Chelsea and Yorkshire building society query

caper7

I am doing a bit of account housekeeping.
I have a savings account with Chelsea and one with YBS.
They merged a few years ago, and I was wondering what would happen if they were ever to demutualise.

I assume as they are now one company, there would only be one potential payout, is that correct?
Ie there would be no advantage in my maintaining acccounts with both brands for that specific reason.

EarthBoy

They are one organisation now, Chelsea BS is just a trading name of YBS. Don't lose any sleep over a possible future demutualisation. The chances of any building society converting to a bank, much less paying out any windfall, in the current financial climate are so slim as to be non existent.

IanSt

EarthBoy wrote: »

The chances of any building society converting to a bank, much less paying out any windfall, in the current financial climate are so slim as to be non existent.

Definitely agree with this - I reckon it will be at least 20 years before a new generation of financial whizzes comes along that only have a hazy memory of the last 10 years and start talking about the benefits of demutualisation.

bigadaj

IanSt wrote: »

Definitely agree with this - I reckon it will be at least 20 years before a new generation of financial whizzes comes along that only have a hazy memory of the last 10 years and start talking about the benefits of demutualisation.

By which time will there be any building societies left to try and float?

The smaller ones have been hoovered up, or rather bailed out and rescued by larger ones over the last few years.

Nationwide would still be a profitable business which would have the potential to become a bank but there appears no driver, the others are far too small.

Not that it stops the nationwide board remuneration themselves to almost bank like proportions, mutuality doesn't look a lot better than greedy banking in that instance.

PeacefulWaters

The idea of demutualisation being good for the expansion of former building societies is rather flawed.

It brought down Halifax, Northern Rock, Bradford and Bingley and others.

Other than a high risk of bankruptcy, what's in it for the members? Bank values are lower so any demutualisation payout would be meaningless.