Proposed sale of Britannia Rescue to LV (Liverpool Victoria)

[columbusrobbie]

Anyone here a member of CSMA and concerned about the proposed sale of Britannia Rescue to LV (Liverpool Victoria)?

Not impressed that I can only vote on this proposal (I'm opposed to it) unless I can either attend the EGM on Thursday 10th May in central London, or find another CSMA member who is attending to act as my proxy.:mad:

Is any other member concerned about the proposed sale?

[GabbaGabbaHey]

Yes, I am also concerned. And I also noticed the bit about only being able to vote in person or with a named proxy. Most other organisations allow you to direct the Chairman on how to cast your vote if you cannot attend in person.

If there are any CSMA members who are planning to attend and to vote NO, I'll happily let you cast my proxy vote.

[dzug]

Well you CAN always write to the Chairman (or perhaps another more disinterested proxy) and tell him how to cast your proxy. Whether he takes any notice you will probably never know. He's supposed to listen to the arguments on both sides and cast his votes accordingly.

I'm not overly concerned by the sale - reading between the lines it's a market they are best off out of before it turns sour on them.

[chrisw]

I must admit, I took a quick look and threw it in the bin. If they keep Britannia they'll probably argue that they have to massively increase the cost of it. I've used them a few times and they have been excellent, so I hope the quality of service doesn't suffer.

[notahappybunny]

Anyone here a member of CSMA and concerned about the proposed sale of Britannia Rescue to LV (Liverpool Victoria)?

Not impressed that I can only vote on this proposal (I'm opposed to it) unless I can either attend the EGM on Thursday 10th May in central London, or find another CSMA member who is attending to act as my proxy.:mad:

Is any other member concerned about the proposed sale?
I also am annoyed about this literature. It doesn't seem to be giving you the choice to vote against. Maybe the price will go up if Britannia Rescue stays with the CSMA but maybe it won't. Certainly from my experience the motor insurance is not as good as it was so I have gone elsewhere, something I never thought would happen.
As I understand from the literature which was sent through - they are going to use some of the money to get the pension fund back on track! I strongly oppose the sale of this rescue service and have no way of voting against the sale unless I go to London. Why didn't they give you the option of voting against it on the form which was sent out?

[mariegriffiths]

"Why didn't they give you the option of voting against it on the form which was sent out?"
Because they are acting illegally in my opinion.

There is a guy on the rpoints/mutuals forum who is attending and is willing to be proxy.

Marie


PS.
I have writtten to the FSA with this response:-

Thank you for your email of 17 April 2007.

YOUR ENQUIRY

You wish to know whether it is legal for the CSMA to sell of its
breakdown recovery business to Liverpool Victoria without it being put
to the vote to its members.

RESPONSE TO YOUR ENQUIRY

We at the Financial Services Authority (FSA) cannot comment on whether
this is legal, as offering legal comment falls beyond the scope of
service that we are able to provide. The link below to our information
sheet 'Introduction to the Financial Services Authority - information
for consumers' explains our role and remit in more detail:
http://www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk/pdfs/fsa_who.pdf.

Please note that the decision by a company to transfer/sell all or part
of its business to another is a purely commercial decision for the firm
in question to make. However, the FSA has to be satisfied that the
transfer would not be to the detriment of existing policyholders, for
example, fundamental changes to the terms and conditions of policies.

The transfer process includes a range of safeguards to protect the
interest of all members and policyholders, including those being
transferred. Amongst others, these safeguards include:

1. that the terms of a transfer and its impact must be reviewed by an
independent expert;
2. that as regulator, the FSA is able to scrutinise any proposals to
ensure that regulatory requirements (including the requirement to treat
customers fairly) are and will continue to be met;
3. that a proposed transfer cannot proceed unless it is approved by the
Court: and
4. the approval of any transfer may not require the approval of members
or policyholders. However, under Section 107 of the Financial Services
and Markets Act 2000, the High Court would need to approve the transfer.
In forming its decision, the High Court would consider any
representations made by the FSA in respect of any regulatory issues that
may arise as a result of the transfer;
5 policyholders must be consulted and can raise any objections to the
proposals during the court process. In addition, there is an obligation
on the parties of a transfer to notify us of any material
representations received during the consultation process and we would
take any such representations into account in our assessment of the
proposals.

