VOTE now! Proposed take over of Virgin Money - Nationwide members should be given a vote

eskbanker

friolento said:

                                                                                              

Seems inevitable that Mandy Rice-Davies will be cited on here now, and I imagine it's unlikely that anyone will fess up to being part of the 10,499!  A bit of transparency wouldn't do any harm though, even just a citation from a polling company clarifying the basis on which the survey was conducted, etc....

friolento

I do fess up, I did receive a survey invitation from Nationwide. I did fill it in, too. Whilst I cannot be 100% certain that my vote counted, I expect it did 

I am not aware of the selection criteria Nationwide used 

eskbanker

friolento said:

I do fess up, I did receive a survey invitation from Nationwide. I did fill it in, too. Whilst I cannot be 100% certain that my vote counted, I expect it did

I stand corrected!  Were the survey questions reasonably impartial, or loaded?

friolento

eskbanker said:

friolento said:

I do fess up, I did receive a survey invitation from Nationwide. I did fill it in, too. Whilst I cannot be 100% certain that my vote counted, I expect it did

I stand corrected!  Were the survey questions reasonably impartial, or loaded?

I would say they were reasonably balanced but I am slightly bemused that I can’t see anything about the survey results on the Nationwide website 

eskbanker

friolento said:

eskbanker said:

friolento said:

I do fess up, I did receive a survey invitation from Nationwide. I did fill it in, too. Whilst I cannot be 100% certain that my vote counted, I expect it did

I stand corrected!  Were the survey questions reasonably impartial, or loaded?

I would say they were reasonably balanced but I am slightly bemused that I can’t see anything about the survey results on the Nationwide website 

Me too - if I see a story published by the Daily Mail my instinct is always to seek corroboration elsewhere, but like you, I couldn't find it anywhere, including the Nationwide site, whereas if they felt the need to conduct the survey, you'd expect them to share the outcome themselves.

Malthusian

masonic said:

WillPS said:

Good spot on the cheque. I see further along in the conversation it becomes clear the cheque had only been offered conditionally (not so generous after all), which again there is no facility for within the Rules so would be yet another reason to decline the request. I suspect that's whats being referred to. 

Oh yes, I see in the earlier email that there was a accompanying letter of conditions (not included in the appendix), but the email mentions they must not attempt to take any steps that would prevent it from being fully refunded (one such step would of course be allowing members to pass a resolution under rule 14(e) that it should be used towards costs).

I agree the conditions attached to the cheque seem to give Nationwide a very good excuse not to call the SGM.

Nationwide's rules say that the £50 deposits are refundable unless a resolution is passed at the SGM that the cost of holding the SGM should be deducted from them. Seems fair enough. If the members don't think the SGM was worthwhile they can vote to have the cost fall on those who called it, instead of Nationwide members as a whole.

The cheque was presented under the condition that it would be refundable. Nationwide can't give that undertaking because they can't stop members from motioning to have the SGM costs deducted from it, or from voting for that motion. (Assuming that members can put forward motions at the SGM with Nationwide's veto, and it would be a strange kind of General Meeting if they couldn't.) 

It's not entirely clear what the conditions attached to the £25k cheque were as the published emails only contain a one-sentence summary, but it certainly seems that whoever signed it has handed it to Nationwide on the end of a long bit of elastic and attempted to ensure that they get it back, which the rules don't allow. 

I could be wrong as it's not 100% clear what conditions were attached to the cheque, but that's certainly what it seems like from the outside. The Secretariat's cheeky sign-off "Please let me know what you would like Nationwide to do with the cheque that you enclosed with your petition that you asked us not to present" also suggests that this is all about the cheque.

With 3,000 signatures it would probably have been better to look for people who were actually willing to put their £50 where their mouth is.

WillPS

I did a survey last week too, FWIW.

26left

friolento said:

                                                                                              

Some alternative headlines
- Less than half of Nationwide members support the proposed takeover according to Nationwide's own research, despite Nationwide's upbeat, misleading messaging
- Nearly half of Nationwide members are undecided and need more information to take a view
- Only 8% of members have looked past the unbalanced rhetoric sent to them by the chairman and understand the risks and costs associated with a takeover of this magnitude

Judging by the most upvoted comments, this expensive PR exercise has massively backfired. 

eskbanker

26left said:

Some alternative headlines
- Less than half of Nationwide members support the proposed takeover according to Nationwide's own research, despite Nationwide's upbeat, misleading messaging
- Nearly half of Nationwide members are undecided and need more information to take a view
- Only 8% of members have looked past the unbalanced rhetoric sent to them by the chairman and understand the risks and costs associated with a takeover of this magnitude

Judging by the most upvoted comments, this expensive PR exercise has massively backfired. 

          

spider42

Malthusian said:

masonic said:

WillPS said:

Good spot on the cheque. I see further along in the conversation it becomes clear the cheque had only been offered conditionally (not so generous after all), which again there is no facility for within the Rules so would be yet another reason to decline the request. I suspect that's whats being referred to. 

Oh yes, I see in the earlier email that there was a accompanying letter of conditions (not included in the appendix), but the email mentions they must not attempt to take any steps that would prevent it from being fully refunded (one such step would of course be allowing members to pass a resolution under rule 14(e) that it should be used towards costs).

The cheque was presented under the condition that it would be refundable. Nationwide can't give that undertaking because they can't stop members from motioning to have the SGM costs deducted from it, or from voting for that motion. (Assuming that members can put forward motions at the SGM with Nationwide's veto, and it would be a strange kind of General Meeting if they couldn't.) 

Well, that may be "strange", but that is how it works. Rule 12 says "No business shall be transacted at any general meeting which is not set out in the notice of meeting."

So to have a resolution passed at the meeting saying that the deposits shouldn't be returned, that resolution would need to be included in the notice of meeting, which needs to be issued at least 21 days in advance of the meeting taking place. The members can't just decide on the day to have a vote on the non-return of the deposits, unless the resolution is already set out in the notice of meeting.

Consequently, only Nationwide themselves could add that as a resolution in the SGM notice. (I suppose in theory the 500 members proposing the SGM could also add a resolution to hold a vote on whether they get their own deposits back, although in practice it would make no sense for them to do so!).

So Nationwide absolutely could give that undertaking, if they wanted to (which they almost certainly don't).