The overhaul will lead to a one-off charge of 1.4bn euros ($1.7bn; 950m) in 2004, and a 500m euros fundraising.
The store chain plans to refocus on its strengths and abandon non-core activities, which include a joint venture with Starbucks.
It is to brief the press on Tuesday, after rumours of 8,500 job cuts.
The firm has previously announced 4,500 job cuts. However, German press reports over the weekend speculated that this could almost double.
In a statement issued late on Monday, the board said the reorientation would involve streamlining its portfolio of businesses, the abandonment of marginal operations and outsourcing.
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Its core retail business portfolio accounted for 4.5bn top rated online dating service review
It will hang onto its mail order divisions, however, top rated online dating service review
Karstadtquelle’s supervisory board said it expects the restructuring to put the company back in profit during 2005.
Its shares closed down 6.4% in Frankfurt on Monday.
Loss-making German department store giant Karstadtquelle has said it is planning a major shake-up to try to haul itself back into profit.
marginal operations include a tourism business with Thomas Cook and airline Lufthansa, a joint venture with Starbucks, TV interests and music broadcasting.
of sales, compared to the non-core portfolio, which generated sales of 700m euros, the firm said.
the Quelle and Neckermann brands, and promoting growth areas of its Specialty mail-order, Foreign and E-commerce operations more strongly.
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Three hundred people will lose their jobs in the proposed closure of a chemical factory in east Online dating agency in uk .
Ciba Dating free hentai online sims It said increasing pressure from Asian competitors meant the site was no longer “economically sustainable”.
However, the firm will support workers willing to move to other sites where there are online dating web site uk
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| A Devon company has teamed up with engineers from the University of Exeter to devise a gadget to stop bonnets flying open on free online dating site in canada cars.
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Recent strong growth figures mask the difficulty of the task which lies ahead.
Desire Kamanzi’s father sold his three houses in Burundi to return to Rwanda in 1994.
He is not unusual.
Since the genocide ended in 1994, exiled Rwandans have been coming home from Burundi, Congo, Uganda and Tanzania.
“These people have been fighting all their lives, they have earned good money, they brought it home,” Mr Kamanzi, now head of investment promotion at Rwanda Investment Promotion Agency, said.
This cash has fuelled much of the construction around Kigali.
Starting low
Since 1994, the Rwandan economy has registered an average of 8% economic growth a year, a figure which reflects the low point of departure as much as the achievement made.
Rwandan small coffee growers are hoping for better times
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In the year of the genocide, growth slumped by 50% and inflation reached 64%.
“Starting from scratch, you will see these big jumps. To sustain this, there are more policies you need to put in place,” Mr Kamanzi admitted.
And it is these next steps that the Rwandan administration is now grappling with.
The streets of Kigali carry posters, reminding people that paying taxes will build the nation and new free online dating tip, such as Rwanda Revenue Authority, should help the government increase revenues.
Claver Gatete, secretary-general in the Ministry of Finance, said that the government wants to increase catholic online dating services
exports, thus reducing their heavy reliance on foreign funds.
Almost two thirds of the 8.1 million population live below the poverty line, and the World Bank estimates that GDP per capita was $250 in 2000. In many cases, it is even lower.
Outside of Kigali, bean planters Hadimana Wellars, 22, and Mbarushimana Theogene, 34, earn just $16 or 12,000 Rwandan francs a month.
Abandoned coffee
Rwanda earns much of its foreign exchange from tea and coffee.
Chief executive Gary Lane trains kitchen staff
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Rwanda needs to add value to its exports to increase these earnings, Leon Haguma, acting director of coffee marketing board OCIR- Cafe, said.
“All was abandoned, they were dead or had fled the country, there was nobody to work the plantations,” Mr Haguma said of the situation in 1994.
The country exported just 14,000 tonnes of coffee last year, hit partly by drought and disease. nowhere near the peak of 42,000 tonnes in 1986.
Now, American coffee chain Starbucks is interested in buying Rwandan coffee and Mr Haguma argues that making specialty coffee will boost incomes.
Most of the 400,000 families who grow coffee, grow ‘ordinary’ coffee. This sold last year for $1 a kilo in Mombasa port.
Specialty or ‘fully washed’ coffee can sell for between $1.8 and $3 a kilo. As yet, this specialty coffee accounts for only a fraction of the country’s exports.