The FSA, like any person who thinks that they will be adversely affected
by a transfer of business from one firm to another, has a right to
participate in the court proceedings for the purpose of making
representations. As an organisation, it takes into account a number of
factors in deciding whether or not to participate in proceedings for the
purposes of objecting to a given scheme. For instance, in deciding
whether to object to any scheme, the FSA will consider the potential
risk to its regulatory objectives (and in particular, its objectives of
promoting market confidence and protecting consumers) if a transfer were
to be effected.

I infer from your email that you may be a member of the CSMA opposed to
the transfer of business to Liverpool Victoria. However, given the
safeguards explained above, I hope I have reassured you that the FSA
takes a sufficiently proactive role in all insurance business transfer
schemes.

FURTHER INFORMATION

We are interested in finding out about people's views and experiences of
the services offered by the Consumer Contact Centre. As a result, we
employ a research agency to help us, and they may contact you, via the
telephone, to see if you would be prepared to take part in a short
telephone interview. If you do receive a phone call you are under no
obligation to complete the survey. Please rest assured that your
details will remain confidential and will not be used for any other
purposes; we are not trying to sell you any financial products or
service, and no sales call will result from this.

If you do not wish to take part in any of our surveys, please call the
Consumer Contact Centre on 0845 602 2185 (call rates may vary), or
complete the contact us form using the following link
http://www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk/contactus.aspx, and we will ensure
that your details are not passed on to the research agency.

Yours sincerely





Jo Malanga (Miss)
Consumer Contact Centre
Regulatory Services Business Unit
Financial Services Authority
Consumer Helpline: 0845 602 2185 (call rates may vary)

[dzug]

There is a guy on the rpoints/mutuals forum who is attending and is willing to be proxy.


Sorry, where's that forum? Can't find it anywhere obvious. (It's probably staring me in the face...)

[rowancott]

Rpoints is at www.rpoints.com (http://www.rpoints.com) and it has a Mutual topic in its Forums "CSMA no windfall merger with LV" where user "phalanx" offers to attend and vote NO on the resolution.

But, we need his proper name and a short form of his address so as to name him on the Proxy form.

I have registered for "rpoints" but the only way of contacting "phalanx" is by private message on the forum and "you cannot send private messages until you have been registered for 7 days". Can "mariegriffiths" or someone who has been registered with rpoints for a while please send a message to phalanx and ask for sufficient details (and permission to publish them here) so that we can complete the Proxy form in his name?

Thanks for any help you can give to stop CSMA railroading us into doing something that they haven't properly explained or justified.

[rowancott]

I have got phalanx's details and he has given me permission to give them out by private message or email to those who genuinely want to use him as a proxy - so let me know by private message if you need them.

[mindthepennies]

Whilst I suppose it may be best in the long-term for CSMA to sell Britannia to LV, I think their way of pushing the vote through is highly undemocratic. All other organistions of which I have been a member have conducted this type of critical vote by giving members the ability to direct the chairman to vote on your bahalf. Most people simply cannot visit central London without considerable expense and taking 1 or more days holiday - and may not know someone who is willing to vote for them. I'll write to the Chairman expressing this but have little faith they'll take any notice.

[phalanx]

I have got phalanx's details and he has given me permission to give them out by private message or email to those who genuinely want to use him as a proxy - so let me know by private message if you need them.

Many thanks rowancott - I have also now followed the link back from RPoints forums to here as well :) As mentioned, anyone can either PM me here or over there and I'll do what I can at the AGM.

[tomstickland]

Is this CSMA?
You are eligible to join csma if you work, or have ever worked in the Civil Service, a company with its
roots in the Civil Service or if you are directly related to a current csma member.

