NatWest resurgam. farewell RBS

[John Wright]

2 minutes ago, woolley said:

So why are they changing the brand?  You fellows are very hard work sometimes. 

It is toxic. People are very reluctant to change banks, it’s domestic banking was never under threat. It always had a split personality anyway after taking over NatWest.

News of the World was toxic, even although sales held up. Sometimes you have to take a decision because of what’s coming. So with News International and Sky.

In case of RBS and NatWest it’s the forthcoming, 3 or 4 year down line, sale off of the government shareholding. New profile, 5 year good profit and returns.

[manxman1980]

39 minutes ago, woolley said:

So why are they changing the brand?  You fellows are very hard work sometimes. 

ETA: Go Google RBS toxic brand and see how many results you get from all shades of opinion confirming what I said. It isn't even an issue. RBS can be used as the very definition of a toxic brand. 

Grumpy sod aren't you?

Maybe the difference is simply how we interpret the word "toxic".

[woolley]

15 minutes ago, manxman1980 said:

Grumpy sod aren't you?

Maybe the difference is simply how we interpret the word "toxic".

No, I'm probably the least grumpy person I know. Total ray of sunshine at all times, but when you have people telling you that black is indeed white, it can get a bit wearing. I try not to show the frustration.

I invited you to Google RBS toxic brand and if you did so, you would see that opinion from all quarters is with me on this. Grauniad to Telegraph and even within the company itself. It is blindingly obvious that this is a toxic brand. It went on an expansion spree fueled by the hubris of people who had no clue what they were doing, and had it not been for the intervention of the UK government with taxpayers money, everyone who banked there would have lost everything. Complete neglectful dereliction of duty based on the raw avarice of the management. It turned out to be an empire built on sand.

We had some of the shares in a portfolio from better times and had ridden them down too far before selling most of them. I hung on to a few thousand thinking it would turn at some point. As the complete horror story unfolded, and it became clear what they had been up to globally, the shares went all the way down to about 12p, I think it was. When they did eventually turn, I bought a stack of them at 14p (equiv £1.40 post consolidation) to average down the holding. It was a hairy move because they could conceivably have been fully nationalised and all shareholders would have been wiped out. It's made progress since then, but halting. Even now it is up and down like a bride's knickers. Averaging down has made the RBS holding look less sickly, but I'm well aware that there have been much better investments over the same period. Toxic? Oh yes.

[P.K.]

1 hour ago, John Wright said:

It is toxic. People are very reluctant to change banks, it’s domestic banking was never under threat. It always had a split personality anyway after taking over NatWest.

News of the World was toxic, even although sales held up. Sometimes you have to take a decision because of what’s coming. So with News International and Sky.

In case of RBS and NatWest it’s the forthcoming, 3 or 4 year down line, sale off of the government shareholding. New profile, 5 year good profit and returns.

Makes sense.

Have to say on reading up on the crash I was surprised how many top execs had little banking experience. Plus ex-sir Goodwin even tried to take over Barclays!

I aslo found it quite strange how Darling, in a single afternoon, had to bail the bank out! Surreal.

[woolley]

8 minutes ago, P.K. said:

Makes sense.

Now that John has told you it's toxic, you agree. Good.

[prism10]

1 hour ago, P.K. said:

Makes sense.

Have to say on reading up on the crash I was surprised how many top execs had little banking experience. Plus ex-sir Goodwin even tried to take over Barclays!

I aslo found it quite strange how Darling, in a single afternoon, had to bail the bank out! Surreal.

The story goes. Richard Branson's Virgin companies tried to pay their staff and nothing would go out from his bank.

Branson rang Gordon Brown who investigated and to his horror discovered that the Halifax bank literally had no money. So Darling had to get one of the other banks to quickly merge with them. The suckers were Lloyds/TSB who themselves were in trouble.

Once the contagion started, RBS were in the firing line among other banks.

[P.K.]

1 hour ago, woolley said:

Now that John has told you it's toxic, you agree. Good.

Well, you're a brexiteer!

[Max Power]

And the Nat-West brand isn't toxic? 

Ask people who have suffered at the hands of their Mafia arm, the Global Restructuring Group. They behaved just like gangsters, a script from Goodfellas or The Sopranos. Their hand picked enforcers will surely go to hell and dance in the fires for eternity! I'm surprised that some of them haven't been murdered along with Goodwin? 