Money trickles down
There is some evidence of new investment in Rwanda and the benefits could be trickling down to local businesses and employees.
Coffee is Rwanda’s biggest export, but production has fallen sharply
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One of Kigali’s premier locations is the five star Hotel Canadian free online dating services
, owned partly by the government. It opened for business earlier this year.
“It brings investment, it brings jobs, it also brings in expertise to train, ” George Cohen, the hotel’s general manager, said.
The hotel works with local suppliers, training them to provide the cuts of meat or preserves previously not available locally.
Late last year, Terracom Broadband started offering broadband internet services to businesses.
Wolfgang Hey, one of the founding staff members, says Rwanda’s location within East Africa is an advantage.
“We are certainly going to become national within Rwanda, we are going to move out of Kigali, once we have expanded to our borders, it makes sense to expand beyond,” Mr Hey said.
Survivors’ grief
Rwanda’s tiny land mass makes investing in people and in ICT a logical step to attract investment, he said.
Their biggest customer is the government, though banks and NGOs follow close behind.
Mr Hey said: “Bureaucracy is a problem…even if someone desperately wants to help you, their hands are bound, because of the way policies are laid out, he can’t.”
Getting through the commemoration month of April is hard in many ways, he said. Business may be open but very little will be happening. “Society as a whole makes allowances for individuals’ grief,” he said.
No one could have predicted the strides Rwanda has made in the past ten years, RIPA’s Mr Kamanzi said.
“The love the Rwandan people have for their country, their commitment… All this will be achieved,” he added.
A Welsh health trust has apologised after a letter, apparently from a surgeon, warned patients about the “quality” of foreign surgeons working at an English hospital.
The unsigned letter had “concerns” about the treatment offered to Cardiff patients in Dating meeting online service
Only five of 73 patients later turned up for best dating online senior Weston NHS Trust defended its staff. The consultant, named on the letter, was unavailable for comment. The letter, apparently from a senior surgeon at a Cardiff hospital, warned patients not to take up an offer of treatment at a hospital in England. The letter was unsigned but written in the name of consultant orthopaedic and hand surgeon, David Shewring. It was received by people who were offered the chance to travel to Somerset for treatment under the Welsh Assembly Government’s Second Offer Scheme, which allows those waiting longer than 18 months to opt for private treatment or treatment in an English hospital. It told the patients that if they refused the offer to go to England
It read: “The treatment centre in Weston-super-Mare at which your treatment will take
The letter claimed that other hospitals had sent patients to the centre and that It also claimed the second offer scheme was merely a way of making waiting list figures look better “for political gain”. The comments have been described as “unfounded” by the medical director of Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust, Ian Lane, in a letter he has sent to the patients concerned. The trust has launched in investigation to how and why the letter was written and sent. Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust said the letter had been written and sent independently. ‘Extensive experience’ A statement read: “The Trust has launched a full formal investigation which will look at how and why the letter was written and sent.” Mr Lane said he was sorry if the letter has caused distress and concern to patients. Weston Area Health NHS Trust is offering places to patients in Rhondda Cynon Taff health board area under the second offer scheme until the end of March 2005. It said a team of 10 Scandinavian surgeons had been working in the NHS Treatment Centre in Weston since October 2003.
A statement read: “They are all dating ethnic site employed in the Swedish health ‘Qualified and skilled’
“They have treated in excess of 900 patients and their complication rates are
“The team includes a hand surgeon who carries out all specialist hand
“Since October 2003, the team has been treating patients from Bristol.
“Under the Second Offer Scheme, 73 patients from Wales were booked into the John Jenkins of BMA Cymru Wales said: “If these doctors are qualified and skilled, that is fine. ‘Precious Welsh resources’ “We would recommend that patients with a particular need are treated by
“We have no problem with the Second Offer Scheme - it is up to the patient
But he added: “We would prefer it if precious Welsh resources were invested
A Welsh Assembly Government spokesman said: “It is important to recognise that the scheme exists both to treat Welsh patients faster and also to change and challenge online dating service business
“This episode shows that the scheme is succeeding on both counts. All patients accepting offers of treatment in Weston can be confident that they will ‘Six months on the waiting list’
“The Welsh Assembly Government therefore very much welcomes the prompt action taken by Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust to reassure patients who wish to take up the Cardiff Councillor Michael Michael was one of those who received the letter but one of the few to keep his appointment. He said he was more than satisfied with the way his care had been handled in Weston. He said: “What saddened me was the fact that because of this letter, 70-odd people were given a chance to jump the waiting list in a way and get their operation sorted now but, thanks to the nature of this letter, they chose not to. “So therefore we have a team at Weston ready to perform the procedures, we have people who want the procedures done and now face another six months on the waiting list because of the nature of this letter, which is quite frankly, outrageous.”
