Posted on 02/15/2009 4:01:51 PM PST by GreaterSwiss
Just got today
RE: stock symbol BAC
The above listed stock is part of a non-mandatory reorganization or tender offer, which requires your timely attention. For details regarding this offer, contact your local branch office. Please note that failure to advise Scottrade of your intent may result in no action being taken, and we cannot be held responsible for any resulting loss.
If you decide to participate in this offer, you will need to inform your local Scottrade branch office no later than 10 a.m. ET on the expiration date, and a $25 fee will be charged to your account.
These shares must then remain in your account until the reorg/tender takes place (be advised that the expiration due date for such actions is often extended). Please contact us if you have any questions.
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Check out also http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/9679/bacbl4.png -------------------- Mini-Tender Offers (from SEC)
"Mini-tender" offers are tender offers that, when consummated, will result in the person who makes the tender offer owning less than five percent of a company’s stock. The people behind these offers—also known as "bidders"—frequently use mini-tender offers to catch shareholders off guard. They count on investors jumping to the conclusion that the price offered includes the premium usually present in larger, traditional tender offers. But with mini-tender offers, the price offered may actually be below the market price.
Bidders in mini-tender offers limit the offer to five percent or less so that they do not have to comply with many of the investor protections that are in place for larger tender offersmade by bidders whose total ownership after the offer, when added to their holdings before the offer, would exceed five percent. For instance, shareholders in mini-tender offers don’t receive documents that describe the tender offer in the same detail as documents that are required to be filed in a traditional tender offer. Bidders making mini-tender offers also do not have to file documents with the SEC or provide withdrawal rights to investors who tender their shares into the offer.
Investors who surrender their shares without fully investigating the offer may be shocked to learn that they cannot change their minds and withdraw. In the meantime, they’ve lost control over their securities and may end up selling at below-market prices.
Metals are safer...;0)
USAA Bank seems to have excellent service, from my experience. The insurance company is excellent, to the extent my business broker tells me he can’t match their terms on personal insurance so he doesn’t. In Massachusetts SBLI is an excellent deal as well.
Mini-Tender Offers:
Tips for Investors
Most investors welcome tender offers because they frequently provide a rare opportunity to sell securities at a premium above market price. But investors should know that not all tender offers are alike.
“Mini-tender” offers – tender offers for less than five percent of a company’s stock – have been increasingly used to catch investors off guard. Many investors who hear about mini-tender offers surrender their securities without investigating the offer, assuming that the price offered includes the premium usually present in larger, traditional tender offers. But they later learn that they cannot withdraw from the offer and may end up selling their securities at below-market prices.
If you’ve been asked to tender your securities, find out first whether the offer is a mini-tender offer. And remember that mini-tender offers typically do not provide the same disclosure and procedural protections that larger, traditional tender offers provide. For example, when a bidder – the person or group of people behind the offer – makes a tender offer for more than five percent of the company’s shares, all of the SEC’s tender offer rules apply. These rules require bidders to:
* Disclose important information about themselves;
* Disclose the terms of the offer;
* File their offering documents with the SEC; and
* Provide the target company and any competing bidders with information about the tender offer.
The rules also give investors important protections, including the right to:
* Change their minds and withdraw from the transaction while the offer remains open;
* Have their shares accepted on a “pro rata” basis (if the offer is for less than all of the company’s outstanding shares and investors tender too many shares); and
* Be treated equally by the bidder.
But none of the rules listed above applies to mini-tender offers.
Instead, the only rules that encompass mini-tender offers – Section 14(e) of the Securities Exchange Act and Regulation 14E – provide that bidders must:
* Not engage in fraud or deceptive practices;
* Hold open tender offers for minimum time periods; and
* Make prompt payment to investors after the offer closes.
Regulation 14E also requires the target company to state its position about the offer by recommending that investors accept or reject the offer. The company may also state that it remains neutral or takes no position. But because bidders in mini-tender offers don’t have to notify the target, the target may not even know about the offer.
Investors need to scrutinize mini-tender offers carefully. Some bidders make mini-tender offers at below-market prices, hoping that they will catch investors off guard if the investors do not compare the offer price to the current market price. Others make mini-tender offers at a premium – betting that the market price will rise before the offer closes and then extending the offer until it does or improperly canceling if it doesn’t.
