Any carpet-baggers out there?

Froggitt

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)

Unfortunately its worse than that - they now take the view that any member proposed resolution such as Demutualisation, interferes with their right to manage the society, and therefore rule it out of order before members get a chance to vote on it.

Froggitt

DemiDee wrote:

So, getting back to Cuffie's initial question - is it worth keeping old carpetbagging accounts open or not?

Yes.

In the current regulatory environment, the smaller societies cannot survive due to the increasing cost requirements. They will merge with or get taken over by their larger bretheren, who themselves will become tasty morcels for the banks and other financial institutions.

Froggitt

cheggers wrote:

Finally how can people defend building societies, when some of there accounts have minimum opening balances of £500 and only pay 0.5% interest on the account.

Thats five times as much as I think I get on my Newcastle Building Society Nova Plus account.......on my £100 "stake" I get 8p interest per annum after tax.

Froggitt

MiserlyMartin wrote:

Finally if you don't give a stuff about the above, then think of your children and future generations that could suffer financially by you killing off the building societies.

I am thinking about my children......contributions from Halifax, National and Provincial, Bristol and West, Alliance and Leicester, Woolwich and whoever else Ive missed off the list will help ensure my klids financial futures.

The building society directors dont need my or your help to kill off the building societies....theyre quite capable of doing that themselves.

Slim

Thanks for the tip Plumb 1.

The investment threashold for Building Society demutualisation payments was always £100. Are we sure that for mutual assurance companies that this threashold will be as low as £20 or £25? Has it been announced and does anybody know what it is for Standard Life?

arnold_2

I think that the minimum for payouts on the insurance companies remains at the original £1. It was that originally with the building societies as you needed to have a £1 "share" in order to vote but was changed about 15 years back for them to £100. I don't believe that anyone got around to changing the minimum for the insurance companies as nobody even considered them as carpetbagging targets as you needed either £1000 for a lump sum policy or £10 per month.

However, in practice the minimum for insurance companies is £10 because I don't believe that any will issue a with-profits policy for less than that.



Arnold

ceegee

MiserlyMartin wrote:

I do have a few £100 accounts dotted around just in case any floatation does occur (not through my vote) BUT, carpetbagging generally is a bad idea. At least if a society does convert I will get something, but I don't support it. I would rather it didn't happen at all.

Maybe I'm missing something here. If you don't approve of either carpetbagging or demutualisation, then why have you got "a few £100 accounts dotted around just in case any flotation does occur"? Seems a little, ummm, strange!

Not being argumentative here ....it's just that I cannot reconcile some of the things that you have said!

arnold_2

Inconsistent, yes, but not alone in his thinking. I have a friend who at one stage had accounts in about a dozen building societies (actually three accounts with each: him, the wife and his son) yet who, whilst always voting against demutulisation, was simultaneously hoping that his vote wasn't the one that swayed the vote so that he'd get the payout yet not have gone against his belief that they should stay mutual.


Arnold

toepazz

:xmassign: Just a thought, but are these some of the "hidden assets" our enchanting Chancellor has been rubbing his grubby little hands over stealing from us?

PS: Perhaps we should have a suitable Christmas Scrooge as well as all these lovely other characters :santa2:

flossy_splodge

Not wanting to go off topic but I must admit I'm not sure which are the 'pots' of money that are going to be squirelled away as 'forgotten'. Could it be small sums in B Socs that some of us have put there and deliberately forgotten in the hope of demutualisation? Does anyone know?