Cheapest Stockbroker for European Shares

Hi,

I currently hold shares with a French company. As they are European stocks, I have been told that I must hold them with a stockbroker. I am currently with Dolmen but they have increased their annual maintenance fee to EUR100 from EUR58, which pretty much wipes out my dividend. I intend holding the shares for the long term. Any advice on whom I should move them to or is there a way I can hold them in my own name without having to pay the annual maintenance fee.

Thanks,

W

WPrice said:

but they have increased their annual maintenance fee to EUR100 from EUR58,

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Is that a charge for holding just one share or a charge no matter how many different shares you hold. I think you will find that all brokers charge an annual fee regardless of the amount of different shares you hold.

It depends on the Stock. Some registrars will let you hold the shares in your own name electronically with them.

Effectively your shares cannot be held in certificate form. They must be held with a custodian.

The best thing to do is find out who the registrar is. It is more than likely a company in France or possibly Belgium or Luxembourg.

If you want to have ease of access and communication check out some of the other Irish brokers to see what they would charge in annual acc fees. There is a thread here somewhere that detailed best value ones out there in Ireland.

Do be aware however if you transfer your shares to another Broker Dolmen will probably charge you a transfer fee (about €80 I think).

If you move them to a French custodian or to the French registrar there is usually quite a bit of paperwork involved. Be aware though that if you do this you must notify them of any address changes etc in the future so that they can send you your dividends etc.

My advice would be to ring Dolmen and speak to the settlements department. Your broker will not have a clue about how to transfer the shares etc.

The Settlement department can investigate if they can be held with the French registrar in your own name. They should also be able to get the required paperwork for you and advise of any fees charged.

mercman said:

Is that a charge for holding just one share or a charge no matter how many different shares you hold. I think you will find that all brokers charge an annual fee regardless of the amount of different shares you hold.

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Yes they do. Any who charge annual account fees charge them regardless of whether you have 1 share or 1 million shares.

Fees may vary depending on type of account though- Advisory, discretionary, managed etc.

TD waterhouse don't have an annual charge. But there are other T&C's so check it out carefully.

horusd said:

TD waterhouse don't have an annual charge. But there are other T&C's so check it out carefully.

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On another side issue, how do you find dealing with TD Waterhouse ?? I used to use an on line broker and am seriously thinking of moving back or partially using that kind of trading again ????

mercman said:

On another side issue, how do you find dealing with TD Waterhouse ?? I used to use an on line broker and am seriously thinking of moving back or partially using that kind of trading again ????

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So so mercman, good in many respects, but there are real problems with displaying in the right currencies for costs etc. See the thread already in existence. http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=133894

These problems are still occuring, I just bought shares recently and nothing has changed.

Thanks for that horusd. Funny have heard that so it would be difficult to trade daily with them on different markets ??

Yeah I think so, Idon't do daily trades, only L.T. investments, so I don't know if they use a different system. But they are rubbish when it comes to addressing these problems. I see they are back advertising too, which is odd given they haven't ironed out these flaws, and anyone looking at them as a broker would find lots of angry posts in a jiffy.

One of the brokers I use is Keytrade Bank who do not have annual fees and pretty low commissions depending on what exchange you buy and sell on. You can open an account in Belgium or Luxembourg, and they are advertising about covering some of the costs of moving shares across: [broken link removed]