NI Presbyterian mutual society, Short of funds for withdrawal?

expat68

jon_groovy wrote: »

expat, is there anyway you could contact Liam Clarke and tell him of the idea of a public enquiry.

also regarding the public enquiry, although this would expose the errors that Colin ferguson made, would it help investors get their money back#


We can't have too many petitions going....

which should we have,.......one for th PCI or one for the public enquiry ?

Jon Groovy - looks like Liam Clarke is now independent rather than employed by the Sunday Times. He has previously written for the Sunday Times on this matter. Given this thread comes up number 4 when Presbyterian Mutual Society is googled and that Mr Clarke is an impressive investigative journalist I am hopeful he will find us if he is looking into the matter.

I agree that any hint of impropriety may make a government guarantee more difficult but several banks who over-invested in property have already been protected in both Uk & ireland so this is not something new northern rock, B&B, anglo irish.

What a mess..............

eldivo

goodbyepci wrote: »

CoolDude
Please everyone be cautious !!!!

What do you mean?

Cautious about what?

Don't you know anyone who questions the PCI ends up face down in the Lagan? :rolleyes:
I think the point is if we start slinging accusations around the thread will end up censored and/or pulled. Also if anything that was said could not be backed up it would tend to undermine the credability of everything else.

crazymess

Cool Dude

I think I know what you mean???

We are slightly digressing from the main theme and blaming other people and perhaps the Government will say malpractice!!! Its only because we are so annoyed. No banks have lost money yet!!!

I agree with you keep lobbying Government - as the Elderly etc need their money now and could have to apply to the State etc for money should they not get their savings back! Some of us could become ill out of all of this and not be able to work!!! We would then need to claim money from Government for sickness benefit!!!

Keep focusing on the Petition and perhaps now we need to get our own Petition to Stormont and they in turn bring it to Downing Street!!!!

joylikes2shop

I'm going to see a solicitor with my mum tomorrow.This is probably going to be a complete waste of time -not to mention money- but if reassures her in any way that she has spoken to someone in the legal profession then it will have served some purpose I suppose.

She-like a lot of older people I know- has rather poor eyesight and to see her struggling to hold a lamp and magnifying glass in order to read the extremely small print in the booklet, made me realise just how vulnerable she is and how difficult this whole process will be for a lot of other people too,who perhaps don't have anyone they can ask for help.

The way I see the situation is this-


Having seen it in black and white (all be it very small) ,we are all in no doubt now that the safe and speedy return of our all money will not happen.:mad:

The return of some of/most of/or all our money -no matter which way any of us vote -will be an extremely slow process.:mad:


l feel that ,what ever the outcome, it is only right that we expect more regular updates from the administrator- a regularly updated web page perhaps- and I don't just mean the same page of information with the date changing daily !!! I feel that since it's 'our' money and 'we' will in effect be paying the administrators wage , it is not unreasonable to request (demand ?)this. ............................. Am I being unreasonable ??

A few questions that I'll be asking the solicitor tomorrow that have arisen from reading the report :

1)See p.8 point 2.5 in the report .Does the administrator have any legal right to make the decision about not having a meeting ,choosing to 'convene a meeting of the members/creditors by correspondence'. He makes reference to consulting his lawyers on other matters, so I'll be interested to find out if this decision in lawful,or just one that is more 'convenient' ? I notice from the annual reports that there's never been a problem providing a venue for the AGM-with tea and coffee !! Yes there are 10,000 people who'll be more interested than normal to attend a PMS meeting ,but realistically although they'd probably all love to attend,because of logistic they wouldn't all be able to,so therefore the excuse that there isn't a venue suitable for 10,000 is just that....an excuse !


2)See p.9 point 2.8 This point states that it's open to a group of, and/or individuals holding at least 10% of the societies total debts to summon a meeting to consider the proposals etc(at a cost to them, with a deposit needing to be paid in advance etc) Is this legal ?
Realistically how are we- a group of 'strangers' -supposed to organise this 'within 5 business days' from when the report was sent out (2nd class !!!)
It would be more reasonable to 'require' that at least 10 % of investors where needed to make this request.Judging by the number of signatures on the Petition now (over 600 !!) in 3 days,I'd say we'd have no problem getting 10%
Again I'd like to find out if this is a legal requirement.

Lastly, I was just thinking that if churches have borrowed money for renovations etc they will probably now be asked to pay these loans back ASAP. If they are not in a position to do so,and a liquidator is called in to sell them, then the PCI will really feel the impact of this whole situation when the churches have to close and the congregations have to look elsewere .:eek: :eek:

Feel free to PM me if you feel the need, or if you're not registered on this site and want to get in touch you can email me at [EMAIL="joylikes2shop@hotmail.co.uk"]joylikes2shop@hotmail.co.uk[/EMAIL]


And the link to the petition is http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Save-the-Mutuals/

D.A.

