A & L guaranteed capital plus

thelawnet

simon_templar wrote: »

Abbey increased profits by 20%, so that is a 34% difference between the two banks. Now that is what i would call pretty impressive.

Abbey are owned by Santander, who have written off billions, including their 'moron of the year award' for investing with Bernie Madoff.

The fact is most British banks are big and complex, and retail is still making money, whether it be Abbey, RBS, Lloyds, or anywhere else. It is the other bits, the ones not on the High Street, that have created the multitrillion pound losses. Abbey are merely the retail division of a megabank, and that megabank has lost money same as anyone else.

judip43

gozomark wrote: »

who does the advisor work for ?

when is the earliest you might need the money ?
are you prepared to lose any of it ?

The advisor works for A & L
don't really need the money at any set time, looking to invest it really for some time in the future
don't really want to lose any of it, but might be prepared to gamble with a small amount

gozomark

The advisor works for A & L

and

the advisor was thrilled by (the product) !!

Imagine going into a Skoda (or whatever) dealership and asking
"whats the best car for me"
reply
"this Skoda here Sir"


:rotfl:

thats why you (and the rest of us) need independent advice.......

Aegis

simon_templar wrote: »

Which business failed?

Ok I phrased this badly... and ended up mixing up Abbey and Alliance & Leicester because of the shift from one bank to another!

The Abbey was purchased by Santander a few years ago, and therefore had the ability to get a lot of its bad debt problems written off by a large parent group. In addition to that, a large part of their retail deposit business was directly bought from the government when Bradford and Bingley went under. As such, they were able to buy a fairly profitable part of an existing business while shedding the unprofitable part back up to their parent company. I don't doubt that under these circumstances any competant accountant could make their profits look very impressive despite the somewhat indirect way of doing things.

Of course, this is something all companies with subsidiary/parent companies can do, which is why it's rarely useful to look at a single company in isolation in these circumstances.

Once again, though, this has no bearing on the quality of the investment products available to the retail clients, which are poor at either Abbey or A&L if you want my opinion.

simon_templar_2

thelawnet wrote: »

Abbey are owned by Santander, who have written off billions, including their 'moron of the year award' for investing with Bernie Madoff.

The fact is most British banks are big and complex, and retail is still making money, whether it be Abbey, RBS, Lloyds, or anywhere else. It is the other bits, the ones not on the High Street, that have created the multitrillion pound losses. Abbey are merely the retail division of a megabank, and that megabank has lost money same as anyone else.

Santander have not written off billions. The Madoff thing was the result of Madoff commiting fraud ie his own dishonesty. Santander direct exposure was 17 million, this is not billions, nor is this a write off. If you read articles in the press and websites such as BBC you will find Santander get positive articles due to them being unafected by write offs.

By all means post opinions but complete untruths please leave. If you can show me these billions written off i will be interested.

gozomark

but haven't Sanatander said they will compensate clients in Madoff to the tune of € 1 billion plus ?

thelawnet

simon_templar wrote: »

Santander have not written off billions. The Madoff thing was the result of Madoff commiting fraud ie his own dishonesty.

Er, no.

The Madoff thing was the result of lack of due diligence.

I'm an IT professional, and as such I am expected to have a strong understanding of computer security. So if I were to fall victim to a phishing scam, I'd say that would demonstrate my lack of competence at doing my job.

Equally, if you're in charge of people's money, and you invest it with an obvious scam (one that was identified as such years ago), then you're not competent at money management.

Santander direct exposure was 17 million, this is not billions, nor is this a write off. If you read articles in the press and websites such as BBC you will find Santander get positive articles due to them being unafected by write offs.

By all means post opinions but complete untruths please leave. If you can show me these billions written off i will be interested.

Try reading some more newspapers.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5646314.ece

Investors asked a US court to block Santander's €1.38 billion compensation offer for customers who lost money in Bernard Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme after entrusting their cash to the Spanish bank.

The bank did not offer compensation for Optimal's corporate customers.
Optimal lost €2.33 billion on its investments with Mr Madoff, who confessed in December to running what is believed to be the world's largest financial scam.

Santander have lost €2.33 billion on behalf of their customers and they're going to have to pay AT LEAST €1.38 billion to compensate them.

Santander are heavily exposed to the Spanish property market (tanking), to Latin America (struggling much like everywhere else), and Spanish companies (failing, just as they are here).

simon_templar_2

Still no sign of billions. You can read these cherry picked articles so you can read some news

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7871847.stm

"Santander has not been affected as much as other banks by the financial crisis as it was not exposed to toxic US subprime assets."


http://www.thebanker.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/6432/Spanish_banks_hold_firm.html?current_page=1

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4c320568-ed88-11dd-bd60-0000779fd2ac.html

thelawnet

simon_templar wrote: »

Still no sign of billions. You can read these cherry picked articles so you can read some news

There's a statement of FACT above. 2 BILLION pounds in losses to Madoff alone. Exactly how is that not billions? Simple English, one billion, two billionSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Anyway, this is getting to be tedious now. The much-vaunted 'prudence' of these banks was a function of a lack of opportunity, not desire. They were restricted from buying many classes of assets by the Spanish regulators. Does this make them any more clever than it makes a homeless person a genius for not getting conned by Bernie Madoff?

simon_templar_2

This tennis could go on as a rally for yonks!!! I am aware of what billions is thanks. However i suspect the OP was trying to lump them in with the likes of RBS, HBOS in terms of losses suggesting they were on a par. This is not the case seeing as Santander have made profit and not losses in 2008.