Jumat, 22 Juli 2016
Nonton Bigo What does an investment trust board do? Dividend hero chairman reveals why they are important for your returns Bigo Hot
07.32
Some investment trusts have delivered 50 successive years of annual dividend growth and a key component of that is the boards that oversee them.
Philip Remnant, chairman of the City of London Investment Trust, explains what an investment trust board does and why they matter.
An investment trust�s structure, its professional investment manager and its experienced independent board can deliver consistent performance
Investment trust companies were first created in 1868 as a way for those of modest means to invest in the opportunities available from the developing and expanding markets of the British Empire.
They were predominantly for small private investors and this remains the case today, with many private investors having held shares in long established investment trusts through many generations. Investment trusts are the oldest form of collective investment vehicle and, in the view of many commentators, the best.
I have the privilege to be chairman of one of these companies � The City of London Investment Trust plc. It started life in the late nineteenth century as a brewery company in the City of London and became an investment trust in 1932 when the brewery was sold, focusing predominantly on investing in the shares of companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.
This year, the company became the first investment trust to provide its shareholders with 50 successive years of annual dividend growth.
This provides compelling evidence that the combination of an investment trust�s structure, its professional investment manager and its experienced independent board can deliver consistent performance, notwithstanding the twists and turns of both the economy and the stock market.
Investment trusts are public companies like any other, with their shares traded on the London Stock Exchange. They have a fixed number of shares in issue, which are priced like all company shares according to supply and demand and they have an independent board of directors who govern all the activities of the company and, most importantly, oversee the appointed professional investment manager.
Investment trusts can be self-managed but they more usually appoint a third-party manager.
History shows that investment trusts tend to outperform other collective investment vehicles and this can be attributed to several significant features.
The ability to gear the portfolio and the compound effect of doing so is one of those features. Gearing involves borrowing money with the objective of earning a better return than the cost of that gearing. It is, of course, a double edged sword as it will enhance losses in falling markets.
The closed-ended structure of investment trusts is another of those characteristics. This, in particular, means that investment trust managers are not forced sellers of shares to fund redemption streams in stressed markets with the potential negative impact on portfolio performance. The discount or premium to the net asset value at which investment trust shares trade will narrow or widen according to market sentiment but any such discounts can offer good value.
The company structure also enables investment trusts to smooth and steadily grow dividend payments, and that is an important and a compelling attribute of investment trusts.
Each year an investment trust is permitted to retain up to 15 per cent of the income earned from its portfolio in its revenue reserve. This enables an investment trust to put money aside during the good years, so that in more challenging times when income levels may have fallen, dividends to shareholders can still be maintained or grown.
The City of London Investment Trust takes advantage of this, which helps to explain its remarkable achievement of 50 years of continuous dividend growth.
Perhaps the most important feature of investment trusts is the existence of an independent board, which provides a critical governance function and is independent of the appointed investment manager.
A good board usually consists of a broad range of directors with complementary skills, including investment management; business management, finance, risk and compliance; and sales and marketing.
The board constantly seeks to ensure that the investment trust is managed in the best interests of its shareholders and it does this by scrutinising the activities of the investment manager, challenging decisions made and taking whatever action it deems necessary to ensure that the interests of shareholders are protected.
The board also contributes its own collective wisdom to the thoughts and ideas of the investment manager, and works with the manager to ensure that the right strategy and policies are being followed. This helps the investment manager in his aim to outperform.
One very clear and tangible benefit of this has been the competitive management fees which many boards have negotiated for their shareholders. City of London enjoys the lowest ongoing charge in its sector, at 0.42 per cent, and this is one of the lowest in the investment trust industry.
Investment trusts have been the investment of choice for many investors for many generations and their attractions do not dim with time. Many factors contribute to their success but perhaps the most important of these, particularly in this increasingly regulated world of ours, is the role of the independent board acting as a constructive friend encouraging, advising, challenging and checking, always with one thought in mind � the best interests of shareholders.
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Nonton Bigo The cash machine scam sweeping Britain: How fraudster gangs are using distraction tricks to fleece customers of money Bigo Hot
05.24
- Videos below show just how easy it is to fall victim of the sneaky tactics
- Gordon Urquhart, 66, distracted by pair at a Yorkshire ATM
- Had �300 stolen and immediately alerted Santander staff
- Bank refused to refund in a trend which seems to be growing in the UK
Bank customers are being warned to stay vigilant as a new wave of cash machine distraction scams sweeps the country.
In the scam, victims are distracted for just a matter of seconds while taking money out of an ATM, enough time for the fraudsters to steal cash from their account or swap their debit card for a fake.
Barclays released a video on Thursday to help warn customers. The short clip shows a man waiting at a cash point while a woman stands behind him and watches as he enters his PIN number.
She then causes a distraction - in this case she drops some money - and he turns his back from the machine to help her.
Her accomplice, who is standing at the next terminal either takes his cash or - as in the case of the video - puts a fake bank card into the slot.