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A Welsh health trust has apologised after a letter, apparently from a surgeon, warned patients about the “quality” of foreign surgeons working at an English hospital. The unsigned letter had “concerns” about the treatment offered to Cardiff patients in Weston-super-Mare. Only five of 73 patients later turned up for appointments. Weston NHS Trust defended its staff. The consultant, named on the letter, was unavailable for comment. The letter, apparently from a senior surgeon at a Cardiff hospital, warned patients not to take up an offer of treatment at a hospital in England. The letter was unsigned but written in the name of consultant orthopaedic and hand surgeon, David Shewring.
It was received by people who were offered the chance to travel to Somerset for treatment under the Welsh Assembly Adult dating free online personals services It told the patients that if they refused the offer to go to England
It read: “The treatment centre in Weston-super-Mare at which your treatment will take
The letter claimed that other hospitals had sent patients to the centre and that It also claimed the second offer scheme was merely a way of making waiting list figures look better “for political gain”. The comments have been described as “unfounded” by the medical director of Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust, Ian Lane, in a letter he has sent to the patients concerned. The trust has launched in investigation to how and why the letter was written and sent. Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust said the letter had been written and sent independently. ‘Extensive experience’ A statement read: “The Trust has launched a full formal investigation which will look at how and why the letter was written and sent.” Mr Lane said he was sorry if the letter has caused distress and concern to patients. Weston Area Health NHS Trust is offering places to patients in Rhondda Cynon Taff health board area under the second offer scheme until the end of March 2005.
It said a team of 10 Bbw online dating
A statement read: “They are all dating gay online site ‘Qualified and skilled’
“They have treated in excess of 900 patients and their complication rates are
“The team includes a hand surgeon who carries out all specialist hand
“Since October 2003, the team has been treating patients from Bristol.
“Under the Second Offer Scheme, 73 patients from Wales were booked into the John Jenkins of BMA Cymru Wales said: “If these doctors are qualified and skilled, that is fine. ‘Precious Welsh resources’ “We would recommend that patients with a particular need are treated by
“We have no problem with the Second Offer Scheme - it is up to the patient
But he added: “We would prefer it if precious Welsh resources were invested
A Welsh Assembly Government spokesman said: “It is important to recognise that the scheme exists both to treat Welsh patients faster and also to change and challenge traditional treatment
“This episode shows that the scheme is succeeding on both counts. All patients accepting offers of treatment in Weston can be confident that they will ‘Six months on the waiting list’
“The Welsh Assembly Government therefore very much welcomes the prompt action taken by Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust to reassure patients who wish to take up the Cardiff Councillor Michael Michael was one of those who received the letter but one of the few to keep his appointment. He said he was more than satisfied with the way his care had been handled in Weston. He said: “What saddened me was the fact that because of this letter, 70-odd people were given a chance to jump the waiting list in a way and get their operation sorted now but, thanks to the nature of this letter, they chose not to. “So therefore we have a team at Weston ready to perform the procedures, we have people who want the procedures done and now face another six months on the waiting list because of the nature of this letter, which is quite frankly, outrageous.”
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| Thousands of planned operations and appointments are cancelled because there are no doctors or theatres available, an NHS watchdog has reported.
A report from the Audit Commission found that, on average, trusts cancel 6% of planned operations within a week of the intended admission date, often for non-clinical reason such as the lack of a suitable bed, no theatre time or no surgeon or anaesthetist. One in five of those cancellations takes place after the patient has been admitted, the commission found. And around 10% of operating sessions currently have to be cancelled due to lack of staff or bed space.
