HBOS Rights Issue ... argh, what should I do?!

[Tinkjon]

Oh Lordy, I don't have a clue about any of this Should I buy the extra shares offerered to me or just stick with what I've got? I know there's no guarantee that one particular option is the best, but I just want someone to tell me what to do

If I don't take up my rights then my existing shares will mean a smaller piece of the company as there will be more shares around - so does this mean that the cash value of my shares will go down? I know they can go down anyway but I mean will they automatically go down purely as a result of there being more shares around, all other things being equal?

Very grateful for any advice!!

i'm bumping for you

The simple answer is its up to you - yes if you don't take up the rights offer you have less of a stake. But equally if the value of the shares goes down less exposure.

Its not automatic that more shares mean price going down.. I think you need to look at what hbos is doing, why it needs the money etc (this will be in your prospectus) - also if the share price goes down you could buy more shares anyway at under the offer price

Helpful beardy man on bbc has lots of nice advice to help you

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7451465.stm

DH bought some and he a fund manager in the city so I would think it a good bet!

Thanks Poppy. LOL at "helpful beardy man" as for looking at the prospectus, I have a 9 month old DS who doesn't do sleeping, day or night, so when I finally get half an hour to myself the last thing I want to do is to read a billion pages of tech-speak I even had to phone the helpline to ask what a 'right' actually is! I appreciate your help, thanks! Off to look at what beardy man has to say...

propectus are dull - its generally in inverse proportion to the amount of pictures they put in. Beardy man seem to make quite a lot of sense to me so see what you think

Just read Beardy Man - brilliant, it makes complete sense now! Thanks so much! So it's simply a cased of whether or not we want to buy some potentially cheap shares? Why couldn't HBOS have just said that in the first place?

Thanks for the beardyman link - I came on with the same question.

I don't really understand a word of the prospectus, but as far as I can tell, if I do nothing I may still get some money anyway. As I understand it they will sell the shares that I could have brought and anything that they make on them over the quoted price will be paid to me by cheque provided its over £5 - least I think that's what it means.

The other option is to tell them to sell some of the shares in your rights allocation and use any profit to enable you to buy the remaining allocation. That means you end up with a few extra shares but it doesn't cost you anything.

Likely to do nothing and await my £5.01 cheque!! I'm all at sea without a compass on this to be honest

feelingused, aha, so that's what the cashless take-up means! I really couldn't understand that part. That sounds like quite a good bet then. Do we have to tell them what proportion of shares we want to sell, or do they work it out automatically, do you know?

I don't understand the difference between selling rights now and doing nothing, in which case they'll sell them for you at a later date. Are both options exactly the same, but because they're sold on a different date the price you get for them will probably be different?

I think I want to know how much I'll get for them before I decide to sell them or not [crystal ball emoticon] If it's the same sort of price that it'd cost me to buy them then I'd go for that.

Another 'thank you' for the link. Wait and see! sounds great advice.

Any last minute thoughts on this?

I have some Halifax Shares (185, I think) from the de-mutulisation because I had a savings account with them.

I still don't really understand all this - I saw an article in the Guardian on SAturday that said you could d something complicated like buy as many as you could afford with selling the rights to the rest - so eding up with a few extra shares and no extra outlay...

Shall I just ignore the whole thing?

Wish I had sold the when they were worth £11 each a few years ago!

Bump!!

bump bump