Begbies Traynor Corporate Rescue and Recovery

Advantages: Claimed low prices
Disadvantages: Incompetent billing & customer service

...Trying to deal with this company after the death of an account holder has been a complete nightmare. Their help-line keeps customers hanging on for hours at long distance rates. They don't respond to letters or phone calls. Their customer service manager sends condescending emails saying that issues have been resolved when they haven't. He promises to fix things by the next bill, but 4 months later I am still waiting. They send out statements saying the account is in credit and threats of recovery action at the same time. Even offers of refund cheques and debt recovery threats in the same post. Utility warehouse claims to be a highly successful company, but they don't have a clue about customer service. They also have a major internal inter-departmental communications problem.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Rock solid company managing the fund.
Disadvantages: Abysmal growth record. Fund too large.

...I bought into M&G Recovery in 1988. It was my first ever Unit Trust. Boy was I impressed with the past performance. £1000 would have grown to £69000 in the previous 25 years. I was so impressed that I started a unit trust savings scheme and kept it going for 12 years. The fund performed well in the early years but the growth was nearer to linear than exponential. This meant that each years growth was a smaller percentage than the previous year. In 1998 it suffered serious losses when world markets crashed due to the problems in the far east. It took over a year to recover its original price (much longer than the vast majority of funds) and has gone nowhere since. I sold out in January this year, just after it recovered its 1998 value. Having held it for 12 years, I didn't do too badly, but its performance over the last five... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: 2345
Disadvantages: 23454

...Market observers expect to see Nokia gaining further market share in the months to come. Indeed, Ollila said: "it is our intention to gain market share by several percentage points during the second half of this year." By being able to lower prices in the current quarter, that growth should be easily attainable. Analysts are thus confident that a recovery is on the cards, but a pick-up could be some time away. "The market will want to see the new handsets coming onto the market," said Gross – and that will happen at around the end of August or beginning of September. But Nokia will continue to trade close to its fundamental valuation unless it revives investors' belief in its ability to do the impossible.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average not helpful