The Audit Commission said while some hospital trusts would benefit from investment to provide more operating theatres or beds, many simply needed to look at new ways of using the resources they already had. Its report also found one in 10 trusts cancels 20% of outpatient appointments, often because staff have not given enough warning they will not be available. Another 10% of appointments are cancelled because the patient fails to turn up. Lack of staff There are also wide variations in the amount of time operating theatres are used each week. One in four trusts was found to use their operating theatres for just 65% of the time. The Audit Commission said this could often be down to theatres not being ready for the start of operating sessions, and doctors and patients not being there on time. It estimates a well-used unit would average around 40 hours a week. But the figures reported ranged from eight to 57 hours a week. Other factors, such as not admitting non-urgent patients in the order in which they came onto the waiting list meaning some patients waited longer than they needed to, also needed to be addressed, the Audit Commission said.
It recommended combining doctor’s individual lists into lists for specialties and making better use of beds by speeding up the diagnosis, treatment and the discharge of emergency patients to help hospitals run more 100 dating free internet online Variation The report looked at four areas of hospital care; operating theatres, bed management, outpatient services and waiting lists. One 190 trusts across England and Wales took part in the evaluation. James Strachan, chairman of the Audit Commission said managers and doctors had to work together to improve the running of hospitals.
He added: “The variation in absolutely free online dating service “The reports show that many of the solutions are relatively simple. “We support the need for additional resources and freedoms in the NHS, but call on the government to ensure that trusts can demonstrate that they make the best use of their existing capacity before being allocated extra resources.” Investment
A dating meeting online service
But she added: “We recognise that there are still online dating tip for man “We need to continue to invest in the NHS and reform the service, to ensure these improvements are made across the NHS and for the long term.” Shadow Health Secretary Liam Fox said: “Before the government throws any more cash at the NHS, they must ensure that they are making efficient use of current resources.”
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Back in the 1980s, in a small northern village, nearer Egypt than Khartoum, there were few signs of the conflict in the south. Especially if, like most of my neighbours, you were able to ignore the refugees. But they were there, dark and dusty boys in ragged shorts, doing the most menial chores for negligible reward. In the market place at Kerma they manned the blacksmith’s bellows, muscles pumping hour after hour, dully staring into space. Coated with dried mud, they turned bricks out of rough moulds to dry in the sun. They staggered under nylon sacks of dates, loading and unloading under the complacent eye of fat merchants, and later sleeping on the donkey cart. But the displaced in the far north were at least scattered. Refugees
Around Khartoum, they were, and still are, packed in hundreds of thousands from the open savannah and swampland of the south, compressed into squalid camps of lonely wifes specialty dating From time to time, the city authorities decide, apparently arbitrarily, to bulldoze a district or two. So many are the refugees that, if Sudan were a democracy at peace with itself, Khartoum would be a bastion of southern domination.
But over the years, the wealthier in the capital have come to rely on those despised refugee labourers. And some southerners have been able to use their education to make a more dignified way in life. But the street children, intermittently purged from Khartoum’s back alleys, tell a different tale. Songs of the Uduk people of the Sudan-Ethiopia border region speak of the dark days of war and the harsh fate of the internal exile. “My feet are bruised / We are on the long bitter road / With the children too.” But even the squalor of a refugee camp at Jebel Aulia, or Wad al-Bashir, or the others outside Khartoum, compares favourably to life in the war zone itself. ‘Widening divisions’ Government tactics that have been seen in Darfur in the past 18 months were pioneered and refined in the south. The Antonov AN-32 is a cargo plane, not a dating free line service sex bomber. So when you use it to drop bombs, you kind of chuck them out at random, so it is not really a surprise that they land on villages.
Not very effective strategically, but very useful for persuading large numbers of civilians to leave the area. The notorious “Janjaweed” of Darfur, too, have their precedents in the deployment of ethnically motivated militias in the south. Murder, rape and torching villages among their specialties. Khartoum’s government has been consistently adept at widening divisions in the fractious southern movement. Every splinter group, every self-aggrandising warlord, meant that Khartoum’s enemies expended bullets and men on each other, and of course the civilians got caught in the middle of that too. War But the southerners were not alone in their suffering. Military hardware costs money, and the war in the south has sucked up the bulk of Sudan’s capital since 1983. Every Revolution Day at Green Square, a huge open space south of Khartoum, parades of tanks, trucks and armoured personnel carriers roll past the assembled dignitaries. And wars need men as well as machines. Conscription for service in the south has long been dreaded.
