dividends are a good idea? are they?, page-3

Hi pauljbo,

personally, I don't pay tax, so I am not influenced by it - but if I was - I would have thought it was more sensible to pay half the tax (ie. capital gains after 12 months)

Cap. gains from increased sp (assuming held 12mths) - half tax.

Tax. from divvy --- full tax less any franking

Don't get me wrong - I would be smiling with a divvy - but I just don't think that it is the way to go for a company at this stage.

Like you I also look at my shareholdings as providing income - in the case of fml - in the future.

I would have thought the way for fml to be a very good provider of income in the future (say 5 years or so) was to grow the company and to buy back shares.

All else is taking cash away from share/company growth (with the exception of attracting some institutions).

Sure, pay dividends, but just now is too early.

But on the institution note - would we in fact attract more or less institutions by having a buy back or providing a divvy?? I don't know.

I am also not real sure that I would rather institutions having a say in how the company is run - I rather like the idea of some of us who have slowly built a large holding because we like the company.
There is a lot of talk around that institutions have too much say in how companies are run now - they are far too interested in bottom line short (very short) term returns for the medium and long term benefits of modern companies.

I rather think that members like choo and cw and a myriad of others having a say would make me feel warm and cuddly as opposed to whoever hiding behind xxx nominees putting forward a short term view for us.
Institutions as far as I can see are rather devoid of emotions and not overfull on commonsense either - not to mention a bit of a moral vacuum in a lot of cases.

At least if we have humans who have a direct (DIRECT) interest on boards, we can at least hope where their heart lies.

Nope, I will stick with us.

have a good arvo Pinto