CarpetBagging- The best accounts to open at each Building Society

planteria

yes, i wonder how he and bristolleedsfan are doing.

IanManc wrote: »

It certainly has the scale, but anyone who has opened an account with Nationwide since 1997 has signed away their rights to any monies payable on a conversion as part of Nationwide's standard terms and conditions, and the same condition was imposed on Derbyshire, Cheshire and Dunfermline members when their societies were rescued. So the number of members of Nationwide who would benefit from a conversion is reducing every year, as people die off. That lessens the likelihood of members voting to convert simply with the passage of time. Eventually people who wouldn't get a windfall from a conversion will be in a majority. And of course Nationwide members voted not to convert when they were balloted in 1998.

true. but there is a school of thought that if the Directors wanted the society to demutualise afterall they could scrap the windfall declaration in order to incentivise members to support them.

Froggitt

Originally Posted by planteria
i think Nationwide has the scale to be a successful Plc: a retail bank with a focus consumer savings and good quality mortgage loans. we will see whether that ever comes to pass:A

evenasus wrote: »

People thought the same of other building societies - look what happened to them.

I've been a Nationwide saver for over 30 years and I would never vote to convert.

Yes some of the converted building societies, such as Northern Rock, Halifax, Bradford and Bingley got into financial problems. But was that because they converted to a bank? Or was it just poor management?

For every converted building society with financial problems, there are an equal number of real building societies that got into trouble, such as West Brom BS making losses every year, Britannia BS needing rescuing and almost bringing down the Co-op, the slew of societies that the BSA leaned on Nationwide to rescue, and reserves/value pretty much wiped out of the whole sector, as evidenced by virtually no windfalls.

There are also a number of successful converted building societies......eg Abbey/Alliance and Leicester now Santander, Woolwich now part of Barclays.

Froggitt

IanManc wrote: »

Carpetbagging is dead.

Porcupine wrote: »

Wondering how Afahmaep is getting on, with 36 accounts of £100 each, probably all earning 0.something % interest.... :rotfl:

Carpetbagging is dead. I debagged all my families remaining accounts a few years ago. Kids money now in a Halifax JISA paying 6%.

However, it was profitable while it lasted. For me, it started in November 1994, ending up with over 100 accounts, and significant windfalls as I was in every demutualisation except C&G, where I had just missed it.

planteria

Froggitt wrote: »

Yes some of the converted building societies, such as Northern Rock, Halifax, Bradford and Bingley got into financial problems. But was that because they converted to a bank? Or was it just poor management?

For every converted building society with financial problems, there are an equal number of real building societies that got into trouble, such as West Brom BS making losses every year, Britannia BS needing rescuing and almost bringing down the Co-op, the slew of societies that the BSA leaned on Nationwide to rescue, and reserves/value pretty much wiped out of the whole sector, as evidenced by virtually no windfalls.

There are also a number of successful converted building societies......eg Abbey/Alliance and Leicester now Santander, Woolwich now part of Barclays.

very true.

planteria

Froggitt wrote: »

Carpetbagging is dead. I debagged all my families remaining accounts a few years ago. Kids money now in a Halifax JISA paying 6%.

However, it was profitable while it lasted. For me, it started in November 1994, ending up with over 100 accounts, and significant windfalls as I was in every demutualisation except C&G, where I had just missed it.

do you hold no Building Society accounts now then Froggitt?

is anyone here still sitting £100 passbooks in the hope of a windfall:question:

bristolleedsfan

planteria wrote: »

yes, i wonder how he and bristolleedsfan are doing.



.

As years have gone by I became better known on forums as Cashbacklover :beer:

Ditched my 100.00 accounts during 2010

Froggitt

planteria wrote: »

do you hold no Building Society accounts now then Froggitt?

is anyone here still sitting £100 passbooks in the hope of a windfall:question:

Only a nationwide joint with mrs frog, as we use it for depositing cheques with their free envelope service!!! And Yorkshire as its convenient transferring between accounts...mortgage, offset, savings.

But no pure bagger accounts.

Hoping to be able to eBay the old passbooks in 20 years time, eg the national counties passport!!!

Froggitt

Ps dave - both ord and becles post on mse, and the artist posts on flyertalk. Pilot is on linkedin. Dunno what happened to the rest of the old crew. Assumed oggy got stung with Britannia pibs.

planteria

careful mate, you don't want to associate yourself with undesirables here;) and Oggy is still around. Becs is my facebook friend.

and i've still not debagged...sorry to see you both go. is patientperson patient enough to be patiently waiting for windfalls:question:

princeofpounds

I'm always amazed by how relaxed people are about the poor standards of corporate governance in these societies, as evidenced by the charitable 'poison pills' amongst other things.

The boards of these firms essentially tranquilise the membership base into inactivity, disincentivising any new members from challenging their positions or structure. Then they self-perpetuate, with members asked to rubber-stamp the same old collection of board candidates, proposed by - guess who - the boards.

Must be a great fat juicy sinecure to be a director at one of these places. The members don't matter as you are barely accountable to them.