The Lemon Fool

Paul,

The online platforms use different settlement systems..Halifax is different to AJ Bell which is different to HL which is different to II..etc
Surely some bright fintech engineer can harmonise ?
This leads to "blind" decisions about what can be held..you can hold ctypto trading equities such as Argo but not a sub grade bond if it has to have a manual settlement.
Looks to me as if decisions are made not on product suitability but on how easy it is to settle investments.
When it comes to bonds that are non ORB/Mainstream then it is a case of calling the dealers/badgering someone savvy in the back office.

I buy Metro 5.5% at 68.25 today and HL show settle at 69.. nice but would rather they got it right !

Swan

Swanmore22 wrote:Paul,

The online platforms use different settlement systems..Halifax is different to AJ Bell which is different to HL which is different to II..etc
Surely some bright fintech engineer can harmonise ?
This leads to "blind" decisions about what can be held..you can hold ctypto trading equities such as Argo but not a sub grade bond if it has to have a manual settlement.
Looks to me as if decisions are made not on product suitability but on how easy it is to settle investments.
When it comes to bonds that are non ORB/Mainstream then it is a case of calling the dealers/badgering someone savvy in the back office.

I buy Metro 5.5% at 68.25 today and HL show settle at 69.. nice but would rather they got it right !

Swan

Yes, they are all different but of the cheap retail brokers I had previously found HL to offer the widest choice for bonds, which is one of the reason I chose to concentrate our SIPPs with them. They have started to cut down though, with a number of PIBS and other issues no longer available. I stopped using my AJBell account a few years ago. Until now they did not seem to offer anything I could not get at HL and they annoyed me by introducing a custody charge on their dealing account - HL have not so far. I always felt I got better service at HL as well, for example HL have previously allowed me to buy before I sell in order to raise money for settlement. I have done this a few times when it was unclear what price and availability was like on institutional issues and I did not want to trade before I had a firm quote.

I will leave the 9.5%. I don't really want them outside a tax shelter due to the income tax hit on that high coupon. The running yield on the 5.5% is high, but not as much as the 9.5% and there is more tax free upside potential in the 5.5%. The 5.5% are of course lower down the pecking order.

Paul,

The reason behind migrating some of the family ISA"s to AJ from HL was because HL no longer accommodate monthly investment
from cash on the accnt, it has to be done via monthly debit.
This is a problem for drip feeding into new investments

Have little action left in bank subs..BOI and Nationwide ccds are the two main issues left on my books

I am looking at China High Yield as a new play
Fidelity have a fund that i am monitoring.
:https://www.fidelity.co.uk/factsheet-data/factsheet/LU2184871734-china-high-yield-w-mincomeg-gbp-hdgd/dividends

Will post a new thread if i buy

Regards

Swan

Just bought the 5.5 (ticker 44VG) at 68 and change, through a nice lady who sounded as if she was in the ii broom cupboard.
Didn't ask about the 9.5.

Also followed Swan's idea and bought some of the ords in my ISA.

Now we await the next suitor.

V8

88V8 wrote:Just bought the 5.5 (ticker 44VG) at 68 and change, through a nice lady who sounded as if she was in the ii broom cupboard.
Didn't ask about the 9.5.

Also followed Swan's idea and bought some of the ords in my ISA.

Now we await the next suitor.

V8

Very brave as Sir Humphrey would say. Not becoming a YOLO investor I hope?

hiriskpaul wrote:

88V8 wrote:Just bought the 5.5 (ticker 44VG) at 68 and change, through a nice lady who sounded as if she was in the ii broom cupboard.
Didn't ask about the 9.5.

Also followed Swan's idea and bought some of the ords in my ISA.

Now we await the next suitor.

V8

Very brave as Sir Humphrey would say. Not becoming a YOLO investor I hope?

More seriously though, have there been previous occasions, following a banking mishap, when it was better to go into the equity instead of the debt or prefs? I cannot actually think of any. The closest I can think of is that buying the lower tier debt with the Co-op Bank (and getting Co-op Group bonds) worked out much better than being in the less risky tier 2 and getting Co-op Bank debt and equity. I think the difference there though was that the lower tier stuff was retail, the T2 institutional and OBR did a remarkable job for the retail holders.

hiriskpaul wrote:

hiriskpaul wrote:

88V8 wrote:Just bought the 5.5 (ticker 44VG) at 68 and change....
Also followed Swan's idea and bought some of the ords in my ISA.