[rowancott]

Whilst I suppose it may be best in the long-term for CSMA to sell Britannia to LV, I think their way of pushing the vote through is highly undemocratic.

You may be right on the sale (and are right on the voting method), but I'm mostly worried about the terms of the sale. the CSMA letter says there's a document with fuller terms on the Internet but I for one can't find it. And the terms as indicated in the letter suggest that Liverpool Victoria will be paying part of the purchase prices as a commission on income from CSMA members who continue with Britannia Rescue - an obvious financial inducement to LV to persuade CSMA members to leave Britannia Rescue (or rejoin but NOT as CSMA members) as soon as they can and by whatever means they can.

The net result will be reduced income to CSMA, reduced membership for CSMA and an inevitable spiral down towards the demise of CSMA - which, in my opinion, would be a shame.

[phalanx]

Thanks for all the PMs (both here and at RPoints) - I think I've replied to them all now, and will of course try to give a proper report back after the EGM.

[tomstickland]

I assume you're aware that Liverpoool Victoria is still a mutual?

[phalanx]

It was a very long day yesterday, and I'm travelling now over the weekend, so apologies for not a long report, BUT I have posted a short one over at RPoints giving an outline.

Thanks to the 9 people here and there who ended up giving me proxies - we may not have affected the outcome (due to the 1000s of proxies the Board had stashed away) but I did my best to give a Board who decided to "do their own thing" and have exclusive talks with LVic rather than consult the members or have an open sale for the best price/outcome a very hard time.

Two things say it all about them:

1) They admitted "initial" expressions of interest from other parties, but still chose to hold these exclusive talks with LVic.

2) They admitted the LVic price offer was only "in the middle range" of the price valuation range done for them by their professional advisers. So they didn't even get the best possible price, and didn't know what others would have offered, for a type of business that rarely comes on the market.

3) When there was a prospect of the EGM being voted out at the beginning (in favour of a postal vote of the whole membership) the Chair argued that they should go ahead and hold an open debate at the EGM and then everyone present make up their minds and vote to get the decision. He said this knowing full well (as it later transpired) that they had thousands of proxy votes in their hands, so that the EGM and what was said at it made not one iota of difference at all to the result.

You may make your own judgements about people who see fit to behave in this way to achieve their ends. I have my own words too, but the Rules of this site would mean that if I posted them the post would be deleted...

One thing I do know - the loyal members of CSMA deserve far, far better.

[phalanx]

1) Motion from the floor to abandon the EGM and go to a full postal ballot of all the members:

(by show of hands) For: 93 Against: 94

2) My move to make this a poll as it was so close (individual votes without proxies):

For: 64 Against: 78

3) Their legal advice that as more than 5 people had voted "For" 2) above, they needed to do a proxy vote on this:

For: 102 Against: 8269

At this point it becomes clear that the whole EGM is a foregone conclusion as we now know how many proxies the Board and Board supporters hold.

4) Final vote at the end on the EGM motion to proceed with the sale:

For: 9628 Against: 45

Bear in mind that by the end several people had drifted away from the meeting anyway - obviously it had run on and the result was as we know already settled.

[rowancott]

This is just to express my thanks to phalanx for being at the EGM and representing our views on behalf of those members of CSMA who are still worried about the club's future.

Only time will tell if my prediction that this will lead to the demise of CSMA is proved true.

Best wishes to all, Alan Giles

[robertb]

Thanks to phalanx for attending the EGM and making our voices heard, although the outcome was inevitable.
I feel that the CSMA has taken another step which will lead to its service becoming less cost effective.

[taylorpjuk]

Apologies to coming very late to this debate; well the sale went ahead and presumably a large amount of money changed hands. Anyone know how much and where it went to?
I e-mailed the Editor of the CSMA Motoring & Leisure on September 19th asking these questions but my letter was not published nor did I receive a response to my e-mail. I have e-mailed again today.

Regards,
Pete.