Any carpet-baggers out there?

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You must be wrong else it couldn't be happening.

Put simply, the payout is coming from the Portman reserves and if the larger society also paid out to its members it would cost it £3.5bn more :eek:.

If they cut the offer to Portman members so that Nationwide members could get something, the Portman board and Portman members would rightly turn their noses up in derision & Nationwide wouldn't be able to expand.

molerat

catnatlady wrote:

Mutuals are answerable to their members, ie. you and me! Everybody who has any money invested in a Building Society or other mutual is entitled to vote and have a say in the running of the institution.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
Or so they would like you to believe. Since when have Nationwide members actually had any influence on what the board do.

cheggers

Why are Nationwide customers expecting a windfall just becasue they are buying out a competitor.

A work colleage I work with has a Nationwide account and he thinks he's going to get the £200 windfall. I could not bother explaining to him.

Even funnier is he's does not have a pre-sign away nationwide account (which I do) and I have a Portman account.

ReportInvestor

Is the merger good for Nationwide members?
Vote in the ThisIsMoney / Associated Newspapers' poll on the Nationwide/Portman merger. Look in the "Want to know more" box on the right of the story for a link to the poll
Have your say!

ReportInvestor

I hope carpetbaggers on MSE haven't been up to no good. Support for the merger on This is Money has mysteriously increased over the last 24 hours .

It is quite amusing to see the press gradually, inch by inch, get more excited about the prospect of windfalls. They just can't help themselves . And I also suspect a few financial journalists are closet carpetbaggers.

But, of course, they also support mutuality by and large. So the resulting articles are full of contradictions, seductive come-ons followed by cold feet. "Would you like to come up for coffee" then "Isn't it time you were getting home?"

However the articles are getting sexier by the minute. Here's our IA take on a selection from the last six months for anyone interested. Naughty.......but nice.

Return of the carpetbaggers? We doubt it - IA link

Jake'sGran

I had a lot of small amounts in different ones and gained handsomely from Alliance & Leicester, Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley. I did have a small amount with the Portman but seem to remember that this was the one I decided wasn't worth keeping. Typical! Funny thing is that I can't find the old book or any papers about it - wishful thinking:rolleyes:

There have been a few articles about Skipton so I have kept up with that one, also Leeds and Yorkshire. Another thing that happened was that I got preference shares for Halifax after they took over Birmingham Midshires.
Maybe these things are worth keeping, especially Nationwide.

silas

Can anyone please advise if there is anything to gain by keeeping an Egg savings account open? Or investing elsewhere?
Many thanks

dealseeker

silas wrote:

Can anyone please advise if there is anything to gain by keeeping an Egg savings account open? Or investing elsewhere?
Many thanks

Nothing to be gained from egg as far as carpetbagging concerned.
egg owned 100% by Prudential.
I have had my account lying dormant for ages since they fell back from market leading rates ... years ago. I'm off to close mine now - thanks for reminding me.

Otherse can advise on where best to invest of carpet bagging opportunities.

steady__eddie

If there's anyone out there who collects Bldg. Soc. a/cs and has not yet got Britannia in their collection, I see that they have dropped the opening a/c. balance to £100 on their DirectSaver and although the interest rate is not brilliant, it is not exactly peepoor. 4.75% + 0.3% for the first 6 months.
At last I can open one and transfer my TOISA (I know that the purists amongst you will say that there is no such thing now) to someone who is paying a more respectable interest rate and still preserve my membership status.

ReportInvestor

RPoints link

Times journalist seeks potential interviewees for an article on the "return of carpetbagging".

One for steady_eddie ?

Earlier press articles have brought changes in the opening conditions of some BS accounts, so any carpetbaggers who were thinking of adding to their "collections" might be best advised to do it by the weekend.

Although why any BS that was a going concern would want to turn away new business baffles me.