Sneaky tricks: Criminals work in small groups to distract an cash machine user and steal money
In this video the woman stands behind a bank customer and watches as he enters his PIN number
Her accomplice stands at the next terminal and has a fake bank card in his wallet which he puts into the man's machine when he's not looking
The unwitting victim then turns around, collects his cash and the fake card and leaves.
Finally the woman then tells the PIN code to her accomplice and they can then begin draining his account as they have the real card and the code.
Fraud at cash machines rose by a fifth to �32.7million in the last year alone, according to Financial Fraud Action UK.
One victim who contacted This is Money is Gordon Urquhart, 66, from West Yorkshire, who had �300 swiped from his Santander current account after being distracted by a pair of Romanian scammers at a branch.
Mr Urquhart was withdrawing money from outside the Airedale shopping centre branch of Santander in Keighley last month when he was interrupted by a man and woman.
He told This is Money that the pair kept insisting the machine was out of order and that he should try the machine inside the branch.
He told them to go away, but they refused. He terminated the transaction, withdrew his debit card and went into branch to alert staff.
However, somehow in the commotion, the two thieves managed to withdraw �300, the maximum daily amount, from his account - while he was distracted by one, the other managed to make the transaction in seconds.
The woman causes the distraction and the man turns around to help her
Unfortunately for him her accomplice quickly inserts the fake card into the machine
The victim then unwittingly takes the fake card from the cash point, leaving his real card still in the mahcine
He says the bank called the police and in the meantime arranged for the stolen funds to be reimbursed. Before leaving, he was told he would enter his account within 24 hours.
However, despite numerous requests in the days after, he didn't receive the money back.
When he phoned to question it, he was told by the fraud department that his account of events 'didn't match that of bank employees.'
A few days after the ordeal, he was informed by police that two Romanians had been apprehended. He claims to have been told they had been carrying out a similar scam across the country.
But weeks after the incident, Mr Urquhart was still out of pocket.
He told This is Money: 'As a pensioner, the bank's failure to honour its care of the customer has caused me considerable hardship and stress.
'I feel that its behaviour is even more irresponsible and criminal than those who took the money in the first place and its treatment of me amounts to an emotional violation.'
A Santander spokesman said: 'Distraction fraud is where a customer is distracted by one fraudster, while the other transacts on their account without the customer's knowledge.
'In this instance, the card was in the ATM whilst the second fraudster withdrew the �300.
The woman then tells her accomplice the PIN number as the victim leaves
The pair of thieves are then free to drain his account as they have the PIN number and the card
'We review and investigate fraud and scam cases on an individual basis, as each case is rarely exactly the same.
'In this instance we believe the customer has been a victim of distraction fraud, and did not knowingly disclose his details to a third party.'
He added: 'There was some confusion and inconsistency in the timeline and details of events when Mr Urquhart initially reported the incident, which led to his claim being declined.
'We have now established that Mr Urquhart has been a victim of distraction fraud, have apologised for the confusion and informed him that we will be refunding the money.'
HOW THIS IS MONEY CAN HELP
Mr Urquhart is thankful that with This is Money's intervention the money has been returned - but has been left unhappy with the treatment from the bank who he believes would not have refunded him otherwise and has not apologised. He also added that the perpetrators have been handed a two year prison sentence.
Mr Urquhart is not alone � and it appears all high street banks are being targeted, with cases each having a slightly different sneaky twist.
This is Money has also been contacted by a reader who wishes to be simply named as Derek, 67, who has been a Barclays current account customer for 30 years.
He went inside a Barclays branch located on the High Street of Southend-on-Sea, Essex to withdraw cash.
While using a cash machine inside, he was distracted by a man � again with an Eastern European accent � telling him that he had dropped a �5 note on the floor.
He took the note and continued his transaction. While walking to his car a short while afterwards, he was approached by a woman who was shouting at him in broken English.
She claimed the �5 note was hers. In the confusion, Derek handed the note back and drove off. It was only the next day that he discovered his debit card had been nabbed - and �400 stolen from his account.
He believes the woman must have managed to take his card skillfully while he handed back the �5 note - and that the man in the branch clocked his PIN.
Derek informed the branch who replaced the funds he says within minutes, pending an investigation.
The probe confirmed Derek had been defrauded at no fault of his own - and he, unlike Mr Urquhart, was full of praise for the efficiency of his bank.
In another case reported by the Sunday Times earlier in the month, a Lloyds customer aged 80 entered its branch in Leamington Spa in February to take some cash from the ATM.
They put their debit card into the machine, entered the PIN and selected the option to make a withdrawal and see an on-screen balance.
A man said the ATM wasn't working and a piece of paper with writing was thrust between the Lloyds customer's eyes and the screen.
In a flash, �500 was stolen from the account.
The man ran off and the customer - who had banked with Lloyds for 55 years - told staff who promptly contacted the police.
They watched CCTV footage and took the customer to the police station to give a formal statement.
