Question
Can I sell PIBs?
Also I have some pibs with Northern Rock, are these only fit for the bin or will I ever have any interest on them again?Answer
Without wanting to sound facetious, you can sell PIBs provided someone else wants to buy them.
The reason I say this is that the PIBs market is quite small and there can be a shortage of buyers, meaning they may be difficult to sell, especially at a decent price. The simplest way to find out is to ask a stock broker; Collins Stewart seems to be prominent in the PIBs market, but most others should be able to tell you if there are potential buyers and, if so, give you a price.
Your Northern Rock PIBs (actually called 'Perpetual Subordinated Notes' - PSNs - since they converted to a bank) seem to be selling for around 46p at the time of writing and there does appear to be market for them, so it should be possible to sell.
No news yet on if/when Northern Rock will resume coupon (income) payments and it's anyone's guess on whether the PSNs will be purchased/.redeemed in future, so keeping hold of them is something of a lottery.
The future of your PSNs depends on the fortunes of Northern Rock Asset Management (NRAM), the part of Northern Rock that holds the 'toxic' debts.
Thanks in part to falling bad debts, NRAM has been doing well recently, posting a £277 million underlying profit in 2010 (although it lost £313 million the year before). If this sort of performance continues you might make money by holding onto your PSNs, but there are risks - e.g. bad debts and mis-selling claims (especially PPI) could rise (see my answer to an earlier question here). The advantage of selling now is avoiding further risk and being able to earn some interest on the money elsewhere.
Can I sell PIBs?
Also I have some pibs with Northern Rock, are these only fit for the bin or will I ever have any interest on them again?Answer
Without wanting to sound facetious, you can sell PIBs provided someone else wants to buy them.
The reason I say this is that the PIBs market is quite small and there can be a shortage of buyers, meaning they may be difficult to sell, especially at a decent price. The simplest way to find out is to ask a stock broker; Collins Stewart seems to be prominent in the PIBs market, but most others should be able to tell you if there are potential buyers and, if so, give you a price.
Your Northern Rock PIBs (actually called 'Perpetual Subordinated Notes' - PSNs - since they converted to a bank) seem to be selling for around 46p at the time of writing and there does appear to be market for them, so it should be possible to sell.
No news yet on if/when Northern Rock will resume coupon (income) payments and it's anyone's guess on whether the PSNs will be purchased/.redeemed in future, so keeping hold of them is something of a lottery.
The future of your PSNs depends on the fortunes of Northern Rock Asset Management (NRAM), the part of Northern Rock that holds the 'toxic' debts.
Thanks in part to falling bad debts, NRAM has been doing well recently, posting a £277 million underlying profit in 2010 (although it lost £313 million the year before). If this sort of performance continues you might make money by holding onto your PSNs, but there are risks - e.g. bad debts and mis-selling claims (especially PPI) could rise (see my answer to an earlier question here). The advantage of selling now is avoiding further risk and being able to earn some interest on the money elsewhere.
Read this Q and A at http://www.candidmoney.com/questions/question492.aspx
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