Very brave as Sir Humphrey would say. Not becoming a YOLO investor I hope?

More seriously though, have there been previous occasions, following a banking mishap, when it was better to go into the equity instead of the debt or prefs? I cannot actually think of any. The closest I can think of is that buying the lower tier debt with the Co-op Bank (and getting Co-op Group bonds) worked out much better than being in the less risky tier 2 and getting Co-op Bank debt and equity. I think the difference there though was that the lower tier stuff was retail, the T2 institutional and OBR did a remarkable job for the retail holders.

Well perhaps a little yolo, and cash kicking around looking for a home. But it wasn't a lot of ords
I could have bought the senior but the overall wodge would have been disproportionate for my portfolio.

I hope that the glacial rises in rate will lift all banks, and Metro in particular will avoid running aground again.
In any event, had it not been for their little mishap we would likely not be buying their bonds at all....

V8

Reasonable looking results showing steady progress towards profitability.

https://www.investegate.co.uk/metro-ban ... o+Bank+PLC

The equity market seems to like it but no movement in the bonds.

Ords down 3% this morning in the general Russian panic. Hopefully no actual exposure there.
No apparent change in the bonds.

V8

Annual Report has been published. I have not read it yet, but we had the numbers a month ago and doubt it says much more.

https://www.metrobankonline.co.uk/investor-relations/

Steady progress reported in First Quarter 2022 Trading Update:

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/new ... e/15426585

5.5% 2028 bonds currently priced at 63.82/65.28 according to a friend with access to a Bloomberg terminal. Ords up about 4% today.

Bought some more of the 5.5% 2028 today at 56, ytm of 17.7%. The recent fall in price strikes me as overly pessimistic.

The PRA reduced the bank's capital requirements recently as well: https://www.londonstockexchange.com/new ... e/15514136

Good looking interims released today, helped by rate rises: https://www.londonstockexchange.com/new ... 2/15559707

Shares barely moved by it, up about 0.8%, but bonds up 6%. Still below my average price, but with a running yield of about 10% I am in just about in profit.

Paul,
I picked tis up from WShak who tweeted a clip form half year results today ..
The June 2023 call on the 5.5% 2028 will be exercised as there is a change to be made to the holding company
Looks likely holders will be offered an exchange for new bonds .

Swan

Is that 5.5% not one of those bonds that that clueless chap running the Bank England has banned ?

Swanmore22 wrote:Paul,
I picked tis up from WShak who tweeted a clip form half year results today ..
The June 2023 call on the 5.5% 2028 will be exercised as there is a change to be made to the holding company
Looks likely holders will be offered an exchange for new bonds .

Swan

Thanks Swan, I guess he is talking about this statement

We are currently working on the implementation of a holding company which we are required to have in place by 26 June 2023, which is in line with the call date of our Tier 2 bond. Under the terms of the Bank of England's December 2021 MREL Policy Statement, the operating company issued Tier 2 bond will lose MREL eligibility upon the holding company implementation. Management will work with regulators, debt holders and advisers with a view to addressing this MREL eligibility aspect before the implementation of the holding company. Our Senior Non-Preferred bond includes an option for the issuer to be substituted to the holding company once it is established and so will remain fully MREL eligible.

I doubt we will be lucky enough to just be called!

NealMorris wrote:Is that 5.5% not one of those bonds that that clueless chap running the Bank England has banned ?

I bought ours through Hargreaves Lansdown. No problem.

Thanks, according to AJ Bell they have been banned, crazy but also very frustrating.

Neal,
I hold the 9.5% 2025 Metro in my AJ Bell Sipp..They settled these at 81p on Friday which was unchanged.
The 5.5% are with HL..they have not updated a settlement price since I purchased.

To trade anything outside the norm, the submission of a "sophisticated investor questionnaire " should give you access

According to pundits Metro have adopted the wrong business model by maintaining a branch network.
Whilst this may not appeal to the tech savvy customer, there is still a large legacy market of older customers that distrust the internet and prefer
going to a branch to bank .
My take is that the average age of customer would be higher than other start ups and that "free cash" on these accounts would be higher than that of the net based customer. Should be a profile available on the net somewhere !

Swan