Bradford & Bingley shareholders strike back!

StevieJ

Jon_McKnight wrote: »

Lost a fortune in Bradford & Bingley shares? Not quite convinced that the bank should have been nationalised so soon after the CEO said it was "well capitalised" and "fit for purpose"?

Then you may find comfort in an open letter to Gordon Brown, Prime Minister and prime suspect in The Great Bradford & Bingley Bank Robbery, asking him the tough questions that no journalist has yet put to him.

As someone who lost £3,700 in B&B shares that I bought the day before it was unexpectedly nationalised, I'm not taking this lying down.

I was quoted widely in the Press and interviewed on ITN on the morning of the nationalisation, and I'm pressing for an interview with B&B CEO Richard Pym to discover the truth.

If he agrees that B&B need not have been nationalised, it should improve our chances of winning full compensation for having our shares "extinguished", as the Treasury so charmingly put it.

If you're determined to get justice, too, please take a look at my (non-commercial) blog at http://jonmcknight.typepad.com/jon_mcknight/bradford-bingley/

And if you feel as aggrieved as I do about this outrageous theft of our money, please add the blog link to any other relevant forums you use.

Jon

I am confused, why would the Govt have taken B&B under their wing if they didn't need to? It is not as if they were bored and wanted a bank to play with.

Count_Dante

athy wrote: »

Buying shares need not have anything to do with greed. It can be a prudent investment to provide secure income. I had held 250 B&B shares for some years. A few months ago I received news of their Rights Issue which would enable me to buy a further 335 at a good price, so that they could raise £400 million in funds. I duly did so. Now it seems that my shares are worthless.
I would like to know several things:
- How the heck did B&B manage to spend £400 million in just a few weeks? Even my wife in a shoe shop could not achieve that.
- Previously I have had shares in companies which have been taken over. The usual form is that I have received notice that the firm which is buying will purchase my shares for (usually) a good price. Why has this not happened with B&B?
- What hope have us shareholders got of either being refunded some of our money, or of being issued with shares in the newly reconstituted B&B?

Because nobody was willing to buy B&B at any price, let alone a good price. Perhaps that tells you something.

RecoveringAlcoholic

Form an Action Group and picket the houses of the Fat Cat B & B directors who got you into this mess.

EalingSaver

beingjdc wrote: »

He was lying.

Hope that clears things up for you.

Cute !! I like that.

JayTee99_2

i don't know the legalities, i.e. what the company were saying in public statements and the reality of the situation,
but maybe there is a case for some compensation to be paid to shareholders,

i would be happy with that, as one of the original small shareholders, but didn't take up any rights issues.

vbrindle

The ironic thing is weeks later the government comes up with a 50billion pound deal to buy shares in other banks, why couldn't they have done this for B&B and NRK? There's no consistency in what they do, it all seems experimental to me.

EalingSaver

As others have said, I think the value which B&B had as a complete entity is summed up as:

- its share price was in freefall, last count about 20p and still dropping
- its market capitilisation had fallen to such a low level (a few hundred million, I think about £250m) that the cost of another company acquiring its share capital i.e. buying it, had become chicken feed relative to the the size of its apparent assets/libilities (loans & deposits).
- under those circumstances, any other bank which thought B&B had value would have swooped and made an offer for it. They didn't because its loan book was turning sourer by the day, and presumably its loans were considered not just bad, but also too high an unquantifiable risk.
- I'm sure that over that weekend the government tried to cajole other banks into buying it as a going concern. It didn't succeed, even though the outconme of failure meant that many of those same banks were goikng to be hit by FSCS comittments as a consequence.
- hence the government didn't nationalise it. If failed it, partitioned it, and tooks its loan book on.

QED: B&B was worth not only zero but in fact had a negative value.

Sympathy for shareholders who have lost money, but where was the shareholder action to replace the board or change its business model before it got into this mess? That is the role of shareholders I'm afraid. Fact is, shareholders have the last call on the assets, and in this case its net assets i.e. value was diddly squat.

Day_Trader

As many have said you're not going to get anywhere with this. It's a case of buyer beware. I had to research fundamentals for a project and rated B&B as high risk, same as A&L and HBOS. This was over 8 months ago. If you had researched the company properly you would have seen that their strategy was highly geared and therefore risky. Of course the CEO is going to say that the company is fine as he has a vested interest. It was nationalised before it officially went down as to let it completely fail would have triggered panic and more potential runs on banks.
If you wish to pursue I will not be wasting my time watching a Tonight with Trevor MacDonald on ITV to hear some bitter shareholder harp on about money he lost because he wasn't aware of the risk to the business model. Learn a lesson and move on. Be thankful it was only £4k.

EalingSaver

JayTee99 wrote: »

i don't know the legalities, i.e. what the company were saying in public statements and the reality of the situation,
but maybe there is a case for some compensation to be paid to shareholders,
quote]

Compensation from whom? Lets just say he was lying for the moment (as opposed to making erroneous statements in good faith, or correct statements at the time, overturned by the speed of events).

This is the CEO appointed by the board who in turn are appointed by the shareholders. In the event that the directors, including the CEO, were knowingly lying you might have a recourse to sue the directors. But that is all (i.e. go after their personal money). But since directors have a legal duty to ensure a company is not trading insolvently, I'm sure they were very careful about what they did and didn't say. And I wouldn't be surprised if they put in a call to the FSA about the same time as the FSA put in a call to them, precisely to avoid a situation where they would be in breach of their legal duty.

fatpig_2

Anyone connected with B&B , including shareholders, should get a bill from the government for their part if f**king the economy up.