Northern Rock (85HX)

Northern Rock (85HX)

Blog posts

When in a Panic, Call Lord Pannick

The name of Lord Pannick has cropped up twice recently. He is one of the leading QCs on public and commercial law. So it was not surprising perhaps that...

Goodwin still on the hook for RBS debacle

The Herald newspaper have reported an astonishing attempt by the lawyers for Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to have Fred Goodwin excluded from the legal case over the rights issue in 2008. They wanted four former directors removed from the case so as to streamline proceedings. However the judge presiding over the case threw this attempt out. The directors signed off the prospectus and hence should surely be accountable for what the plaintiffs claim was a misleading document. But the lawyer for ...

Bradford & Bingley & Northern Rock Bond Tenders

Bradford & Bingley Plc have announced a new tender offer for the subordinated bonds. These are what were formerly called PIBS which were issued before the company converted to a bank. These bonds remained outstanding when the company was nationalised in 2008 and have continued to be listed and tradable. But the previous tender offers were not considered very generous, although the market price has been slowly recovering on the expectation that the mortgage assets of the company would exceed its ...

Magna Carta and Bank Nationalisations

There was an interesting letter in the Financial Times on Saturday (14/6/2014) from Prof. Tim Congdon.  As a former Northern  Rock shareholder he pointed out that the latest results from Northern Rock Asset Management (the "bad" part of the bank that was left after the good part was sold off to Virgin) showed underlying profits of £1.16bn. So it has achieved profits of almost £3bn in the last 39 months and is likely to generate a few more billion before the ...

ShareSoc News

ShareSoc and First Flight issue Recommended Code of Conduct for Non-Executive Directors

PRESS RELEASE 38 (7/11/2012) The importance of having active and competent Non-Executive Directors (including Chairmen) in public companies cannot be over emphasised. They can make all the difference between the long term success or failure of a business, and are crucial when a company faces short term difficulties. But many major corporate failures or near disasters such as RBS, BP, Northern Rock, AIG, Enron and more recently Olympus, News Corporation, Barclays etc have been assigned to an “inability of the Non-Execs to exercise influence ...

No Tears for the Death of “Northern Rock”?

PRESS RELEASE 13 (18/11/2011) No tears for the death of “Northern Rock” – at least not from the Government one presumes. Virgin Money have acquired the company and intend to phase out the brand as soon as possible. Virgin are paying £747m in cash immediately and up to £300m subsequently. Bearing in mind that the Government paid nothing for the equity of the company to the previous shareholders when they nationalised the company in early 2008, this is surely a good deal? ...