Martin Lee @ Sg
Sharing is Caring!

Yield 15 and 20 Redemption Offer From UOB

UOB has made a buyback offer to the 4000 customers who purchased Pru Yield 15 or Yield 20 through them.

Investors will be able to redeem back their principal less any interest they have already received if they opt for UOB’s offer by 6 Nov 2009.

This works out to be $0.88 for Pru Yield 15 and US$0.82 for Pru Yield 20.

These 2 funds were mostly sold as capital protected products but had seen their price drop to as low as $0.375 in March 2009 at the height of the credit crisis. The price has since rebounded to $0.815 and US$0.842 respectively.

Investors who do not opt for the buyback offer will have to wait until June 2010 to get a full repayment of their capital. They will have tol continue to bear default risk of the Yield 15 and 20 product.

As of 16th June 2009, there were 14 defaults out of a total of 100 entities making up the notes. The notes can take around 9 more defaults before the capital is adversely affected.

Actually, the buyback offer for the Yield 20 is a purely token one as the price of the notes is currently trading at above the buyback offer price.

Note that the buyback offer only applies to UOB customers who bought the Yield 15 or 20 through them.

Leave a Comment:

9 comments
Chua says 15 years ago

Today is the last day to decide on the UOB offer? Should we redeem PRU Yield15 / 20?
Any experts out there to advise?

Rgds

Reply
Swee Tan says 15 years ago

Hi, I called Uob hotline on 28th Oct 2009. I enquired if I do not take up UOB’s offer, when can I sell the fund. They told me that I can sell it and the dealing day is every friday of each week. So I would have to decide 2 days before.
Looks like the call centre still has the wrong information.

Reply
    lioninvestor says 15 years ago

    Hi Swee Tan,

    Which wrong information are you referring to?

    Reply
Yu L F says 15 years ago

After a bad experience with StandChart’s RM some years ago, I have learnt never to trust RMs in banks. It’s better to do your own homework. I’m not sure if I should take up UOB’s offer though. Afterall, the economy is picking up & it is less than a year to maturity. Appreciate any advice from seasoned investors reading this.

Watchthemarket

Reply
Intheknow says 15 years ago

1. i don’t think a misrepresentation of the dealing frequently (monthly vs weekly) is significant enough to warrant any compensation. This is not the main reason for the extra 25% loss you made.

2. the decision to sell was made and taken by you, so once again, i don’t think you can claim any compensation.

3. delays in reaching the RM may not be a valid reason. Is he/she your dedicated RM or just any other RM you found at the branch? Could you not have found another RM to handle the redemption for you?

i am very disturbed by your statement “I’m wondering if there’s any recourse for me, after all I sold on incorrect information provided by the RM.”

you seem to be blaming the RM for providing you wrong info which led to you selling, when in my opinion, it was due to yourself panicking and selling at a loss.

Cheers,
Intheknow

Reply
    MisinformedLady says 15 years ago

    Dear Intheknow,

    Isn’t it the RM’s job to revert back to the customer especially when he said would? If he knew he had to go for training, shouldn’t he pass the case onto someone else instead of leaving the customer hanging for 3 weeks?

    Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had great service from responsible RM’s from other banks…yes, they actually exist. I just made the mistake of trusting that this one is as responsible as the others.

    Reply
MisinformedLady says 15 years ago

I was surprised by this news.

Last September, amid the turmoil around structured products, I had gone to UOB branch to get advice whether to sell my Yield 15 or not. The RM said he would check and get back to me but he never did. I tried to get in touch with him for 2-3 weeks – he said he was in “training” and couldn’t talk to me but kept saying he would get back to me.

He also gave me wrong info that the fund was traded weekly instead of monthly. When he finally replied, he urged me to sell quickly as it was near the default threshold. So I sold. All this while, he kept saying it was a weekly trade so when I didn’t get the check, I had to call him again THEN he checked and told me it was traded MONTHLY. By then the price had fallen by 25%. If he had gotten back to me sooner I wouldn’t have sustained such a huge loss.

I made a complaint to the branch manager who said she would look into it and get back to me but again, no news for a month. When I called her, she said “sorry, nothing we can do”. So much for good will and service quality.

So that’s why I’m surprised by this turn around. I’m wondering if there’s any recourse for me, after all I sold on incorrect information provided by the RM. Shouldn’t the bank ensure that their staff know their products well before giving advice and surely, they should revert back to their customers when they promised?

Reply
    lioninvestor says 15 years ago

    Hi Misinformedlady,

    A few things you can consider.

    1) write to a higher authority in UOB
    2) write in to the ST forum
    3) file a complain with Fidrec

    Don’t think you can get anything from them based on their advice to sell but if you tried repeatedly to get in touch with the RM for 2-3 weeks and he didn’t respond to you, that might be a cause for complaints.

    Fyi, the fund used to be monthly dealing but now it’s weekly dealing.

    Reply
      MisinformedLady says 15 years ago

      Dear lioninvestor,

      Thanks for your reply.

      Honestly, I am not hopeful that anything will come out of my case but I’m glad that since the whole fiasco with structured products, more is being done to help the average man-on-the-street protect his hard-earned money.

      Reply
Add Your Reply