MSE News: Nationwide scraps travel insurance perk

bigadaj

Which of the historic building society floats were you thinking of using as a model for nationwide?

System

Any, currently my ownership has no value.
As a shareholder, the shares would have value plus dividends.
If NW got taken over by a bank then I'd also see some value.

bigadaj wrote: »

Which of the historic building society floats were you thinking of using as a model for nationwide?

Yorkshire_Pud

Every account holder with Nationwide since about 1995 has signed away their right to any demutualisation money as a condition of opening an account?

It was to stop carpetbaggers who were opening Nationwide accounts speculatively.

So people with accounts open pre-dating the Charity clause would be in a minority of voting members to demutualise.

bigadaj

SPalin wrote: »

Any, currently my ownership has no value.
As a shareholder, the shares would have value plus dividends.
If NW got taken over by a bank then I'd also see some value.

I think you missed my point.

Im saying that none of the demutualisations were successful as far as I can recall. Some people might have benefitted from a short term cash boost if selling out early but they were either taken over or went but destroying decades of successful mutual ownership.

If you want to make money buy some bank shares, though this hasn't been profitable in general in recent times in many instances.

EarthBoy

Nationwide has always been dead set against de-mutualising. Even if fresh directors took over who thought differently, they're extremely unlikely to contemplate converting to a bank in the current financial climate. As bigadaj mentions, none of the previous de-mutualisations were ultimately successful, as all the ex-building societies turned banks either went bust or were bought out by other banks. Also, bank shares are at a record low, so shares in a future Nationwide Bank would be unlikely to make anyone much of a profit. As for Nationwide being taken over by a rival bank, that would probably be blocked due to competition issues because it would be seen as reducing customer choice.

As YorkshirePud mentions, all new members of Nationwide since November 1997 wouldn't benefit from it converting anyway as you have signed away your rights to charity.