Sky sources:A statement on Thursday will outline plans to hand the state's final 1% stake in Royal Mail to its staff

Post by **windermeredave** » 04 Feb 2016, 12:09

Just seeing on sky news that the government are set to announce the distribution of their last 1% of shares to Royal mail empoyees.
Am I missing some thing but what were the 103 extra shares we got last year?

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 04 Feb 2016, 12:52

windermeredave wrote:Just seeing on sky news that the government are set to announce the distribution of their last 1% of shares to Royal mail employees.
Am I missing something but what were the 103 extra shares we got last year?

They sold off the majority of their own shares late 2014 and they gave us 1% shortly after. In October 2015, they sold the last 14% which left 1% outstanding, at the time they announced it was going to employees, but since then nothing has been mentioned.

Post by **POSTMAN** » 04 Feb 2016, 13:05

http://news.sky.com/story/1635907/gover ... l-sell-off" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A statement on Thursday will outline plans to hand the state's final 1% stake in Royal Mail to its staff, Sky News understands.

The Government will unveil the privatisation of its final stake in Royal Mail on Thursday, bringing the curtain down on five centuries of state ownership.

Sky News has learnt that a written ministerial statement will be laid in Parliament later to confirm the gifting of the remaining 1% of Royal Mail in public ownership to the company's 140,000 employees.

The controversial move - which will contradict official advice given by the top civil servant at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) - will see a stake worth £45m at the company's current share price distributed to staff.

Employees are expected to be prevented from selling the shares - worth £321-per-employee - for three years, in line with two previous tranches of shares given to them.

The privatisation of Royal Mail was among the most contentious events of the last Parliament, with Sir Vince Cable, the then Business Secretary, presiding over the sale of 60% of the company in the autumn of 2013.

The shares were priced at 330p but immediately soared, provoking claims that the Government had mispriced them at the expense of UK taxpayers.

A 10% stake was handed to staff at the same time, which employees will be free to sell from October this year.

Following last year's General Election, Sir Vince's successor, Sajid Javid, said he would sell the remainder of the company as quickly as possible, with a further 1% handed to staff.

Last June, the Government sold half of its residual stake at 500p-a-share, raising £750m, followed in October by the disposal of a further 13% stake for 445p-a-share, generating proceeds of just over £590m.

In total, the revenue raised from sales of all the Government’s shares was £3.3bn, with Royal Mail employees now holding 12% of the company.

Speaking last autumn, Mr Javid said:

"This is a truly historic day for Royal Mail with the workers gaining a share of this history.

"We have delivered on our promise to sell the government’s entire remaining stake which means that for the very first time the company is now wholly owned by its employees and private investors.

"This is the right step for the Royal Mail, its customers and the taxpayer."

Since the last sale to City investors, the company's performance has been better than expected, with robust Christmas trading leading several analysts to upgrade their profit forecasts for 2016

borgpicard · Post by **borgpicard** » 04 Feb 2016, 18:12

Why are we not allowed to sell them for 3 years, I bet queen bitch and her cronies will be able to at any time.

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 04 Feb 2016, 19:01

borgpicard wrote:Why are we not allowed to sell them for 3 years, I bet queen bitch and her cronies will be able to at any time.

The ones they purchased - yes they can. The free ones that they got (the same as a FT if they are classed as FT) no.

Surreypostie · Post by **Surreypostie** » 06 Feb 2016, 18:30

borgpicard wrote:Why are we not allowed to sell them for 3 years, I bet queen bitch and her cronies will be able to at any time.

If you do sell them this year you are likely to loose 32% in tax and national insurance. I'd hang onto them, you don't get that kind of interest off the thieving banks.

Post by **windermeredave** » 12 Feb 2016, 10:24

I`m due to retire at the end of August. being a good leaver would I be able to sell this latest allocation even if I`ve only had them a few months? if we have them by then.

Post by **RobertT** » 12 Feb 2016, 10:38

windermeredave wrote:I`m due to retire at the end of August. being a good leaver would I be able to sell this latest allocation even if I`ve only had them a few months? if we have them by then.

As long as you fit the criteria of a ‘good leaver’ i.e redundancy, IHR or are over 60, you can either keep or sell your shares without any tax or NI to pay. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve held them for.

Post by **musicmaniax** » 16 Feb 2016, 15:52

I thought that was the 103 shares we received in October.

The government had 14% left, sold 13 and gave us 1.

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 16 Feb 2016, 15:54

These free shares are in addition to the free allocation of 10% of the company’s shares by Government at the time of the Royal Mail IPO in October 2013 to an employee share scheme and the 10m share allocation in October 2015. Once this final allocation is completed, the Government will have disposed of 12% of Royal Mail’s issued shares to
its employees. This is 2 percentage points higher than the minimum 10% requirement set out in section 3(2) of the Postal Services Act 2011.

http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/communit ... 38&t=73244" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Post by **musicmaniax** » 18 Feb 2016, 12:03

The government site does state that this has to be done on this financial year so should receive them by the end of March. Asked my shift manager and union rep who both say they have heard nothing.

Post by **aiden01** » 18 Feb 2016, 17:10

musicmaniax wrote:The government site does state that this has to be done on this financial year so should receive them by the end of March. Asked my shift manager and union rep who both say they have heard nothing.

Did we not receive a letter this week telling us amount of shares we will be receiving mine said 103.

toomuchcoke · Post by **toomuchcoke** » 18 Feb 2016, 17:18

aiden01 wrote:
musicmaniax wrote:The government site does state that this has to be done on this financial year so should receive them by the end of March. Asked my shift manager and union rep who both say they have heard nothing.
Did we not receive a letter this week telling us amount of shares we will be receiving mine said 103.

That was the ones we got last October. As for getting the latest batch before the end of the financial year, they're going to have to hustle to send out the "opt out" forms, allow sufficient time for people to send them back, process said forms and then allocate the new batch before April 5th.