destinationnovascotia

I am hoping that one of the financial experts will be able to point me in the right direction on this one.

I own some Lloyds banking shares and the recent share allocation means that qualifying share holders can purchase more shares cheaply.

My broker says that the offer is not open to Canadian residents but the Lloyds website says that "Registered shareholders (with the exclusion, subject to certain exceptions, of ordinary shareholders with a registered address in the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia or Thailand)" can take advantage of the offer.

Whilst it appears that most Canadian residents can't take up the offer I just can't seem to find out what the "subject to certain exceptions" means. I was wondering if still being a UK tax resident (bank acount, insurance etc still in the UK) would make me one of the exceptions.

Try as I might I can't find anyone who can answer this question. I am in a war with my broker who told me that I could get them so I hung onto the shares knowing that the price would drop whe the issue date came. They then said that I couldn't get them (after I had lost money) and now, after the deadline they say they are not sure.

I would really appreciate some help on this one.

Thanks all.

JonboyE

First question I would ask is what is the registered address on your shares? If that is still a UK address I do think it is worth investigating further.

As an aside, because I don't think it is relevant to the shares, are you sure you are still a tax resident of the UK? You have been in Canada for some time if I remember correctly. You are most likely tax resident here.

danfolkestone

I don't have an answer, but some further information. I had HBOS shares, which have now become Lloyds Banking Group and are still registered at my sister's address in England. During the takeover, the documents all contained a line stating that it was illegal to even send the information to Canada. I've not investigated why but next time I see a financial advisor, I plan to ask them about it.

destinationnovascotia

I am not sure about the tax resident issue, I thought that I had read on here that you had to show that you had severed all ties and had no plans to return to the UK. This may well be the case but at present we are only here on a work permit and so couldn't prove this. We moved here last August.

The shares are registered at our Canadian address so perhaps this means that we are probably not entitled to the allocation.

I feel really annoyed that our broker told us initially that we could get the shares, had we known we were not entitled to them we would have sold a week ago as the fall in price was expected and was only acceptable if we were getting the additional shares.

We are not exactly going bankrupt over this, but we are nevertheless really annoyed at our broker. Our point is that if they give us information then it should be 100% correct, if they had said that they weren't sure then we would have sought advice elsewhere. What would be an appropriate course of action to take over this?

They have suddenly become very evasive in any conversations and when we asked to speak to a manager or supervisor they refused to come to the phone.