M&G boob on statements

M&G, one of the largest fund managers, has had to apologise and send revised statements to all 100,000 of its personal equity plan holders.

M&G regularly sends out statements of the value of PEP holdings to its investors.

The last statement, which was sent during the first week of February, provided information on the value of holdings as at 31 December 1992. M&G also gave the value of the plan at 5 October 1992, the previous statement date.

However, plan holders who bothered to read the statement would have noticed that the October valuation was much too low. If you had more than pounds 10,000 in your plan, the first digit of the December valuation figure was missing; pounds 10,000 would have turned overnight into pounds 1,000. - a shock for any faint-hearted investor.

A spokesman for M&G admitted it was not the company but an investor who spotted the errors in his own statement. It then transpired that everyone's statement was wrong.

According to the spokesman: 'It was caused by two computer problems. We just boobed and we will make sure everyone now has the right information.'

However, M&G is in danger of making another boob. The revised statement is virtually identical to the first one. Neither is dated and the correct one does not have the word 'revised' or 'amended' on it. The accompanying letter omits to say that the October valuation, as it appeared previously, was too low and just states that 'in some cases there was incorrect information'.

The revised statements are still being sent out and the mailing will not be complete until 1 March.