In a fit of zealotry in the mid-1990s, the government launched a renewed jihad in the south, deploying as senior online dating service These were, in theory, ideologically motivated soldiers, Sudan’s own mujahideen. But northern kids knew that training was basic at best. Any decent equipment went to the regular army, and despite the shroud of secrecy, everyone in Khartoum knew that the planes touching down at the airport in the small hours were bringing home full body bags, not victorious troops. One year, the PDF recruiters decreed that every 18-year-old male, even if still in school, was “eligible” for service. There were stories of young men across the north, hidden by their relatives, living rough under bridges in the countryside, desperate to avoid the draft. ‘Peace’
So the absolutely free online dating service So many hundreds of thousands are pinning their hopes on a rebirth of the south, and a possible return to rebuild villages and towns. I think back to two of my students at a northern secondary school during the 1980s. John Akon Deng, the only southern boy, quiet and determined despite the ostracism, walking for hours, alone in the fields around the school perimeter with his Bible for company. He hoped to return to Juba, the southern capital, one day. And Bashir Adam, a farmer’s boy from an island on the Nile nearby, last seen in Green Square, in the immaculate uniform of the presidential guard with a captain’s pips on his shoulders. Very proud, heading for the south. I wonder what became of them. And I wonder what part they will play in the peace, assuming it holds. From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 15 January, 2005 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.
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| Christine Ross of SG Hambros answered your investment queries and problems on the programme and in a live webchat.
Click here for Christine’s question and answer session from the programme.
Here is the full transcript of the live webchat. Do you think that investing in residential property in Bulgaria is still viable or do you think that the dating free online service uk There has been considerable interest of late in investment in Bulgarian property. All markets eventually find their own level so in time it is likely to become more expensive - rewarding early investors. There are many start up organisations offering investment opportunities and it is important to know where your money is going and how you are going to get it back again. There are many legitimate operators but if the offer sounds too good it probably is. What is your opinion of Standard Life? Are the shares worth keeping shares when if and when they demutualise? And what about the policy itself - mine is not linked to any mortgage - will it be a good time to cash it in? Standard Life is a respected mutual insurer. Whether you retain the shares will really depend on what part of your overall wealth they represent and if you have an appetite for the risk associated with holding single stocks - more risky because you have less opportunity to diversify. Regarding your endowment policy, you generally lose out by cashing a policy in early and Standard Life policies have generally offered good returns. If it is near to maturity you might want to hold on. If not, you need to compare investment in this product (where the actual fund pays basic rate tax) with an ISA where returns are more tax efficient. Don’t forget that the policy gives you life insurance cover - consider whether you still need this.
Can losses on stocks and shares investments be offset to reclaim tax paid on bank and building society savings interest in a tax year? Unfortunately not. Capital gains tax is charged on stocks and shares where as income tax is levied on savings. A capital loss cannot be offset against income. However, capital losses can be carried forward indefinitely so when you make some profits on shares or unit trusts in the future these can be tax free. How much risk is there really in investing in the higher risk categories of unit trusts, like for example global emerging markets funds? Unless you need to take out your money in a hurry, don’t they always pay out really well in the longer term? Many organisations try to measure risk. The way I think about it is to compare the level of risk you are prepared to take for a given return. If you want a 15% return you could be looking at losing 30% or more of your capital. Funds have gone down as much as 70%. Could you live with that? If you are prepared to hold on for the very long term you could do well but often more modest and steady annual returns give a better pay off in the long run.
Will the lump sum from my pension plan attract any tax at all in particular capital gains? No it will not. This is a concession under the pension scheme rules and many savers take advantage of this so that they can invest this efficiently to provide an income to supplement their pension. It is also referred to as your tax free lump sum.
I have decided today to invest 14,000 into a L&G Growth Portfolio Trust. I will use my next two years of ISA allowance, and my aim is for long term growth, e.g. 5-10 years. Given the drops in the FTSE and world markets this week, is this the best thing to do right now? Or would you advise taking a little less risk now? As you say, this is intended to be a long term investment. Therefore, over the next few years the short term ups and downs of the markets will even out. It is difficult to call the turn of the market but having considered where the market has been going in the last week it might be worth waiting a little before making your investment. You do seem to have considered your overall strategy so if you are happy with this a short term fluctuation should not lead you to change this. If you are really unsure, then perhaps this strategy was not exactly right for you in the first place.
