Alliance and Leicester to be "rescued"?

JonnyBravo

No doubt this will be strongly encouraged by the Govt keen to avoid another NR.
That'll just leave 'em wondering what to do with BB.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7504822.stm

lynzpower

god if santander take over A&L it could possibly the bank with the most shocking customer service in the world. Abbey/cahoot & A&L its enough to give me nightmares.

brit1234

Sorry but this doesn't make sense, Santander has already bought Abbey National and is buying now A&L our second most vulnerable bank after B&B. Remember Royal Bank of Scotland has been in trouble since it bought an failing American bank at the start of the credit crunch.

Its not as if the Spanish housing market isn't imploding. If anything the Spanish market is going to be worse over the coming months than the UK market and this will have to have an effect on Santander.

This is pure suicide.:eek:

WTF?_2

brit1234 wrote: »

Sorry but this doesn't make sense, Santander has already bought Abbey National and is buying now A&L our second most vulnerable bank after B&B. Remember Royal Bank of Scotland has been in trouble since it bought an failing American bank at the start of the credit crunch.

Its not as if the Spanish housing market isn't imploding. If anything the Spanish market is going to be worse over the coming months than the UK market and this will have to have an effect on Santander.

This is pure suicide.:eek:

It'll probably look good on the bottom line in the short term thanks to a bit of financial 'book cooking' but much more importantly make a bunch of bank execs a lot of money in bonuses. Precisely the sort of thinking that got us into this mess. But I'm sure the state will pick up the tab when things go wrong, so for the 'risk takers' it's no real risk at all......

minimike2

I would be suprised if the competition commisson allowed that to go through. It would be quite irresponsible if they do to be honest. I do not think that it would be in anyones interests to see Santander take them over.

m00m00

it's more in the public interest for them to be taken over than for them to go under though, and the latter is a very real possibility

Snooze

lynzpower wrote: »

god if santander take over A&L it could possibly the bank with the most shocking customer service in the world. Abbey/cahoot & A&L its enough to give me nightmares.

Agreed. I've had a number of accounts with A&L since the early Girobank days and overall they've provided me with a very good service and equally good interest rates, but if Santander take them over then I'm outta there as Abbey has become the worst bank in the whole of the UK since they stuck their oar in.

Rob

poppy10_2

minimike2 wrote: »

I would be suprised if the competition commisson allowed that to go through.

I wouldn't be so sure. A combined Abbey/A&L would have more muscle power to compete with the Big Five (Lloyds TSB, HSBC, HBOS, RBS and Barclays) so might be seen as increasing competition in the sector.

Treadmill

Good news if you are an A&L shareholder, 50% up on the news.

BenL

and don't forget Santander already have the GE Money aquisition on the go.

Watch out store card holders & car finance holders (Fiat group I believe)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/03/28/cnge128.xml

Paul_N_4

Treadmill wrote: »

Good news if you are an A&L shareholder, 50% up on the news.

Ouch, hope some of the recent shorters hadn't forgot to adjust their stops.