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

WillPS

I'm not at all convinced that even a successful vote would have any chance of scuppering the deal at this point. The cost of backing out at this stage would be enormous, and that really would be money wasted.

Not that it'll happen, obviously. 

I note "the campaign" website even stops short of suggesting that it might impact the deal, stating "as members cannot vote on the proposed acquisition, no one, apart from perhaps regulators, can currently challenge the deal and hold Nationwide to account".

Game over, lads.

Malthusian

masonic said:

Just out of interest, are there good examples where a protest vote has achieved the instigator's goals?

In all seriousness, I nominate the 2000 Peruvian presidential election. Alberto Fujimori won the election with 74% of the vote against Alejandro Toledo's 26%, but the election was widely regarded as fraudulent and 30% of ballots were spoiled in protest. Although he won, it was a Pyrrhic victory as the country was engulfed in weeks of protests, his support collapsed and he resigned months later. Toledo narrowly won the election that followed; Fujimori did not stand and his Change 90 party was obliterated.

The protest vote movement helped to prevent Fujimori from presenting himself as the legitimate winner, and eventually succeeded in its aim of turfing him out and electing Toledo.

This shows that if the election procedure does not allow popular opinion to make itself heard, which is arguably the case with Nationwide's "tap here to vote yes and get a free biscuit, to vote no head towards the locked door with the sign saying Beware of the Leopard" quick vote system, the vox populi can find another way.

You do actually have to make a protest vote though. Voting "no" in a rigged election and losing is not a protest vote, it's just a vote. There seemed to be a decent strategy in place to circumvent the Quick Vote system, which was calling for a Special General Meeting, but it foundered over a lack of people willing to put up £50 a head. If the antivirginists had been running the anti-Fujimori campaign they would have all protested by staying at home on the grounds they didn't want to pay the bus fare to the polling booth.

masonic

masonic said:

Last year there was a bit of a protest vote around the (un)fairer share payment. The hardest hit resolution was approval of the Directors' Remuneration Report, with the following breakdown:

    For: 503,024 (95.07%)
    Against: 26,079 (4.93%)
    Votes withheld*: 8,081
    (Total members: over 16 million)

Even though over 26,079 voted against, it still enjoyed over 95% approval. The nature of the system makes it near impossible for any group to influence the result.

Things have gone a bit quiet with the campaign, but I was interested in seeing if there was a detectable impact on AGM voting this year. Once again, the Directors' Remuneration took the biggest hit - the Report:

• For: 604,654 (95.05%)
• Against: 31,459 (4.95%)
• Votes withheld*: 9,421

Looks like 0.02% more voting against this year. 

Things were slightly worse for the Policy (wasn't included as a resolution in 2023, but data for 2022 shown):

• For: 601,014 (94.61%)    [2022: For: 487,138 (93.53%)]
• Against: 34,260 (5.39%) [2022: Against: 33,707 (6.47%)]
• Votes withheld*: 10,258 [2022: Votes withheld*: 8,851]

So actually an improvement on the previous vote.

WillPS

~105k more people voted than last time, of which ~98k voted to support the board.

Hopefully Armstrong and the newspapers blindly regurgitating his campaign diatribes get the message, he doesn't speak for us.

Beddie

I'd be interested in the figures without the "quick vote" option included - a much less overwhelming vote For, I'd say.

Malthusian

Beddie said:

I'd be interested in the figures without the "quick vote" option included - a much less overwhelming vote For, I'd say.

If you wanted to vote For, why would you not use the quick vote option? People who want to vote For aren't going to vote in a more inconvenient way just to demonstrate how much they love the board.

I'm not disputing that the "Quick Vote" system is stacking the deck (I've said it myself in this thread), but the fact that relatively few For votes were cast manually (probably) doesn't prove anything. 

The reality of any society or business like this is that the members / shareholders almost always wave everything through unless the directors are really screwing up, with or without rigging the votes. 

masonic

I suppose the effect of forcing an active choice on each motion would be fewer content individuals voting, which would amplify any dissent.

Pineapple999

I have accounts with them both and am happy with both, but my question would be - what will happen when they merge and I have a regular saver with both of them? You’re not allowed to have two regular savers? 

wmb194

Pineapple999 said:

I have accounts with them both and am happy with both, but my question would be - what will happen when they merge and I have a regular saver with both of them? You’re not allowed to have two regular savers? 

They'll be run as separate entities, I wouldn't worry.

masonic

Pineapple999 said:

I have accounts with them both and am happy with both, but my question would be - what will happen when they merge and I have a regular saver with both of them? You’re not allowed to have two regular savers? 

Your regular savers will mature long before this becomes an issue.