The fate of Chelsea Building Society is decided this week...

roddydogs

TREVORCOLMAN wrote: »

A relative of mine will in a few years time retire from the civil service after 30 years and their "gold plated" pension will be around £4000!

And the connection with CBS is?

Chomeur

I have accounts with both BSs and intend to vote against the merger each time. If Chelsea is insolvent then I'm willing to see it go bust - at least the directors would be shamed for having done such a bad job. I won't lose any money. If it is not insolvent then I think I should be entitled to a payment for losing my membership rights in the Chelsea as a result of the merger.

scott_lithgows

Is it not better the devil you know?
Beware you may end up in the abbey evil empire !!!!!!

Mithos

There is the voting thread about Chelsea, but thought this link should go in here.

(A little more insight into what happened, but careful dear readers, this really IS the Daily Mail, and some of the details are clearly wrong "Takeover" comments for example)


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1237168/Chelsea-Its-fault--boss-finally-speaks-Icelandic-venture.html



It's nice to hear a bit from Richard Hornbrook himself and he does have some interesting points, although most of it is not directly quoted from the man himself. It does confound my annoyance further that there is/was potentially a back up plan to keep Chelsea independent.

Also nice to read his pension has been reduced, at the very least it shows he has some morals unlike some of the other failed bankers keeping all of theirs.

Ian_W

Not a Chelsea member so I haven't read all the thread and I've thanked Mithos for the link to the article but just a couple of comments.

Mithos wrote: »

It's nice to hear a bit from Richard Hornbrook himself and he does have some interesting points, although most of it is not directly quoted from the man himself.

Hmmm. We couldn't compete with Hali and NR on residential mortgages so we had to "diversify" into higher risk BTL ones to survive. Erm, seeing as how you're in deep financial !!!!!! cos of diversifying I really don't think your survival plan worked Dickie.

Perhaps that should read - In order to keep growing the business and justify ever higher rewards for the executives and Board we had to use our members hard earned savings to make far riskier loans. When the wheel came off the Govt wouldn't throw money at us, so now YBS can.

Also nice to read his pension has been reduced, at the very least it shows he has some morals unlike some of the other failed bankers keeping all of theirs.

Erm. His normal retirement age was 60 so he's receiving his pension 4yrs early - in most occupational pensions taking it early would come with an actuarial reduction, usually around 5% per year. So does it demonstrate "morals" or is it merely more spin to make it sound that way?

Either way £160K pa pension ain't a bad reward for abject failure!

baby_boomer

Mithos wrote: »

(A little more insight into what happened, but careful dear readers, this really IS the Daily Mail, and some of the details are clearly wrong "Takeover" comments for example)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1237168/Chelsea-Its-fault--boss-finally-speaks-Icelandic-venture.html

Sorry to bang on about this but it's actually the excellent Financial Mail on Sunday again! My guess is that they've been hassling Hornbrook non-stop and he's got fed up with having to change his mobile phone number every week .

Jeff Prestridge was once voted the 7th most influential man in British Finance (ahead of Eddie George - then Governor of the Bank of England! ) . The Daily Mail never gets close to Jeff's breaking news journalism, follow up work, accuracy or campaigning on behalf of savers / investors. Although the two papers operate from the same building, & share the website, they compete against each other for scoops and have different editorial stances (for instance Tony Hazell at the Daily Mail has been unthinkingly supportive of mutuals whereas Jeff P can scrutinize the individual businesses & their directors since he knows them intimately).

Ian_W wrote: »

Erm. His normal retirement age was 60 so he's receiving his pension 4yrs early - in most occupational pensions taking it early would come with an actuarial reduction, usually around 5% per year. So does it demonstrate "morals" or is it merely more spin to make it sound that way?

Either way £160K pa pension ain't a bad reward for abject failure!

