I’m glad I still keep a hard copy of financial transactions that may eventually have tax implications. They are stored in this wonderfully retro ring-binder rescued by me as my grandfather was about to throw it on a bonfire. Now look inside.
It’s a sort of financial autobiography.
The stock brokers are all history and the bank accounts and lawyers but I had to turn to this ring-folder to see when I bought shares in Norcity Homes: September 1988. It was what in those days was called a Business Expansion Scheme (BES) of which I was a devotee albeit they almost all lost money. Silly people like me liked the tax break and we were taken for a ride by companies with portentous names like Lockton Superstores and Dix Belgravia.
Anyway, I have been a loyal shareholder in Norcity Homes for thirty-two years. The company has had mixed fortunes with a few name changes: Norcity Residential Unit Trust (1989), Capital Tech (2000), Terrace Hill Group, Urban & Civic.
If I may digress, leafing back through my “investments” I find companies called Spong, Silvermines, Dragon Oil, Ceapro Laboratories, Lionheart, Burn Stewart, Corporate Estates Properties, Mitchell Cotts, Beardsley and Stainless Metalcraft. If you are kind you will say I was feeling my way in the world of investment. It you are realistic you will say what a tosser I was. Every one of those companies either went bankrupt or lost me money.
Anyway, since Urban & Civic didn’t go bust, I still hold the shares. This week I got a letter telling me I will probably be released as a shareholder. The Wellcome Trust have made a bid at a price that reflects the company’s Net Asset Value and very likely will be accepted by the shareholders.