With most mini-tender offers, investors typically feel pressured to tender their shares quickly without having solid information about the offer or the people behind it. And they’ve been shocked to learn that they generally cannot withdraw from mini-tender offers.
Here are the steps you should take if you are asked to sell your stock, bonds, limited partnership interests, or other securities through a mini-tender offer:
* Find out whether the offer is a mini-tender offer. Most bidders won’t use the term “mini-tender offer” to describe their offer to buy your shares. Instead, they may call it a “Solicitation to Purchase Shares of XYZ Corporation.” Ask the bidder – or your broker – what percentage of the company the bidder seeks to purchase. If the answer is less than five percent, you’re dealing with a mini-tender offer, and you should proceed with caution.
* Get a copy of the offering document. And be sure to read the disclosure carefully. Do not make an investment decision until you see the disclosure about the offer.
* Determine whether the bidder has adequate financing. Some bidders make mini-tender offers because they can do so at virtually no cost. These individuals often do not have the financing necessary to purchase the shares in the offer. Before you surrender your securities in a mini-tender offer, ask tough questions – and demand answers – about the bidder’s ability to pay once the offer closes.
* Identify the current market price for your securities. For stock, you can easily get price information in many newspapers, on-line, or from your broker or investment adviser. For bonds and limited partnerships, you may need to talk with your broker or investment adviser because these prices may be hard to find. For limited partnerships, contact the general partner to get a list of firms that buy and sell the limited partnership, or ask your broker or investment adviser.
* Find out the “final” tender offer price after all deductions are taken. In some tender offers, you may get a lower price because deductions are taken from the tender offer price for dividend payments. Also, some bidders in mini-tender offers fail to disclose clearly that certain fees or expenses may also be deducted from the offer price.
* Ask when you’ll be paid for the shares you tender. Bidders in mini-tender offers sometimes fail to provide prompt payment, sometimes delaying for weeks or months. Before you tender your shares, be sure to find out when the bidder will pay you for your shares.
* Consult with your broker or other financial adviser. Make sure you understand the terms of the tender offer before tendering your shares. Ask for any additional written information that may be available.
* If you want to sell your shares, determine where you can get your best price. Check all your alternatives for selling your securities. For instance, compare how much you will receive if you sell through your broker versus the tender offer.
* Remember that once you agree to a mini-tender offer, you are probably locked in. If the tender offer is for less than five percent of the company’s stock, exercise extreme caution. Unlike other tender offers, you generally cannot change your mind after you have tendered your shares in a mini-tender offer, even if the offer hasn’t yet closed. In addition, the bidder can extend the tender offer without giving you the right to withdraw your shares. And in the meantime, you’ve lost control over the securities you tendered.
If you’ve run into trouble with a mini-tender offer, act promptly. By law, you only have a limited time to take legal action.
Contact the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy for help. You can send us your complaint using our online complaint form. Or you can reach us as follows:
U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission
Office of Investor Education and Advocacy
100 F Street, NE
Washington, D.C. 20549-0213
Fax: (202) 772-9295
http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/minitend.htm
VFIIX
While the GNMAs don't look like they grow much they have a reasonable return ~4.5% and no loss of capital - not bad for this market.
Still I'm no pro - so if you're worried talk to a pro and see what alternatives are available but right now 5% with capital preserved through the crash I wish I was all in GNMAs. Sigh.
For inflation, hyper inflation, and government collapse, metals are safer. Not just the shiny ones, but copper, brass, and lead as well.
For deflation, a phase we’re in right now, cash is king.
I’m covering both eventualities, diversification applies even to the end of the world.
:-|
I know what you are saying, and I am certainly not complaining about the past. I am worried about our financial system going forward and what impact that might have on bonds in general and housing related issues in particular. Safety is why I moved from the Total Stock Market Index, and safety and capital preservation are still my main concerns. I am seriously putting cash in my safe deposit box.
ping
My wife was not given a damned thing. She started as an assistant teller and retired as a vice president. She worked her ass off to move up in the company. She paid into the 401k plan. They didn’t just drop a ton of money in her lap. She was 4 years from retirement and got canned with all the others. 90% of the people canned were over 50 years of age. Ever tried getting a job where they told you you had too much experience? I thought not. You don’t know crap about what you are talking about. You don’t know the crap that BA started after they merged with Nations Bank. Thousands lost jobs. Many in the same boat as my wife. The only person in the entire department of over 50 people left, was one kid. About 25 years old. Nothing to pay him when they can him later.
