Dunfermline BS Stability

baby_boomer

Link to This is Money - Dunfermline Q&A

As we've already indicated above both savers and mortgage holders can sit tight and wait for a communication from Dunfermline/Nationwide.

Also

Dumfermline BS statement and Q&A

asbokid

edda wrote: »

This information is in the public domain - and you can buy it.

There are 5 directors (who are named) and 1 employee.
Latest filed accounts were for 31st December 2007 when a pre-tax loss of £8m was declared.
Sorry I can't post the names but I lookeds up the details at work and the licence prevents me from passing such info on.

BTW, 2 people only became directors in January.

thank you!


i guess it's a question for which the answer is pretty obvious... but were any of the dunfermline's directors also directors of this cash-frittering software subsidiary that was set up using members' savings? and do the accounts reveal the personal gains they gouged from the whole thing?

the accounts reveal that the software house had five directors but just one employee?! he must be a prolific programmer!

To be serious, with just the one employee and a bill to date of an astonishing £27m, i guess the software development was outsourced, doubtless to outwith(!) Scotland. £27m buys a lot of Indian man hours...

So what was the point of dunfermline solutions ltd, if it was nothing more than an unnecessary and costly middle-man?

it all sounds very mysterious to me..

of course, i'm sure this business was conducted with the utmost propriety, always at an appropriate arm's length between the directors of the society and the, erm, directors of the subsidiary, and always with the very best interests of the members at heart.

baby_boomer

asbokid wrote: »

were any of the dunfermline's directors also directors of this cash-frittering software subsidiary that was set up using members' savings? and do the accounts reveal the personal gains they gouged from the whole thing?.

Without having the full Dunfermline accounts in front of me I can still confidently say:

1) Most, probably all, of the directors of the subsidiary, will have been Dunfermline directors.

2) They would have recieved no personal gain [They would have been hoping for gains in bonuses from future profits earned for the society :rotfl: ]

There won't be any individual dodgy financial dealings.

The dodginess consists of not being up front with members about the use of their money.

asbokid wrote: »

outwith(!) Scotland.

That phrase always makes me smile .

cvd

but were any of the dunfermline's directors also directors of this cash-frittering software subsidiary that was set up using members' savings?

I thought this company "Dunfermline Solutions" was a wholly owned subsidiary company of the building society set up just to market the software. The software was being bought in from a professional software company called Temenos - see here:

http://www.ibspublishing.com/index.cfm?section=breakingnews&action=view&id=12720

Consequently, I expect the majority of the directors of Dunfermline Solutions were directors of the building society.

The article contains an interesting sentence:

DBS underwent a strategic review before choosing a technology platform in 2002, deciding to increase the variety of its products, and move away from its core market of savings.

baby_boomer

What no-one has yet answered is

Did Nationwide come in with the highest bid? (given that we're paying it not the other way round!)

Or was it chosen by the government on the basis of other criteria?

Were each of the bidders all given the same criteria or did they have to imagine what the government wanted?

The UK taxpayer has a right to know.

Times Analysis - Taxpayers in the dark again

"........Taxpayers deserve a much fuller statement of precisely what they have taken on and how much they have paid for it. The eventual cost may be lessened via payments from the industry-funded Financial Services Compensation Scheme. But again a fuller explanation is needed."

Stop press - Monday 22.10
BBC news suggests that the taxpayer could get away with just a £10 million bill because the government is going to get savers to pay [YET MORE ] through the Financial Service Compensation Scheme.

Ilovejackbauer

As far as I am aware all the Portman Mortgage accounts migrated over 31st December 2008. Yes you are right they are an administrative nightmare but that was because of the way the Portman ran the accounts. They are an absoloute nightmare to try and decipher.

baby_boomer

Thanks - so it looks like Nationwide's plans to "migrate Portman mortgages by early 2009" were achieved sixteen months into the merger (and after nearly a year of pre-merger planning).

Now they've got three more societies to integrate - and without opportunity for planning.

And how many more before the year is out ?

ffacoffipawb

baby_boomer wrote: »

Will the same principles apply if the West Brom commercial loan book has also gone bad when it reports in late June 2008?

2009 surely?

baby_boomer

Indeed.

Telegraph - Dunfermline is the first test of the Banking Act passed after the NR debacle
A revealing history of the whole process from late 2008 onwards.
Dalziel was forced out by the FSA and still Faulds praised him to the skies :eek:.

Telegraph - State on the hook for £600m of Dunfermline loans

"....George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, demanded to know: "What is the maximum possible loss for the taxpayer? What is the maximum exposure?" Alistair Darling would only say there was "a small residual exposure for the Government"...."

Telegraph - Another banking crisis with "made in Scotland" written all over it

"....It was [the Dunfermline directors] who had to bear the primary responsibility for turning what had been a “boring” building society into a“ high-risk property speculator”, said George Osborne, the shadow chancellor.

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat guru of our current crisis, talked of the Dunfermline’s “disastrous management” and gave the Commons an example of one agreement they had entered into - giving a £10 million loan to a loss-making, insolvent company that had never filed any accounts....."

.........Remarks like these put in some sort of context the comments from Willie Rennie, the local Lib Dem MP, about the Dunfermline being a “fine Scottish institution”......"

Telegraph - For building societies, size matters

ffacoffipawb

baby_boomer wrote: »

"Prime Minister Gordon Brown today branded Dunfermline Building Society an "author of its own mistakes" as the Government stepped in to lead a rescue sale and break-up of the ailing mutual. Nationwide Building Society will take on the core parts of Dunfermline under the deal, brokered at the weekend to save the society from collapse............

Has Crash Gordon looked in the bloody mirror lately?