I had written a big beast of a post earlier, but as soon as I tried to post it, the site went down for maintenance. Grrr. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

joylikes2shop wrote: »

1)See p.8 point 2.5 in the report .Does the administrator have any legal right to make the decision about not having a meeting ,choosing to 'convene a meeting of the members/creditors by correspondence'. He makes reference to consulting his lawyers on other matters, so I'll be interested to find out if this decision in lawful,or just one that is more 'convenient' ?

I am not a lawyer, so don't take this as gospel (oops), but I would imagine the administrator has made his decision here based on his legal duty to operate the administration for the maximum benefit of the creditors. My guess is that he would sugggest that the costs of arranging this meeting would be so high as to outweigh any benefits which would come from it, since remember that he can't actually (legally) tell you anything more than what it is the report.

As I said in my disappearing post, please remember that the Administrator is not your enemy here. Those who you need to go after are those whose mismanagement/incompetence/poor decisions/greed (take your pick) caused the PMS to end up in this mess.

2)See p.9 point 2.8 This point states that it's open to a group of, and/or individuals holding at least 10% of the societies total debts to summon a meeting to consider the proposals etc(at a cost to them, with a deposit needing to be paid in advance etc) Is this legal ?

Yes, otherwise the Administrator wouldn't have suggested it. Having been involved as a creditor in an administration of a company where I was an employee, please be assured that the Administrator works to very strict rules and would soon be caught on if he was stepping outside them, especially in such a high-profile case.

Realistically how are we- a group of 'strangers' -supposed to organise this 'within 5 business days' from when the report was sent out (2nd class !!!)
It would be more reasonable to 'require' that at least 10 % of investors where needed to make this request.Judging by the number of signatures on the Petition now (over 600 !!) in 3 days,I'd say we'd have no problem getting 10%
Again I'd like to find out if this is a legal requirement.

My guess again is that, yes, the Administrator has complied with (or been constrained by) the law here.

Lastly, I was just thinking that if churches have borrowed money for renovations etc they will probably now be asked to pay these loans back ASAP. If they are not in a position to do so,and a liquidator is called in to sell them, then the PCI will really feel the impact of this whole situation when the churches have to close and the congregations have to look elsewere .:eek: :eek:

Indeed, but maybe this is exactly the wakeup call which PCI needed, in order to begin the long hard process of taking a good look at how ALL their administrative work is done. Having some knowledge of PCI (sorry, can't tell you how), in my opinion, too many shoddy practices caused by lack of skilled management have been allowed to continue for too long. (and yes, I know that PCI and PMS are separate legal entities, blah blah blah, but what has happened to PMS is merely a very public face to a problem which has been festering within the PCI administration for far too long).

I've said it before and I'll say it again. PCI - ministers are PASTORS, not managers!!!!

P.S. It may be worthwhile to see if anyone can get some kind of story out of a certain director whose name has an asterisk against it in the Administrator's report. I wouldn't imagine the date of his resignation is entirely coincidental...

goodbyepci

Did any of you hear John Dunlop on Will Crawley's show yesterday morning?
He said something very interesting, I've transcribed it below

"The Church, the General Assembly finds itself in this position- that you could have some smart lawyers out there who decide that if you are going to be associated with and it is deemed to be that you are accepting responsibility for-not only could the General Assembly be sued but every Presbyterian in Ireland could be sued”


Interesting?

warmhands.coldheart

On a side issue (But very relative)... I see the Government are looking at bailing the Banks out again to the tune of 100's of Billions. Still can't see why they can't take the assets of the PMS &/or guaruntee the savings and this whole issue would go away in the blink of an eye (Well maybe not but it would reassure people..

ballyblack

Mr Clarke is an impressive investigative journalist I am hopeful he will find us if he is looking into the matter

.

He also has very strong family ties to the Presbyterian Church and I have no doubt he is fully aware of the situation

crazymess

Everyone reading this blog and especially if you have money invested in the PMS must, without hesitation, contact their MP, MLA in writing and tell their story - we need to put pressure on the Government to underwrite this.

Please refer back to previous blogs to get email addresses of those in power.

As it stands: our only hope is to get the Government Guarantee of all of our monies and not just up to 50,000 per person.

If you have more than 20,000 invested - you have a bigger question to face when signing your voting papers.

Some approx figures:

£204 million is owed back to those members with more than £20,000 in PMS (called Creditors)

£101 million is owed back to those members with less than £20,000 in the PMS (called Shareholders)

Apparently there is a just under £204 million if we were to go with selling everything now - however the Directors say its worth this amount but of course it is so not right.

So do you vote - for the long term but sign no to changing the Rules of the Society - ie the Creditors get paid FIRST!!

Because as you say groovy_jon - in that case the Shareholders get NOTHING.

IF YOU HAVE OVER £20,000 DO YOU WANT TO WEAKEN THE CHANCES OF GETTING BACK YOUR MONEY??? LOTS OF QUESTIONS??

The only hope as I have said before is help from GOVERNMENT.

goodbyepci

Don't we have to vote on changing the rules at a later date?