[P.K.]

21 minutes ago, Max Power said:

And the Nat-West brand isn't toxic? 

Ask people who have suffered at the hands of their Mafia arm, the Global Restructuring Group. They behaved just like gangsters, a script from Goodfellas or The Sopranos. Their hand picked enforcers will surely go to hell and dance in the fires for eternity! I'm surprised that some of them haven't been murdered along with Goodwin? 

From a "Business Insider" piece from 2015 on RBS. Well worth a read IMHO.

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-rbs-failed-as-an-investment-bank-2015-3?r=US&IR=T

"There is absolutely no doubt that from 2008 and credit crisis era that RBS was engineering defaults in companies and acquiring assets under their property group through RBS' Global Restructuring Group."

RBS' GRG was accused by Lawrence Tomlinson of engineering companies into default for profitability. Tomlinson was an owner of several businesses and commissioned by UK business secretary Vince Cable to investigate problems SMEs were having with the bank. RBS strongly denies the allegations:

“Following the reckless lending leading up to the financial crisis, dramatic falls in property prices meant that the bank’s shareholders and customers lost billions of pounds on bad loans. Tens of thousands of our customers saw the value of their assets plummet and their businesses struggle. Many ended up in serious financial difficulty.

“GRG helped minimise losses where it could, and successfully turned round the vast majority of businesses it worked with, advancing hundreds of millions of pounds of new lending and saving hundreds of thousands of jobs. As a result, fewer than 10% of these struggling SME customers ended up in insolvency.

“Due to the sheer number of cases involved there will undoubtedly be times when customers did not receive the level of service they deserved or would receive now. But the allegation that this bank, systemically and institutionally, set out to artificially distress otherwise viable businesses was extremely serious and hugely damaging. That is why we commissioned Clifford Chance to independently review this matter. Clifford Chance’s investigation made very clear that it found no evidence to support this allegation."

[Max Power]

Their self appointed 'independent' enquiry was never accepted and the case goes on. 

Far from asset values collapsing, their own property wing West Register, performed 'drive by valuations' of properties they wished to acquire, valuing them at way below a professional valuation. They then offered to buy at knock down values to 'bail out' the owners businesses and lease them back. They were only in trouble because Nat West's valuation wouldn't cover their loans, unless you could re-bank within their timescale, you had no option and their operatives were nasty vicious bastards! They ruined many good businesses to bolster their own portfolio and get themselves out of the mess they had caused leading to several suicides. The UK government should be ashamed of what they allowed the directors to get away with.  

Quote

But Fraser thinks this is indicative of how the culture still hasn't fully changed from the years of Goodwin.

"The bank is in denial about it and I have actually seen some pretty convincing evidence from ex-insiders that this was true That suggest that this was and perhaps remains a rogue bank, not just a few rogue traders," he said. "When Ross McEwan talks about putting the customer in the centre of everything they do, it doesn't sit comfortably with what they are doing to some of their business customers right now."

"Many SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) and customers have done very little wrong but have been hounded, persecuted and abused through the courts by the bank. It seems brazen and hypocritical for a bank to do that at the same time as presenting itself as cuddly and nice via its TV commercials and public relations."

RBS still faces major lawsuits from GRG "victims" and shareholders that invested in the bank before its 2008 rights issue. In that rights sale, investors were offered £12 billion in new, additional shares. Investors who bought them lost over 90% of their money.

  

[P.K.]

The FCA claim they've done all they can.

Unfortunately...

[Max Power]

1 hour ago, P.K. said:

The FCA claim they've done all they can.

Unfortunately...

The Financial Ombudsman bailed out due to the range of the sums involved. they were beyond his powers. The FCA are devils looking after their own. There are a range of private prosecutions which may open the floodgates although some have taken derisory compensation in return for their silence.

[Non-Believer]

6 hours ago, P.K. said:

Makes sense.

Have to say on reading up on the crash I was surprised how many top execs had little banking experience. Plus ex-sir Goodwin even tried to take over Barclays!

I aslo found it quite strange how Darling, in a single afternoon, had to bail the bank out! Surreal.

The documentary last week on RBS related how Darling played hardball with RBS on the bailout, even walking out of the negotiations until the bank(s) accepted the terms. Otherwise Goodwin would even have been left in post.