Standard Life Aberdeen Share Discussion Threads

[edmundshaw] 31/1/2019 22:03

McCunliffe, are you seriously suggesting SLA is using client money to pay group dividends and director bonuses? You surely know there are rules against that. I suggest you air your concerns to the FCA if you have evidence of it, but to be honest I am not getting particularly nervous on that score...

[uppompeii] 31/1/2019 21:13

I'm not so sure the link is that strong between terminal bonus and dividends. Terminal bonus is only paid on with profit policies which are in, ahem, terminal decline. I always thought that, in the right circumstances, they were pretty good policies. For example, for estate planning with whole life wp plans.Its true that reversionary bonus applies a smoothing effect of returns over the years but the terminal bonus is dependent on any further excess not paid out over the term of the policy due to the lower reversionaries never fully paying out their full gain over a given year (or loss).Also these days though there is no real need to pay heady terminals as there is no competition between providers to give the best payouts, as there was in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. And the number of policies maturing is far far lower now.Not sure what the dividend cover is here without looking but I'm not convinced it will be closely correlated with tb decline.

[watfordhornet] 31/1/2019 17:16

Guessing my purchase yesterday of 5k of shares was not best timing then? Usual timing for me but not best

[mcunliffe1] 31/1/2019 16:55

I like your optimism guys. Of course there's a profit drop on the way - and a big one by my reckoning.

In Feb 2018 they dropped my terminal bonus by a "modest" 3.96%. They also acted in August 2018 with a further 8.5% cut. (there was a 2.6% rise in terminal bonus between Feb 2018 post cut and Aug 2018 pre cut).

However, the cut in the past day or so was a very large 17%. This hints to me of a need to gather money to at least assuage the drop in EPS and to help mask this with a confident dividend payment.

As my wife said, the other reason for the t.b. money grab is the need to pay bonuses to the boys at the top who, let's be honest, get paid a phenominal amount even in a declining situation. And there's two of them. :-(

Compare SLA share performance with Legal & Gen. L&G seem to be somewhat better.

[cyberian] 31/1/2019 16:06

kenmitch....doubt a profit warning as the new Chairman would have acted by now, and at the least stopped/suspended the share buy-back program...they have done this before briefly to keep the market reasonably balanced/fair.I guess we will weather the hit today, and look for key initiatives etc. to be announced with finals with the influence of the Chairman...I believe the forward statement will be very important, and to offer encouragement with an improved vision for the company. This may well introduce some key personnel changes and more clout and improvements to data etc, upgrades...the latter appear in need of some developments.

[kenmitch] 31/1/2019 15:37

Interesting post (1388) cyberian, and I agree with most of it too. Also keith95's post might explain the Morgan Stanley change of tone now! And they were wrong about 477p and could be just as wrong now..... as long as there isn't a profits warning ahead!
Until the next update SLA looks well worth holding just for the dividend.... as long as it is held!

[cyberian] 31/1/2019 15:25

Oh well..we have more than achieved the target price from the wise men of Morgan Stanley, so which way now? MS have achieved their belated goal 6 months after suggesting an share price of 477p.

[keith95] 31/1/2019 14:02

or sour grapes ....


hxxps://www.dispatchtribunal.com/2018/12/21/morgan-stanley-ms-shares-sold-by-standard-life-aberdeen-plc.html


"Standard Life Aberdeen plc trimmed its position in shares of Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) by 3.8% during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,287,795 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 91,083 shares during the period. Standard Life Aberdeen plc owned approximately 0.13% of Morgan Stanley worth $106,543,000 at the end of the most recent quarter."

[carer] 31/1/2019 13:03

The company share buy back will get a cheaper price. see tomorrow's announcement regarding how many shares have been bought. maybe it is all a conspiracy.

[meijiman] 31/1/2019 12:23

I have given your post a tick up.

[mcunliffe1] 31/1/2019 11:38

meijiman, you may be closer to the truth than we'd all like. I read in the press that the SLA function hosted in Davos offers the finest whiskies and has a fully dressed highland piper in attendance (might be Skeoch in fancy dress).

