Buying shares
Partly as a response to the potential bids for Cadbury (and the fact that cally_tmk had bought shares in them so at least she could say "No" to a takeover, however ineffectual that no might be) I've been looking into ways to buy shares.
When cally_tmk bought hers she arranged to buy them on paper (which you can do over the phone easily and quickly with a debit card), but I was interested in online dealing options. Interestingly, most of the online "execution-only" stockbrokers (i.e. no advice, they just buy/sell what you tell them) work with nominee accounts - in other words you are only the "beneficial owner" of the share - you get the increase in value and the dividends, but you are not actually technically a member of the company and on the share register (the nominee company that holds your shares and lots of other peoples together is on the register). A change in the law a few years ago entitled nominee shareholders to attend AGMs etc, vote etc, but this relies on the nominee company responding efficiently to your requests (and I read online of variable experiences for people with this)
So this is in principle fine for financial investment but it's not so good if you want to own part of a company as an attempt to engage with it - to be able to get the report, turn up and speak at the AGM, or even to benefit from the perks that shareholders might sometimes get. I reckon that if I am going to be all fussy and ethically-minded about investing in a company, I may as well do that in a way that very directly indicates my ownership and involvement.
There are two ways of doing this - firstly, you can buy certificated shares in a one-off transaction - though they can be a bit more cumbersome to sell - or you can hold a personal CREST account - this is essentially one of the electronic technologies used to manage and settle share deals. You go through a stockbroker who "sponsors" you for an account and does all the technical interfacing for you - and then you are a "real" shareholder, on the company's share register but your shares are held electronically, so you can buy and sell efficiently without posting bits of paper around.
I can't see myself (yet) buying huge numbers of shares - at around £15 per transaction it's not a terribly cheap activity (it's not as if nominee accounts are necessarily cheaper either) though if you think that some shares are going to grow in value, you can recover your cost that way.
I should probably add a disclaimer here that this is not financial advice, this is not reliable and you'd be a fool to let me invest your money :) I will now return you to more interesting fare...
When cally_tmk bought hers she arranged to buy them on paper (which you can do over the phone easily and quickly with a debit card), but I was interested in online dealing options. Interestingly, most of the online "execution-only" stockbrokers (i.e. no advice, they just buy/sell what you tell them) work with nominee accounts - in other words you are only the "beneficial owner" of the share - you get the increase in value and the dividends, but you are not actually technically a member of the company and on the share register (the nominee company that holds your shares and lots of other peoples together is on the register). A change in the law a few years ago entitled nominee shareholders to attend AGMs etc, vote etc, but this relies on the nominee company responding efficiently to your requests (and I read online of variable experiences for people with this)
So this is in principle fine for financial investment but it's not so good if you want to own part of a company as an attempt to engage with it - to be able to get the report, turn up and speak at the AGM, or even to benefit from the perks that shareholders might sometimes get. I reckon that if I am going to be all fussy and ethically-minded about investing in a company, I may as well do that in a way that very directly indicates my ownership and involvement.
There are two ways of doing this - firstly, you can buy certificated shares in a one-off transaction - though they can be a bit more cumbersome to sell - or you can hold a personal CREST account - this is essentially one of the electronic technologies used to manage and settle share deals. You go through a stockbroker who "sponsors" you for an account and does all the technical interfacing for you - and then you are a "real" shareholder, on the company's share register but your shares are held electronically, so you can buy and sell efficiently without posting bits of paper around.
I can't see myself (yet) buying huge numbers of shares - at around £15 per transaction it's not a terribly cheap activity (it's not as if nominee accounts are necessarily cheaper either) though if you think that some shares are going to grow in value, you can recover your cost that way.
I should probably add a disclaimer here that this is not financial advice, this is not reliable and you'd be a fool to let me invest your money :) I will now return you to more interesting fare...