The ultimate shareholder in the company that you have the mortgage with is about to change, but you have nothing to worry about (other than the fact that you still need to keep paying said mortgage).

There will of course now be fewer companies in the UK offering mortgages, so we wait to see how competitive the market continues to be.

[Chopchopmissy]

Thanks v. much for that!