Glad Iāve mostly moved to ETFs. Held about Ā£1100 of these until a couple of months ago. Fully agree on the sentiment made here, being able to participate in rights issues should be high up on the priority list.
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Just spoke to someone from customer service they wonāt be compensating us for the loss of discount in shares either.
Itās actually ridiculous how they arenāt even bothered to even announce they canāt do nothing. Either us individually have to find out the Information.
And just a few months ago they wanted us to vote for them being the best trading platform. They are far from it.
With the size of portfolio I have Iām truly looking at other brokers
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Thatās probably the worst part, Having to find out from other people who have messaged support. While itās a big chunk of money itās small compared to my overall gains since joining the platform. So Iām more bothered by the lack of communication that the actual problem.
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I might be wrong Iāve not checked recently but I think itās in the terms of service or similar document
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Once t212 have a sipp im off
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For the love of all that is bovine @freetrade_compliance @freetrade_customer_ops @freetrade_design @freetrade_engineering @freetrade_marketing @freetrade_ops @freetrade_people @freetrade_product @Freetrade_Team
Thereās no scenario in which āno communicationā is better than even just one message clarifying the situation, even if itās not the news people want to hear.
Iām not personally interested in this National Grid issue but this is yet another forum post with frustrated users talking about Freetradeās competitors which, as in investor in Freetrade, is not fun to read. Weāre in the post Adam era with a new CEO. Itās early days in Viktorās tenure but I was hoping weād seen the end of communucation blackouts and dead air like this.
Please can someone just say something/anything?
PS. Your user groups also need cleaning up, there are dozens of people in those Freetrade staff groups that havenāt logged on for years and presumably donāt work there anymore.
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Embarrassing that thee have been no formal comms on this and I donāt even hold any NG shares.
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Scariest thing to me is to read between the lines:
- 21.1. We and our sub-custodians may be notified of and/or be invited to vote, approve and/or take other actions in relation to Investments in your Freetrade Account and the company that has issued them. These are referred to as ācorporate actionsā. Examples of corporate actions include takeover offers, mergers, share consolidations, capital reorganisations, dividend distributions, and de-listings.
- 21.2.1. Freetrade and its sub-custodians have no duty to inform you of any corporate actions related to the Investments in your Freetrade Account(s);
- 21.2.2. you waive your right to exercise any corporate actions in relation to your Investments; and
So dividends are paid because FT want to, not because they have to. They have every right to just keep the dividends from my reading of the terms. Later in the terms it also states that:
- 21.4. If you become entitled to any proceeds (such as dividends) or non-monetary benefits (such as additional Investments) as a result of any corporate action in relation to the Investments in your Freetrade Account(s), weāll take all reasonable steps to collect such proceeds or benefits and credit your Freetrade Account(s) accordingly.
So it implies that they will take reasonable steps to allow financial corporate actions to pass through to the beneficial owner and will take āall reasonable stepsā yet the following maths isnāt āreasonableā:
floor(#shares held / 24 * 7) * Ā£6.45 = cost to purchase shares
I offered to help them write the SQL query. I donāt have access to their DB, but Iām guessing I could have all the information required out with a simple SQL query and a quick KNIME workflow. I could even have it setup to automatically send out emails with the correct information to every impacted user. I estimate it would take me ~ 3 hours of work. If I were actually familiar with their database it would only take 10 minutes. I consider that āreasonableā and then send an email to each person who has NG shares asking to reply either affirmative or negative as to whether or not to partake, and if they receive the answer in the affirmative, state that the funds must be available in the account by x day and queue up the transactions manually.
I consider all of that to be āreasonableā and would be looking at something that could be scripted quite easily. Instead from my question of the entire process i simply get a ācomputer says noā response. I vaguely remember when signing up that they said that custodial accounts are how most shares are held (which is true) and that we are the beneficial owners (again I HOPE it is true) so there is no need to worry about the custodial accounts. Then they hide the corporate actions in section 21 of the T&C and even more hide behind āreasonable actionsā. Iām small fish right now so it doesnāt make sense to move to HL or any other provider that charges for a trade, but Iām looking at T212. I donāt like the ethics around leverage and CFD, and Iād prefer a company HQād in the UK, but ethics and preferences only push me so far. At least it has only cost me Ā£58 (at current NG prices) to learn this and not hundreds like others.
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One good thing to come from this is that many are better aware of this flaw/risk with the platform.
FT should pull all out all the stops to make this happen. Iām hoping the lack of comms is due to them doing precisely that behind the scenes.
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Iām not directly effected by this, but I can completely sympathise with everyone who is. It also makes me question what if this happened to one of the stocks I hold in the future. FT not providing any kind of official response is also not reassuring.
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Iām looking at damage limitation now.
Iāve spoken to someone in customer service about expediting an ISA transfer to another provider. They said that transfer will take āweeksā and that even if they expedite it they wouldnāt transfer the rights with them so this wonāt help.
Iāll still move to another provider as Iām disgusted with Freetrade over this, I know itās technically my fault as itās in the small print but this should be made clearer and agree with others with regards to comms.
In trying to quantify the damage, likely to be a couple of grand for me, I have come across one potential saving grace.
Freetrade customer service have told me they plan to take no action. If this is the case then from what I gather the nil paids will be allowed to lapse and Freetrade, as the nominee, will be credited. Iām hoping that they will return these funds to our accounts.
The rights are currently trading at Ā£1.79 a share so this may offer some relief to people.
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Since FT doesnāt support this corporate action, the rights issue will lapse, and eventually Promoters will buy the lapsed ones at a further discounted rate than 645p(Issue Price). Overall this sounds very unfair to me however I donāt think we can do anything about it. Did anybody reach out to FT or NG to know the Price Promoters would buy in case of lapse? This is turning out to very nice deal for the Promoters and a huge miss for retail investors.
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This is seriously bad news.
I own shares in National Grid, which were bought through FT, which i pay a subscription to use.
Like everyone else in this position, I am now out of pocket .
I contacted FT, and they say they canāt do anything, and were full of apologies.
The more people who complain to FT about this the better.
I would like to know the legal side to this.
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Iāve opened a Trading 212 account and will slowly move everything over (you are allowed two stocks ISA now provided you donāt go over the 20k) They also pay high interest on uninvested money. I do find it s lot more difficult to find my way around though.
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Hi all,
We see all the questions about the National Grid rights issue. We are looking into this and will provide an answer shortly!
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While this thread is about NG, im concerned about all corporate actions so i think we need some confirmation on how these will be handled from now on. I know what t&cās say but think that needs to change otherwise once people realise the impact, they might well vote with their feet, which im considering based on this NG issue.
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I think that seals the deal ill be off asap
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Has freetrades stand point on this changed since last week ? Hopefully it has as you have alot of disgruntled customer at the minute.
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A bit disingenuous - whoās saying itās the ādeal of the centuryā ? Easy to be blasĆ© when youāve got no skin in the game.
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Fair point maybe my dislike of the share is clouding my opinion.
Lots of people are making out like itās easy money, I can see the share price continuing to fall and the dividend isnāt going to be looking so good in the future.
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