NI Presbyterian mutual society, Short of funds for withdrawal?

warmhands.coldheart

I see Newsletter have added the Link to the No.10 Petition to Save the Mutuals. Over 2500 Signatures now. 43rd of 4792 Petitions listed by number of signatures..

loganjh

Realistically the PCI do not have sufficient assets to compensate the members of / lenders to PMS, even if there were any legal liability on their part. I believe that the administrator has charged for P.R. services - suggest the PCI also invest as they have received awful press - quite correctly in most cases. They need to be seen to be actually doing something.

The News Letter have been fantastic in championing the cause and if the full might of Church House could also be directed towards Stormont and Downing Street then there is hope.

Whilst bloodletting may be cathartic the best situation is to focus on getting some form of Government guarantee. The PMS Directors can wait!

Keep on lobbying elected officials and suggest each Presbyterian Congregational Board / Committee / Session writes to Church House and Gordon Brown to express their concern that billions can be spent on propping up Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley, Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS (Lloyds Group) - many of whom have written off huge debts outside the UK, yet a guarantee cannot be given to cover c.£300 Million within the UK.

fivealive_2

I am a committed Christian and an active member of a Presbyterian Congregation. I also have money in the PMS. We have been led to believe that the "crash" of the PMS came about because people who are financially savvy withdrew their savings when they realised that the Government would not protect their money in the same way as they do with the banks. However Ivor McCandless (Radio Ulster this morning) is presumably financially savvy, so why was he not inspired to remove his savings in good time? I have also come across other financially savvy people who were not "inspired" to remove their money before 24th October '08. So who were these investors who withdrew £21 Million from the PMS in that month? Were these ordinary people on the street who independantly thought it would be prudent to move their savings elsewhere? Or could they be our Ministers and Church Leaders who were tipped off by one or more of the 6 ministers who are directors of the society? In the documentary about the PMS (Nov'08) the Minister's wife interviewed said that they had not been able to withdraw their savings as they had been away on holidays in October but as soon as they got back another minister phoned them to advise them that the PMS was in bother but it was then too late for them to withdraw funds. The implication was (in my observation); if they had not been away they too would have known to withdraw their money.
I do not wish to discredit the Presbyterian Church or drag it's name through the mud but I would love to know how many of the investors who withdrew their money in October were Ministers or church Leaders. These people have a duty of care towards us and we are entitled to the truth.

36square

fivealive wrote: »

Or could they be our Ministers and Church Leaders who were tipped off by one or more of the 6 ministers who are directors of the society?

If the answer to this question is yes, then it will have dreadful consequences for the PCI.
Another possibility is that the withdrawals may have been prompted by opportunistic 'financial advisers', possibly linked to banks, who saw the deposit guarantee as an opportunity to get their hands on their clients' money which was with the PMS. The people who withdrew may not necessarily have been terribly sophisticated.
Nevertheless, they are largely to blame for the present predicament and their identities should be made known whether they are 'insiders' or not. I'm sure some way can be found to have this information leaked into the public domain.

expat68

loganjh wrote: »

Realistically the PCI do not have sufficient assets to compensate the members of / lenders to PMS, even if there were any legal liability on their part. I believe that the administrator has charged for P.R. services - suggest the PCI also invest as they have received awful press - quite correctly in most cases. They need to be seen to be actually doing something.

The News Letter have been fantastic in championing the cause and if the full might of Church House could also be directed towards Stormont and Downing Street then there is hope.

Whilst bloodletting may be cathartic the best situation is to focus on getting some form of Government guarantee. The PMS Directors can wait!

Keep on lobbying elected officials and suggest each Presbyterian Congregational Board / Committee / Session writes to Church House and Gordon Brown to express their concern that billions can be spent on propping up Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley, Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS (Lloyds Group) - many of whom have written off huge debts outside the UK, yet a guarantee cannot be given to cover c.£300 Million within the UK.

Loganjh has got it right - that is the priority. Best outcome in the short term is to get a government guarantee. Focus energy on that for now.

Voting in line with the administrators recommendations probably also makes sense - the alternative is a fire sale and that isnt going to be good for anyone.

Finally - dont blame the people who took their money out. In truth everyone would have done that if they know what was coming. Blame PMS management who waived the 21 day rule, had run down cash to dangerously low levels and who seemed to have lost £120m of investors money. If they had kept the surplus in quality bonds and gilts there would have been no issue - low risk, quality assets. I think thats what everyone thought they were doing.

joylikes2shop

just in from work to find the following VERY IMPORTANT email from someone who is following the forum......I dont know a lot about this sort of thing, but if the following point is right, is there a possibility that the whole vote could be invalid which therefore gives us a bit of breathing space ???????????

--- ''started to fill in voting paper today and realised on that there is no box at the bottom of sheet where you are meant to validate vote.'' On contacting the PMS to ask what to do.the person was told to '' draw a box and tick it otherwise my vote will not be counted.'' It appears this is a printing error on voting sheets where the holding is entirely in loans. This could easily be missed and could have a huge effect on the results.