I have a regular income and a variety of investments, ISAs, commercial property bonds etc, some of which I have held for seven or more years which are on average delivering me a return of 15% on paper. I also have a mortgage of 305,000 - a base-rate tracker mortgage with the Abbey which is less than 7%. Should I sell my investments to pay off my mortgage and then start investing again? It is difficult to tell you to pay off a mortgage which is costing 7% when you are making 15% but investments returns of the sort you are achieving are generally not sustainable over the long term. Therefore I think you could consider banking some of your profit which you could use to reduce your mortgage. You will need to think about any tax that might be due when you sell your investments. Another reason for selling a bit at a time is that by utilising your annual capital gains tax (CGT) allowance each year you can make up to 8,800 (in tax year 2006/07) of tax-free profits. I would like some advice on investments, this year my dad is turning 50 and I want to know what investment options there are out there. I want to buy him some form of investment as a birthday gift. I have 5,000 to start with. The many investment options would be too numerous to list. How about Premium Bonds? These are safe in that you don’t lose your capital but offer the chance of a big win. You can find details on the National Savings & Investments website.
You can give 3,000 to friends and relations with no tax becoming liable on the gift. Can my wife and I we give 3,000 worth of our house per year (drawn up as a legal commitment) to my two boys as a way of reducing their tax liability on our estate upon our death? The problem you will come up against is the gift with reservation (GWR) rule. If you give something away you cannot continue to benefit from it. If you continued to live in your house you would fall foul of this rule unless you paid a commercial rent to your sons in respect of the portion passed to them. There are all sorts of other reasons why you should not do this - relating to your continued security of tenure. It may be worth having a discussion with a solicitor about estate planning options. The first visit should be free. The last budget contained far reaching proposals relating to trusts, estate planning and inheritance tax so it would be worthwhile waiting to do this until the Finance Bill is passed (about early August) - after that time the picture will be clearer.
Are these companies who buy up your endowment taking a huge risk based on all the financial advice pointing to them being a bad investment or is there a way they maximise their profit that the individual cannot exploit? Do they know something we don’t? Why do they do it when there are far better investment opportunities available? In general, second hand policy traders match purchasers and sellers of endowment policies. They generally only trade with profits policies which will have embedded value. The traders know which companies policies are likely to be more attractive to investors. They find the investors who are prepared to continue to pay the premiums until maturity and take the profits at that time.
I’ve been thinking about buying several buy-to-let properties to use as a long term investment. What is the most tax efficient way of doing this? Is it possible to put them into a pension at all, and is there any benefit to having them as top online dating It is not possible to hold residential property in a pension scheme. If you are able, it is tax efficient to take out a mortgage on a buy to let property as the mortgage interest can usually be deducted from the rental income as an expense. This in return reduces the amount of income tax you pay on the rental income. If the expenses associated with the buy to let (mortgage interest, wear and tear, management fees etc) equal the rental income then there should be no tax to pay. Whether you choose an interest only or repayment mortgage will depend on whether you plan to keep the property in the long term. As the mortgage is repaid the amount of interest will reduce (if interest rates stay where they are). Therefore you could start to pay tax on the rental income. If you want to keep the properties in the long term you may need to opt for repayment unless you have any other way of paying off the loans.
What is your opinion of Exchange Traded Funds? In general I like them. They can be cheaper than unit trust tracker funds and allow you to gain exposure to specific market sectors. They are easy to trade and to get in and out of. If you haven’t already, take a look at the Barclays iShares site.
Can you tell me where I can find a good local personal financial adviser? In all honesty the best way to find an adviser is through dating meeting online service Try IFA Promotion (www.unbiased.co.uk) who will give you names of advisers in your post code area. Also look at the Financial Services Authority site (www.fsa.org.uk). They have a list of fee only advisers.
I have put savings in ICICI bank quite recently, what is the web address you gave on the programme to check their rating? The two main ratings agencies are Standard & Poor’s (www.standardandpoors.com/ratings) and Moody’s (www.moodys.com). These issue credit rating for companies based on their levels of debt and financial stability. They are not directly intended for customers, but will give you an indication of the firm’s size and strength.
