Carpetbagging, anyone?

grey_gym_sock

princeofpounds wrote: »

the management of mutuals have managed to entrench themselves in their cushy jobs at the expense of members.

they would be paid more if they converted to a bank. which, i would suggest, is precisely why many did convert.

the member's 'bonus' stream is a fraction of the value that a sale would bring.

in return for the sale price, members give up a 'bonus' and/or get worse interest rates ... any buyer would expect a proper return on their investment, which the ex-members would have to pay for ... you can't just magic profits out of thin air.

Glen_Clark

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

they would be paid more if they converted to a bank. which, i would suggest, is precisely why many did convert.



in return for the sale price, members give up a 'bonus' and/or get worse interest rates ... any buyer would expect a proper return on their investment, which the ex-members would have to pay for ... you can't just magic profits out of thin air.

In theory a Mutual will gave better value for money because they don't have to pay shareholders. Yet prices at the co-op (Mutual) are dearer than Tesco because the co-op are less efficient. (I often think the co-op is the only mutual that would be better demutualised, yet its about the only one that didn't do so.)

marathon_man_3

Apart from the few building society memberships that I still retain, most with the minimum needed to retain membership, my wife and I have been banking with Nationwide for many years with my current account there going back well over 20 years.
Consistently, with the very rare exception, the rates offered on savings account at Nationwide are hardly any different to those obtainable by hunting around elsewhere by googling various banks. In fact, their rates are often substantially worse.
I don't see that I have benefitted from their continued mutuality financially at all.

sabretoothtigger

Lloyds shareholders arent paid anything anyway, the main cost is money markets and cost of capital.

theGrinch wrote: »

carpetbagging will start again...give it 10-years. Greed will return once the current mess is a memory.

Its going to take 10 years just for the dust to settle on this current situation. 0.5% rates is a mess, when that unwinds it'll take a while for anything normal

Of course it is, hardly needs mentioning so obvious, but history tells us that lessons are never learnt.

One of the biggest frauds ever was a mutual society. All mortgage money went to the guy running it, when he died they realised there was nothing left and it went broke

gadgetmind

theGrinch wrote: »

carpetbagging will start again...give it 10-years. Greed will return once the current mess is a memory.

I do hope you're right. I trousered close on £20k from my (almost) entirely accidental carpet bagging. Happy days.

Glen_Clark

marathon_man wrote: »

Consistently, with the very rare exception, the rates offered on savings account at Nationwide are hardly any different to those obtainable by hunting around elsewhere by googling various banks. In fact, their rates are often substantially worse.
I don't see that I have benefitted from their continued mutuality financially at all.

All the Building Societies that have demutualised have effectively gone bust and been bailed out by taxpayers. Wheras the mutuals have not been bailed out, and pay taxes towards the bailout of their competitors. So if the Nationwide had demutualised and needed a bailout, instead of contributing towards the bailouts as at present, as a taxpayer or citizen you would have been worse off. Because Britain's financial crisis would have been even worse.
I have benefitted personally from carpetbagging but even I wouldn't try to say its been good for the country as a whole. I think most people realise that carpetbagging and demutualisation as been disastrous for the economy, so I cannot see it resurfacing anytime soon. For that rerason I no longer maintain any accounts in the hope of carpetbagging.

gadgetmind

A lot of them got sucked into Santander, which I don't think has seen a penny of UK taxpayers money.

Others were soaked up by other banks long before the crisis.

Old_Slaphead

Glen_Clark wrote: »

All the Building Societies that have demutualised have effectively gone bust and been bailed out by taxpayers.

Woolwich = Barclays = No taxpayer money

opinions4u

All UK banks, including HSBC, Barclays and Santander, have been lent massive amounts of taxpayers money to help plug their funding gaps.

While those named above didn't need to be part-nationalised they have certainly had their operations subsidised.

sabretoothtigger

Barclays has no direct gov ownership in their shares. The funding handed out by BOE is probably still there so long as 0.5% rates are, I think its been scaled back a bit from defcon 1

The arabs dumped most of their shares in Barc which helps explain why the price fell from 390 back down to 130 though its a bit better now