Good Morning Verbum4it,
Unfortunately I believe there is no reason to follow it now. I was drawn to the fact that the European Union directive stated that any bank receiving state funds for rescue could not pay out interest on their bonds for two years. Most of the banks passed over the payout but some bank's bond prospectus' allowed them to accumulate the payments until the 2 year period passed. HALB was one of them. I actually purchased a similar one (HALP) a Halifax 9.375% on the 26th January and on 22nd Feb it paid out interest that had accumulated giving 13% return in less than a month.
I do not know why I didn't purchase the HALB but I believe it was due to nobody saying that the accumulated payouts would actually be paid. To sum up....I think all the tasty payouts have now been distributed but the fixed income market is one which does not seem to attract the public investment community despite some reasonable income streams that can be generated. One of my favourites is Co-operative Bank 13% Perp. Sub Bonds (CPBC) paying out 8.02 %. Put these in an ISA and sit back and relax as they are a conservative outfit and do not dabble into CDO's and other such exotic derivatives.