To the person who sent me the email I'll reply to you asap, but I wanted to post this as soon as possible !!

If you're following this forum and are not a member, if you want to, you can email me to let me know if the 'box' is missing from your form.I WILL NOT pass on anyone's details to anyone else,but people watching this forum MIGHT be interested to get an idea of just how many people this 'printing error' affects.


joylikes2shop@hotmail.co.uk

loganjh

loganjh wrote: »

Realistically the PCI do not have sufficient assets to compensate the members of / lenders to PMS, even if there were any legal liability on their part. I believe that the administrator has charged for P.R. services - suggest the PCI also invest as they have received awful press - quite correctly in most cases. They need to be seen to be actually doing something.

The News Letter have been fantastic in championing the cause and if the full might of Church House could also be directed towards Stormont and Downing Street then there is hope.

Whilst bloodletting may be cathartic the best situation is to focus on getting some form of Government guarantee. The PMS Directors can wait!

Keep on lobbying elected officials and suggest each Presbyterian Congregational Board / Committee / Session writes to Church House and Gordon Brown to express their concern that billions can be spent on propping up Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley, Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS (Lloyds Group) - many of whom have written off huge debts outside the UK, yet a guarantee cannot be given to cover c.£300 Million within the UK.

Just to clarify my comment on "the PMS Directors can wait". Main priority is to alleviate the financial hardship for those with money invested in / loaned to the PMS. In due course should a Liquidator be appointed (and I hope it doesn't come to that) he will have a totally different agenda to the Administrator. The Liquidator will be seeking to obtain as much as quickly as possible and he is much more likely to consider the possibility of taking legal action against the Directors. Pursuing the Directors should not be the top priority at present but it should not be forgotten about.

joylikes2shop

Just a wee reminder that ANYONE -not just PMS investors-can sign the following petition (which has currently 2624 signatures !!! :j :j )

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Save-the-Mutuals/

Also,re my last post, it would seem that some voting papers may not have a box printed on them which needs to be marked to validate your vote !!! How many are affected is unknown - check your voting forms !!!

QUOTE FROM THE PERSON WHO EMAILED ME EARLIER
''Re: voting error. PMS staff are aware of the situation but have not notified voters. It applies to people who hold LOAN INVESTMENTS ONLY. Those with part loan/share or only share investments are not affected as far as I know''

If you want to you can email me if you want to let me know if your form is one of the ones missprinted-this is purely to report the numbers of forms affected (I will NOT pass on anyone's information or details)

[EMAIL="joylikes2shop@hotmail.co.uk"]joylikes2shop@hotmail.co.uk[/EMAIL]

OldJohn

Hi all, I've read your posts with interest over the past few days and if I may, I would like to make a few comments:
I am a shareholder (albeit with a modest sum) and like other shareholders am in the same boat regarding it's future payout.

When unexpected 'bad' events happen, we all suffer 'shock' and eventually when the dust settles 'anger' follows, this seems to be the experience of a few shareholders. It has been said, rightly so I believe, that our focus should be on recovering (hopefully all of) our monies from the Society. I wonder what sort of assistance we are expecting No10 to give us, the £50,000 guarantee as I understand it only comes into effect if you actually loose it. Would it not be better to seek a £120million loan from No10 and pay it back as they did with Northern Rock. The Society could then operate again! Monies could be accessed, the dividend would be reduced to repay the loan. Even if we do nothing surely the rent coming in from the commercial propery purchased by the PMS will offset the losses until the property market recovers. I understand that the Property purchased was never intended to be sold off, it's benefit was it's rental income some £8millon per year.
We are currently paying for the Administrator and others outside of the PMS staff. The necessity for most of the PMS staff could be seen if the office was visited, loans are still being repaid and the staff are dealing with the work generated by the Administrator, reducing his costs etc.

I believe keeping the shareholders information out of the public domain is the right thing to do as all dealt with the Society in confidence and I'm sure most would not want their savings/borrowings details made public!. Can you imagine the work (and cost) of mailing out all 9,500's details.

I believe the PMS failed in communicating to the shareholders the relationship of the PMS to other financial institutions - it's isolation from the stock exchange etc. This led to rumours, exacerbated by banks and financial advisors 'spooking' shareholders into moving their funds. It was mainly due to a loss of confidence in the Society by some of its shareholders rather than anyone having special info!

The lack of communication with the shareholders then and now is unforgivable.

Re the staff, I've just watched Watchdog on the box, regarding gift
certificates being refused by shops that are in administration. They were saying, don't shoot the messengers, such as the staff in the PMS who administer the day to day running but do not make the decisions! I am aware that this has been a traumatic time for them with many tears shed for shareholders, even the one's who have been abusive.

But being human, when there are no facts available we take what we have and often get 5 when we add 2+2.

amadan22

dear joylikes2shop, could this lack of ticked box be on the shareholder only forms so as they can be disregarded more easily if it comes to liquidation!? my understanding is loans paid, shares dumped!