TAT: Takes 5% of profits + does NOT let you convert into Direct shares.
I'm staying the hell away from that one.
ASICMINER-PT: no tax on divs, can convert to direct share, Burnside is more than a name (he runs the best known BTC exchange: https://btct.co/)
only issue is you need to pay 2.5BTC to buy one share nowadays... But there is more security, dividends and flexibility in the long run.
TAT: Good for dividend reinvestment. Expensive fee on the dividends compared to ASICMINER-PT to be sure, but only 1/100th the cost to get in to the security, making ASICminer available to far more people, and opening up dividend reinvestment to more people as well. Also good for the occasional arbitrage opportunities that show up between the full PT and themselves. I currently have <100 shares there, which I think is the right number, and the best place for dividends to accumulate at this time. More than 100 gets swapped up to the full PT when the sell/purch ratios between the two are right.
There are many people that own thousands of TAT.AM. I'd like to run through an example for you, in order to show how small 5% of dividends is as a fee.
Okay, let's assume you want to buy 1 whole-share. In this example, the best price is, say, ฿2.5
Also, let's say the best TAT.AM price at the same time is ฿0.0245 (roughly 1% cheaper), making your total cost ฿2.45 for the equivaleny 100 shares.
Now, let's assume that dividends will be .036 for the next 3 months (this is definitely NOT guaranteed), which would get you a total of ฿0.46764 with your 1 whole-shares (or 100 TAT.AM shares).
If you owned TAT.AM, your 5% mgmt fee would total ฿0.023382 in that 3 months (about $2.86).
Total profit from whole-share: .46764 - 2.5 = ฿-2.03236
Total profit from TAT.AM shares: .46764 - 2.45 - 0.023382 = ฿-2.005742
So even after 3 months of very high dividends, and only paying 1% less for your TAT.AM shares, you are still doing better by 0.026618, which is MORE than I would have collected in fees in 3 months.
The point of this exercise is to show two things. First, that 5% of dividends is a pittance as far as management fees go. My liability of holding these assets in the passthrough is astronomical in comparison. Second, you must do the math to figure out whether the fee will ever affect you. If your goal is to flip the shares in 3-6 months, then the fee is barely a consideration. If you plan to hold shares for a year, then you need to calculate what you are paying for the shares, and what you think dividends will realistically be in that year, to see what the best choice is.
Regarding the inability to export/import shares. I have explained elsewhere that I have good reasons for this. First, I want to get board seat status, so exporting shares is counterproductive to that goal. Second, I want to make Friedcat's life easier and respect that he doesn't need hundreds of requests from me for people trying to convert TAT.AM shares into a handful of whole-shares every week. I might add import/export as a feature in the future, but if I do, there will be quantity minimums, just like the other PTs.
With my PT you also get someone that is dedicated to customer service, security, and transparency of share ownership. To my knowledge, these are not offered by all the passthroughs to the degree in which I provide them.
Thanks for listening!