I have a unit-linked endowment policy which I was told would pay my mortgage off in 15 years, possibly with a large lump sum. My mortgage doesn’t depend on the policy. Do I still have a case to complain about mis-selling as it is a unit linked and not a ‘with profits’ policy? You may have a complaint if you were told the policy would pay off your mortgage, regardless of whether you still need it for this purpose. The complaint does not depend on it being a unit linked or with profits policy as neither necessarily offer the guarantee - only a guaranteed maturity value will do that. In the first instance you need to write to the compliance officer at the IFA. They will respond to you and will handle your complaint in line with prescribed guidelines. If the response you receive does not resolve the matter to your satisfaction then you can complain to the Financial Services Ombudsman. The IFA will tell you how to do this in their response to you. Here are Christine’s answers from the programme…
I am a complete interest rate tart and while searching for best rates came across a bank called ICICI which I had not heard of - are they safe? Would like to put about 300,000 in their savings account. As usual the one I am with now (Northern Rock) will not let me open another account with bonus rates. If it sounds too good to be true it usually is. As a UK investor you are offered some protection if a financial institution fails, but you should not make investment decisions on the existence of a compensation scheme alone as it could take a considerable time to be paid out. You should look at the credit rating of any institution before investing. Credit ratings are provided by agencies such as Moodys and Standard and Poors. A deposit taker with AAA or AA will be the strongest, but a single A can still be considered. Once you get into the B’s you are taking on more risk and that is why higher interest rates are offered. Have a look at www.moneyfacts.co.uk, for the best rates, remembering that those offered for accounts operated by phone or over the internet are usually higher. I changed my mortgage from an endowment to a normal repayment a couple of years ago, as it wasn’t going to pay off my mortgage at the end of its term. I have continued to pay the endowment payments and have around 2,500 in the pot. What should I do? Should I continue to make the payments for the full term and see what I get at the end or should I cash in or sell the endowment policy and invest it somewhere else? The problem with ceasing payments or surrendering an endowment policy is that you have paid most of the costs up front, so invariably lose out. This has to be balanced with the fact that there are now cheaper and more tax efficient methods of saving, such as ISAs. If your endowment has not been running for long I would consider selling it if you can. Otherwise you may just want to make it paid-up - that is make no further contributions and allow the present value to grow until maturity. There seems to be a wide variation in the amount of dividends unit trusts pay out. For instance Fidelity Special Situations pays a dividend of only 0.35% yet it invests in stocks like BP which pay a much higher dividend. What happens to the dividends unit trusts receive from the companies they invest in - do investors receive this as income, capital gains, or do the funds pocket the money themselves? UK unit trusts are categorised according to their investment objectives, such as UK Growth, UK Income etc. and generally have to pay out 85% of all income received in the fund. Fidelity’s Special Situations is a growth fund that focuses on value stocks - that is shares that the manager believes are under valued. Whilst it may hold BP it could also hold shares that pay little or no income, so the total dividend paid out by the fund will reflect the average of all dividends received from the portfolio. The investment groups certainly do not keep the money themselves, but many trusts to use some of the income to pay the annual management fee. An important point that you didn’t mention when you recently covered guaranteed equity bonds, is that profits are taxed as income, and not as capital gains. Therefore, for instance, on the National Savings bond, although you think that you are going to get 112% of the rise in the index, if you pay basic rate tax you get only 90% of the rise, and if you pay higher-rate tax you get only 67%. This, plus the lack of dividends, means that you are paying heavily for the guarantee of not losing your capital. This is one way of looking at it, but then we also pay tax on other investments. Because of the way guaranteed investments are structured, they are often subject to income tax rather than capital gains tax. This means we miss out on using our annual CGT exemption - 8,800 for the current year. The important thing to remember is that there is no free lunch - the guarantee has to be paid for - and it is usual to use the dividend income to do this. So the real question is whether the guarantee is really needed. If someone can afford to invest for the long term and can weather the ups and downs of the market, then perhaps a guarantee is unnecessary.
