Mutual Windfalls back?

planteria

well done james. do you not hold Any company shares though?

i sold my Standard Life shares at a price i was happy with, following the Bradford & Bingley demutualisation windfall.

i think the biggest downer, yangptangkipperbang, is that some mutuals could merge with the members allowing the directors to profit handsomely whilst the members never have a sniff of the "few hundred quid". as it happens, a few hundred would smell like Bisto to me when contributing £5/month;)

yangptangkipperbang

jimjames wrote: »

I sold out within 12 months or so as holding shares in a single sector/company is not good investing and then invested the money into funds that have done well since.

I think you have proved my point - after a few months all the small share holders had sold out. All the shares were then in the hands of large "investment" companies whose directors were all on the same merry-go-round of grossly inflated salaries in the boardrooms as the directors of the ex Building Societies.

bigadaj

I just found it depressing that in many of these cases they had been built up for decades, or a hundred years or more, and this was effectively destroyed in just a few years.

kidmugsy

bigadaj wrote: »

I just found it depressing that in many of these cases they had been built up for decades, or a hundred years or more, and this was effectively destroyed in just a few years.

And then the Co-op. Is there no end to it?

jimjames

planteria wrote: »

well done james. do you not hold Any company shares though?

I only hold one company shares for the shareholder benefits which have paid back the original cost several times by now.

For investments, all I hold are collective investments, both investment trusts and funds.

billchecker1

Anybody on here know if Coventry Building Society have any inention to go down this route?


Hold my cash ISA with them and have done for over 16 years.

planteria

jimjames wrote: »

I only hold one company shares for the shareholder benefits which have paid back the original cost several times by now.

you have me curious:think:

planteria

billchecker1 wrote: »

Anybody on here know if Coventry Building Society have any inention to go down this route?

as far as i know there are no signs that this is their plan, billchecker, but i expect there to be further consolidation with the Building Society sector. we shall see. i have been a member for about 12 years.

thor

yangptangkipperbang wrote: »

Don't people have incredibly short memories ?

Remember Northern Rock, Bradford and Bingley, Britannia, etc, etc ......

When these mutuals "sold" the benefits of being a plc to their "owners", who become rich from this ?? Only the fat cats in the board rooms, who took their money and ran before the ceiling fell in !

How many of these ex mutuals are still trading under their own name ? Do I hear some one say the Halifax ?? What a wonderful example of why you should NOT de-mutualise.

Still, wave a few hundred quid under the voter's noses and they will fall for it again.......................

I don't think the britannia did demutualise. Despite returning profits to members rather than having to dish it out to shareholders, those nice chaps at the Britannia still manged to p*ss away their customer's money and then get bailed out by the Co op.

planteria

that is true. Britannia is now part of Co-operative Bank. my local branch has been rebranded recently, and is only 2 mins walk from an existing Co-op branch.