A co-worker lost his daughter in a car crash two months ago. He called USAA while enroute to her home to see what he had to do to start the claims process. That’s all it took. They told him not to spend a dime on anything, but to send them the signed statements for all expenses.
By the time he returned home a week later, after seeing to funeral details and such, he already had two settlement checks in his mailbox with more to come.
That’s the kind of service from an insurance company that you just can’t beat.
I found nothing on Bloomberg. I see no responses to posts. Info can be identified without copying.
Good info, thanks.
I had a job where I worked with folks that needed to add the lender to their insurance policy. Most cases, you had to explain to them what to tell their insurance company, and then follow up multiple times. One call to USAA, and they’d do all the work. Customers who had USAA were very well served by the company. And it made life easy for me, as well.
I started there when I was eighteen years old as a midnight shift Mail Clerk making 85 bucks a week, and left there as a Vice President. Age plus service totaled 82 points, early retirement at age 50 required 75 points.
B of A converted to a Cash Basis Pension years ago, so I not only left with my 401-K, which both I and the Bank contributed to, but my Pension funds which were 100% funded by the Bank.
Even if I didn't have enough points to technically “retire”, all that money was vested to me at 100%. The only real perk I get for being retired is access to retiree medical coverage, which I have not used to this point because my wife's job covers us right now at a cheaper rate. Ironically, that will end this month because my wife is getting laid off because her unit is being closed down.
I feel no ill will toward B of A. They put a roof over my head and compensated me for my contributions to the company all those years.
As my Father once told me, you can complain about a job the moment they point a gun to your head and make you take the job. His favorite saying was, Nobody Owes You a Living. This was my experience with Bank of America.
I’m a candle-watching trader, scalp/swing nibbler....never knew of this mini-tender stuff before
Me neither. I have tendered stock before, but always had a lot of info and with the major companies. But it is good to know how some may try to get tendered stock.
I thought you indicated she received a severance package, was that mandatory or did the company do that of their own volition?
Ever tried getting a job where they told you you had too much experience? I thought not.
Yes two times in my career; when I was 36 I was an insurance broker business owner and the company we wrote about 80% of our business went bust. I had to close my office, 6 employees laid off, I was not happy about it but that was business. I did not think I should have provided them lifetime employment, they didn’t either. As I looked for a job over the next months I was told exactly that, I was too experienced; I ended up with about 1/3 the pay a year later. It happened again just last July at the age of 51, I am making about 60% what I was this time last year.
You don’t know crap about what you are talking about.
Quite the contrary, as indicated I have been on both-sides, employer and employee. Have you ever had your own business, or had the responsibility of making payroll?
I think the part some do not realize is that they are happy with capitalism when it is good and they are making money. When that system adjusts as is the natural order of business, and companies have to lay off or cut pay, employees feel they deserve more, they deserve lifetime employment, they suddenly want to shift from being in the capitalist system to socialism - they want guaranteed employment until they decide they no longer desire to work or are ready for retirement.
The difference with me is I accept the good with the bad. If I was ever so fortunate to be in your wifes position of working 32 years for a company and retiring at 62 I would feel quite blessed. I am now 52 and know full well this recession could be around 5-10 years and am a bit nervous for the future.
As you mention, there are many in the same situation, and there are many more in much worse.Hopefully it will get better for your family; I wish you the best of luck.
MY BRANCH MGR THOUGHT IT WAS BAC WANTING TO CLEAN UP SMALL LOTS WHICH SOUNDS RIDICULOUS. NO PRICES GIVEN, SAYS IT IS A “WEIGHTED OFFER”. WHAT A RIPOFF. PLUS SCOTTRADE WANTS A $25 FEE. IT SOUNDS LIKE AN INDIVIDUAL SUBMITTING THE TENDER OFFER. THE WHOLE THING REEKES
They are good, of course, they have the luxury of REALLY refining their client base...or actually having the military do it for them. Everybody involved benefits I believe.
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