Any carpet-baggers out there?

carnet

Forget the BS's for the time being and concentrate on bagging the remaining mutual Life Offices - if you can do this economically eg with one-off SHP's etc. There has got to be further consolidation within the industry.

Ignore the "signaways" as they're not worth the paper they're written on - look, for example, at what happened recently with the SLAC "signaways" .

dealseeker

cheggers wrote:

Next time the annual election papers come through the post for the building societies your member of have a look at the salaries, bonus and pension benefits the elected board members are on. Some of them are £500K+ for doing naff all.

My advise is vote against re-election of all board members, and vote against anything that the board recommends.

Thats my philosophy!

Don't let the Fat Cats milk it.

cheggers

carnet wrote:

Forget the BS's for the time being and concentrate on bagging the remaining mutual Life Offices - if you can do this economically eg with one-off SHP's etc. There has got to be further consolidation within the industry.

Ignore the "signaways" as they're not worth the paper they're written on - look, for example, at what happened recently with the SLAC "signaways" .

Who's left in the mutal life companies, already got standard life.

What's the minmum to get in with the remaining life companies?

What about friendly societies, heard Liv Victoria was a potential windfall opportunity for the future.

thor

cheggers wrote:

Next time the annual election papers come through the post for the building societies your member of have a look at the salaries, bonus and pension benefits the elected board members are on. Some of them are £500K+ for doing naff all.

My advise is vote against re-election of all board members, and vote against anything that the board recommends.

Unfortunately these directors keep moving the goalpost to protect their abuse of our money. They keep increasing the percentage vote required cause demutualisation and I'm pretty sure if you don't send your votes back then they can declare that as a vote for their candidates(although don't quote me on that one)

cheggers

thor wrote:

Unfortunately these directors keep moving the goalpost to protect their abuse of our money. They keep increasing the percentage vote required cause demutualisation and I'm pretty sure if you don't send your votes back then they can declare that as a vote for their candidates(although don't quote me on that one)

I am pretty sure your right about them declaring unused votes as there's.

The sooner we all get some more windfalls the better. For far too long the fat cats at these socieities have been on too much £££££££££.

alared

It seems pretty clear to me that the boards of these societies have got everything stitched up so there won`t be anymore stock market floats or takeovers.
The last I remember was Portman taking over some other smaller society but they only gave the customers 5% of their account balance.
Anyone with the basic £100 got the grand total of a fiver.
Portman`s customers got nowt.
The chances of anymore "windfalls" are zilch,close your accounts that are paying peanuts and move on.
You`re getting NOWT!

NellyBelly_2

hi all

just looking for some advice on which life assurance co's likely to be involved in any forthcoming consolidation ?

also - don't know much about life assurance ! any hotlinks on martin's website about this ? really trying to find out the basics - what, who, why, how, etc.

NellyBelly

MisterEd

nearlyrich wrote:

I've still got just over £100 in each of Darlinton, Chelsea, Portman, Leeds & Holbeck and Yorkshire BS accounts. I don't think about them to be honest, until you put the thread up LOL. If they do go public the loss of interest is well worth it, my free HBOS Shares are worth over £4000 now.

I'm in the same boat but have £1000+ in one or two societies. I do think of them whenever they send me notice that my one-time "best buy" is now earning 0.5% or whatever, and I have the hassle of filling in forms to shift the money to their latest best offer.

Having read all the replies I shall keep them open but reduce the amount in each to £100 and forget them.

steady__eddie

That's the way to do it.
I adopted that attitude in late 80's/early 90's, just forget all about them and in the fullness of time the chickens came in to roost. I only managed 7 out of 10 but you never know, the other 3 may follow suit.
My own view though, for what it's worth, is that the lower half will be more likely to be taken over/merged with the majors as in the Portman/Staffordshire scenario rather than demutualising.
The only drawback is the 5 year waiting rule.

System

MisterEd wrote:

Having read all the replies I shall keep them open but reduce the amount in each to £100 and forget them.

Welcome to the boards MisterEd.

If they are paying such lousy interest i would be tempted just to leave £10 in and invest the £90 elsewhere. Rather in your pocked than theirs i recon.;)