Excellent point. It's all spin to confound members and prevent bricks through the window a la Fred Goodwin in Edinburgh. Although on £160K pension pa I'd still be retiring abroad if I were Hornbrook. There'd also be fewer "Whatever happened to the Chelsea?" dinner table conversations

The Birmingham SGM venue
I'm sure Chelsea will justify it on the grounds that their membership is now national and Birmingham is central. But if that is the case, why didn't they recognise it for previous AGMs? Could someone going please ask this question on the day? [Sorry - register the question in advance. Yet another way to stop debate on the day .]

In fact they've chosen Birmingham to make sure as few members as possible attend

If it was in London they'd have the original Chelsea membership and it's also closest to where their current branches are. From the point of view of their postal members, you can book far more advance cheap travel tickets to London than you can to Birmingham. They'd also get some of their disgruntled and frightened London employees or their families.

If it was Cheltenham they'd have their disgruntled & frightened employees from Head Office. Ironically these are the same people they used to pack all their previous AGM meetings in out of the way Cheltenham :rolleyes: .

The society was founded in London. It should have been dissolved in London out of respect to both current members and the past generations of members and directors who properly supported mutuality in that region.

The Chelsea board has got past form when it comes to arranging meetings to the maximum inconvenience of its members .

I went to an AGM at Cheltenham, at much cost and inconvenience, specifically to ask for the AGM to be held a) in London on alternate years and b) not always on the Thursday am before Easter :rolleyes: . They took no notice on either count. Cheltenham AGMs. at the worst possible time & place for member attendance, helped the board continue on its self-satisfied, self interested, myopic course & were a symptom of the malaise at the top.

Hornbrook even gives the game away in his interview with Jeff Prestridge in Financial Mail on Sunday.

Hornbrook says there were people at the [last AGM] meeting 'with axes to grind'.

Oh dear. We can't have that at a well run society like Chelsea, can we?! :rolleyes:

Mithos

baby_boomer wrote: »

Sorry to bang on about this but it's actually the excellent Financial Mail on Sunday again! My guess is that they've been hassling Hornbrook non-stop and he's got fed up with having to change his mobile phone number every week .

Jeff Prestridge was once voted the 7th most influential man in British Finance (ahead of Eddie George - then Governor of the Bank of England! ) . The Daily Mail never gets close to Jeff's breaking news journalism, follow up work, accuracy or campaigning on behalf of savers / investors. Although the two papers operate from the same building, & share the website, they compete against each other for scoops and have different editorial stances (for instance Tony Hazell at the Daily Mail has been unthinkingly supportive of mutuals whereas Jeff P can scrutinize the individual businesses & their directors since he knows them intimately).

I have no choice but to hold my hands up again and say sorry Baby Boomer. I see the Daily Mail name and see red. The nonsense it generally writes about "PC gone mad" for stories which don't even exist, and its pure hatred of fat/thin women. I'm convinced along with a few others of its type its partly responsible for the rise of the BNP.

I will be much more careful in future, you've caught me twice now, and highlighted in a way I'm exactly the same as that paper! :eek:



Good points as always (Same to Ian W!), I also note one of his quotes starts with "Look" as if he was getting exasperated and defensive at the questioning.

At the time I assumed Birmingham was chosen because it was more central for Yorkshire members in case any wanted to attend to find out more before their SGM the following week, but in hindsight that was silly as they have less of a reason to vote yes than Chelsea members! :rotfl: Suppose they will just say it was too short notice to arrange anywhere else or like you say about being more central for the boarder Chelsea member base. Perhaps Jeff Prestridge will comment on that shortly (He might even attend I suppose)

MiserlyMartin

I just proudly voted a very strong NO to this stupid merger.

peteron

voted NO!!!

EBL2008

I have just gone online and looked at the voting set up.

The choices are:
1. Allow the chairman to vote for you (who is clearly going to vote in favour of the merger)

or

2. Send a proxy to the meeting on 22nd Jan.

I can't make that meeting - is anyone else going?
There appears to be no other way to vote against the merger?
Unless anyone else can advise otherwise.