If the money is required in the short term then a cash deposit is the best place. I do like Premium Bonds but you are gambling the interest you would receive on a deposit in the hope of a greater payout. If you can afford to do this and still keep up payments on your other loans then I think splitting your deposit is a good idea. Check out the best cash rates at www.moneyfacts.co.uk In November 2000 I invested a sum of 10,000 in a Standard Life with profits bond. In March 2006 I asked for a valuation on my bond, which was given as 11,498 and carrying a Unit Price Adjustment (currently called an MVA by other companies) of 2,428. This is more than 25% of the original investment of 10,000. Whether it’s an MVA or a UVA it amounts to the fact that a with profits investment is supposed to smooth out stock market returns. Each year a bonus is added to the value of your investment. The level of the bonus will depend on the market returns achieved by the fund. When markets fall, the value of your investment does not decrease, but you may receive no bonus that year, and even in subsequent years. Additionally, a penalty may be levied if you withdraw funds. Taking your example, you invested near to the top of the market in 2000. In 2001 and 2002 the market fell dating free online sex site A number of years ago, I invested 2,000 in what was then called ‘Carnegie Building Societies Investment Trusts’ and are now are know as ‘Blue Planet Financials Growth and Income Investment Trusts’. Along with my ten investment trusts shares come 40 warrants per trust. I do not know whether the price is worth exercising and I admit I do not quite understand warrants. Do I just ignore these warrants or am I sitting on a gold mine? Those investing at the launch of a new investment trust are often given free warrants - perhaps, for example, one for every five investment trust shares purchased. These warrants usually give the investor the opportunity to buy further shares at a future date or dates, for a top online dating
The idea behind a move to bonds or other fixed interest securities is to stabilise the value of your capital as the time when you will need to start relying on an income draws near. Many investors may need to withdraw their capital for a specific purpose and others will need to invest in assets that produce a higher level of income than their equity based portfolios. Therefore there may be a need to protect the capital, and to shift the focus from capital growth to income production. If the level of income you receive from your existing investments is sufficient, or indeed if you will not need to rely on these investments to supplement any other retirement income (such as a pension) then there is no absolute need to alter your investment strategy. The real test is to consider how a stock market fall might affect you, and would you be able to continue to hold on to your investments while you waited for the market to recover. My wife and I each have a Maxi ISA with Abbey, the initial investment having been the maximum 7,000 each in March 2004. A very relevant question. You certainly invested at the right time and as you will have seen, the market has taken a breather from its upward climb. If you were just starting out on this I investment I would have told you that you needed to take a long term view and that means at least five years, preferably longer. I do not believe the market is going all the way down again, but equally do not think you should expect returns to continue as they have. If you are willing to accept some volatility in the short term in exchange for long term growth then you should not be disappointed. A manager cannot protect an equity fund completely from the downside so if you want to consolidate your profit it may be a good idea to ask Abbey if they can offer a free switch into a lower risk fund.
Although PEPs were replaced by ISAs some time ago, both type of investment still offer tax free returns - that is you do not pay tax when you take money out of your investments. However, both PEPs and ISAs can no longer claim back the tax that is deducted at source from dividends. PEPs can be invested in a wide selection of shares and fixed interest securities, but not in cash. It may be that you do not need to make any changes to your investments, but it does sound as if it has been some time since you have reviewed your overall strategy during which time your circumstances may have changed. To start with you should consider when you might retire and if you will need to start drawing an income from your investments. I think you might find it helpful to have an initial (free) meeting with an Independent Financial Adviser to discuss your overall objectives and to see if you could benefit from taking professional advice. We took out a guaranteed equity bonds such a bond in my wife’s name three years ago and although it was a five year term it will mature this year due to the FTSE having increased by more than 30%. A downside to this type of investment is that all the gains are lumped into a single return and hence one tax year. As a non-tax payer my wife has registered an R85 in order to have the income paid without tax deducted. However this together with other income may move her above the tax threshold for this tax year. My question is can the income be divided across the three years of the bond for income tax purposes, effectively using her unused allowances from previous years so that she is not liable for tax this year? Unfortunately not. When the bond matures this will constitute a surrender in this tax year. However, this may be an onshore insurance bond, so you may find that, as long as the profits all piling into one year does not make your wife a higher rate taxpayer, there will be no tax to pay. This is because basic rate income tax will have been deducted within the bond. If the investment is not an insurance bond then it is likely that the full amount of profit will be subject to income tax in the year of encashment. The opinions expressed are Christine’s, not the programme’s. The answers are not intended to be definitive and should be used for guidance only. Always seek professional advice for your own particular situation.
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