I'm still awaiting a sensible response from SLA regarding my quite serious complaints about the accuracy of data they provide on their secure client website. This has been the case for a couple of years and they've made no attempt to rectify. FOS is my next port of call if they fail to either fix or fully remove the invalid data they show. They've even acknowledged it is invalid but claim this is due to "old legacy type policies hosted on a different computer system".

Now, if management is unconcerned about such matters what else is happening that is failing to attract their attention?

[meijiman] 31/1/2019 11:06

I'm hearing rumours of a profits warning linked to the size of the Davos bar bills.

[cyberian] 31/1/2019 11:00

kenmitch...not too sure with Morgan Stanley where the stated previous target price of 330p is recorded (I have checked all the lists)...they had a 477p forecast on 9th July 2018, down from 479p on 27th February 2018. Seems like the new equal weight with a 255p target is simply trying to react to current levels which force a broker to follow the latter...it is all in Brokers models, so all quite ridiculous. A shame but no need to panic as consensus is way above Morgan Stanley. A very close contact of mine was a Broker and the reaction is again totally in line with their practice with certain Brokers...the opinion is they they are a waste of space...so kenmitch you are right with your comments and references from the Times etc.

[fionascott1234] 31/1/2019 10:57

Another shocking day with SLA.A FTSE 100 company down 4.5% would normally spell disaster but here it is just another day of one forward and two back. That disgraceful quote from Gilbert is typical of management each member of which has nothing more to do than be concerned with their next free lunch and the anticipation of their next wholly undeserved bonus.Shocking!

[kenmitch] 31/1/2019 09:33

Broker downgrades are often a good day to buy!

A J Bell research shows that for the last 4 years Broker buys did very badly and way underperformed the market, with THE most popular broker buy of all in 2018, BAT, THE worst performing FTSE100 share of all!

And even more remarkable was the fact that broker sells went on to outperform the market. That too happens in many years.

So take broker buy notes with a large pinch of salt, but their sell advice means worth checking out that share as a potential buy! e.g SLA downgrade today.

Recent Times article explained this further but it is subscription only now.

[mcunliffe1] 31/1/2019 09:25

I've just logged-on to my pension account with SLA and valued my holdings. As I predicted a few days ago and also a few months back they have reduced my terminal bonuses on my With Profits legacy policies. The main part of these policies has a written guarantee of 4% growth per annum until I'm aged 75. Nice!

However, the terminal bonus part can be changed and even removed at any time. They often amend these t.b.'s in Feb and sometimes in summer if things are really dire.

I predicted a 10-12% cut. They've actually cut the t.b.'s by a whopping 17%.

This strongly implies to me that their profits are either way down OR they are so keen to pay a dividend (on the lesser number) on the shares in circulation that t.b.'s are contributing part of that payment.

They did this once when I had a policy about to mature. It was a With Profit endowment, back last century. I surrendered the policy in late January of that year, saw the t.b. drop massively in the February following and calculated I'd avoided about £3000 loss had I kept the policy to maturity in the March.

[dr biotech] 31/1/2019 09:19

Morgan Stanley downgrades to equal weight - their estimate for FY19-20 is 20% below consensus.

Always seems that downgrades have more effect than upgrades

[mcunliffe1] 31/1/2019 09:10

Gilberts I suspect jackdaw4243. He admitted he's the oldest CEO in the FTSE100 British companies - or, it's their Davos expenses bill just paid :-)

[jackdaw4243] 31/1/2019 09:03

A bit against the grain, another pension pot going out the door maybe ?

[cyberian] 31/1/2019 08:42

Agree, but can't find it yet....shame with results due in 3 weeks or so.

[chinese investor] 31/1/2019 08:39

This drop must be a result of a Broker's Note !

[dodger18] 31/1/2019 08:35

Ex div 25/04/19, Pay date 30/05/19

[nick rubens] 31/1/2019 08:12

Looks like the recent run up in share price is coming to an abrupt end. I just wonder what will happen when the share buy back ends as they are effectively holding up the market price for SLA stock with the daily buying, aren't they?

[ramellous] 30/1/2019 22:01

Sometime in April the last 2 yrs