The police allegedly told the customer that an attempted theft had taken place a few miles away at a Lloyds branch in Warwick a short while before.
The customer also claims the police said there had been similar incidents around the country.
However, Lloyds refused to refund the �500 stating that it was theft, not fraud.
It was only when the Sunday Times stepped in that Lloyds changed its tune, refunded the �500 as a 'gesture of goodwill' along with an extra �200 for the way the customer had been treated.
Another case in Grantham saw a 93 year-old man defrauded of �23,000.
He was distracted at a cash machine by three men, as seen in the video below in a similar manner to Derek in the Barclays case above.
They stole his card and had noted his PIN outside a NatWest branch. While he was distracted, a second man swapped his bank card for a fake one.
It was only later that the victim realised he didn't have his own card � and the criminals later used the details to siphon the money from his account.
NatWest confirmed to This is Money that the money was returned to the customer shortly after the incident.
In all of the cases, the customers have been aged 65 or over. However, a spokesman at one of the banks told This is Money that it's not just older customers being targeted in this manner - those who are pregnant or have young children are also likely to be in the crosshairs of criminals.
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Nonton Bigo My little pony! Cute video shows young girl scratching the animal... and getting her OWN back scratch in return Bigo Hot
04.43
An adorable video shows a young girl who scratched a pony with a brush -- and got her own back scratch in return from the animal.
The girl wore rubber boots and stood in a bucket while she brushed Rosie the pony, which was tethered to a fence. The footage showed them together in Blairstown, New Jersey, last month.
A woman's voice said off-camera: 'You scratch her back, she scratches your back.'
According to mother Melissa Giordano, Rosie was saved from being killed two years ago.
She told ViralHog: 'This video was taken when my daughter's pony, Rosie, had to soak her feet in cold water due to an injury.
'My daughter jumped right in the water with Rosie and started scratching her back.
'Rosie enjoyed it so much she scratched my daughters back in return.
'Two years ago Rosie was rescued out of a kill pen.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3686740/My-little-pony-Cute-video-shows-young-girl-scratching-animal-getting-scratch-return.html#ixzz4F8XWkzCG
Nonton Bigo Qandeel Baloch murder: Brother arrested by police, admits to killing her for 'family honour' Bigo Hot
04.21
New Delhi: Pakistan model and social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch was murdered on Saturday by her brother Waseem.
The sensational murder of the starlet opened a can of worms, and showed the grim picture of Pakistan plagued by 'honour killing'.
Although it was suspected that Baloch�whose real name is Fouzia Azeem was strangled to death by her own brother, now it has been confirmed.
According to Pakistan Today, the police have arrested Waseem and he has admitted to the crime. He also said that he killed her because of her controversial social media outing and bold videos.
�She was bringing disrepute to our family�s honour and I could not tolerate it any further. I killed her around 11.30pm on Friday night when everyone else had gone to bed. My brother is not involved in the murder,� said Waseem to the media.
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Nonton Bigo Pakistani model Qandeel Baloch's father wants son to be 'shot' Bigo Hot
04.09
Islamabad: Pakistani social media sensation Qandeel Baloch's father said his son, who killed the model-cum-actress for honour, should be "shot on sight".
"I say he should be shot on sight. He suffocated my little one," Baloch's father Anwar Azeem said.
According to the News International report on Friday, Baloch's parents voiced their pain at the murder of their daughter by their younger son Waseem, who killed her for bold posts and pictures on social media sites.
"We were drugged, asleep upstairs. She must have called out to us," Azeem said.
Azeem said that his daughter was his "best friend" but claimed that his son Waseem had been "crazed".
Baloch's mother said she used to share all her secrets with her.
"We were mother and daughter, sharing all our sorrows and secrets. She used to tell me 'Your daughter is working hard, she'll go far'," she said.
Qandeel's mother said she and Azeem were also drugged the night Baloch was first sedated and then strangled to death.
"My husband and I fell deep asleep. We had drunk milk, it had been mixed with sedatives," she said.
"In the morning, I called Qandeel for breakfast... but she didn't get up."
Her mother, describing Baloch's corpse, said: "Her whole face was covered in bruises, her tongue was black, her lips were black."
Baloch was killed on the night of July 14 by Waseem. He confessed to drugging her and then strangling her to death, for family honour.
Original source
Nonton Bigo Does the Split-Ender Really Work? | Fab or Fail Bigo Hot
03.48
What is a girl�s worst nightmare? Split ends! We all dread getting them but its hard to keep up with regular haircut appointments to avoid them. How can we keep our hair healthy in between haircuts?
In this video we show you an online tool that could be the solution to our hair problems! Brooklyn gets split ends on occasion so she volunteered to be our tester! She was pretty nervous about the process but I tested a strand of my hair first to put her at ease.
To see your own photo results of this tool featured in our app, feel free to tag your photos on IG with: #CGHSplitEnder
Original source here
Minggu, 17 Juli 2016
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