Shares in Northern Rock

Nationalisation's been bandied about for many months. Some weeks back the government even announced who'd take charge in the event it did happen.
 
Oops, I cant believe I missed all that, and I read the economist! I thought nationalization belonged to the Margaret Thatcher days, the word was not in my lexicon. I will put this one down to experience. I'm bowed but not beaten.
but will def. be more cautious in future.
 
Buffett said:
Correct. The government done this to protect taxpayers NOT to protect shareholders. I would be surprised at any payout by the government of more than 25 pence per share
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I heard on Sunday that the UK government were expected to buy the shares at around the £0.50 mark. Think NR were at £0.90 late last week, down from a high of £12.00+ last year.
 
I think Jeff Randall, shareholders lawyer will look for more than that!
 
Elphaba said:

I thought nationalization belonged to the Margaret Thatcher days
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I think you might be mixing up nationalization with privatization.

Are you reading the Tsimonoce ? It's a great magazine, but it gets things back to front a lot.

Brendan
 
I have to own up myself and admit that I also bought shares a few weeks back believing that the bank would be sold & the shares would rise. I am normally good on buying shares & up to now have only bought a diversified portfolio for the long term. All I can say is that greed got the better of me & I can safely say 'never again'. Thankfully I didn't invest too much.
One question I have though - I bought the shares on line with Goodbodies. My question is - if there is compensation, how will that be paid out? Will my shares simply be cancelled & the compensation credited to my account? Has anyone heard of a similar situation?
 
Brendan said:
Elphaba said:

I think you might be mixing up nationalization with privatization.

Are you reading the Tsimonoce ? It's a great magazine, but it gets things back to front a lot.

Brendan
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A bit like the Gordon Brown & Alistair Darling. Margaret Thatcher was responsible for privatizing nationalized companies. Now its the other way around. I'm not the only one with shares in N. Rock or the only one whos lost out in recent times...
 
Elphaba said:
privatizing nationalized companies.
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Not true - this comment would suggest the companies started private, were at some point nationalised, then later were privatised.

As early as the week before last there were mumblings that the management & Virgin offers weren't acceptable by a LONG way...plus common sense would say that a private company getting the benefit while the government took the risk was never going to happen here.

As for Shareholder power - they will lose any court case because they are ultimately in the wrong, and anyone who bought in since the 'Run on the Bank' - for example the 2 private equity funds, are vultures attempting to take advantage of the British Governents propping the bank up and have no right to expect to profit or even break even.
 

Why complicate a simple fact. M. thatcher & conservative led government privatized government owned industries.

When British government bailed out NR, share trading should have been suspended immediately. All been handled very badly. Government could still decide to make a payment to shareholders in order to avoid a repeat of the long drawn out legal battle it faced when rail infrastructure group Railtrack went into administration in 2001
 
Bad news.

From todays Indo

Whitehall ties hands of Rock's independent share valuer
By Sean Farrell

THE British government has tied the hands of the independent valuer of Northern Rock's shares by laying down strict terms in draft legislation that went before British parliament yesterday.

The UK Treasury wants to head off shareholder litigation by getting an independent valuation of Northern Rock's shares which it would use if investors in the stricken bank sued for higher compensation.

The compensation scheme order for Northern Rock stated: "In determining the amount of any compensation payable by the Treasury to any person . . . it must be assumed . . . that Northern Rock is unable to continue as a going concern and is in administration." .........
 
Duffman said:
My question is - if there is compensation, how will that be paid out? Will my shares simply be cancelled & the compensation credited to my account? Has anyone heard of a similar situation?
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Looks like you wont need to worry about the answer to this now
 
Buffett said:
Looks like you wont need to worry about the answer to this now
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I'm not complaining - I bought in late as I said, although I had planned to keep the shares for the medium to long term as I genuinely believed in a private sale. You live & learn. However it does seem harsh on many small shareholders for whom this was their first (& maybe only) foray into share buying & may have depended on the money for their retirement etc. Personally I think they should be compensated at least.
 
Duffman said:
However it does seem harsh on many small shareholders for whom this was their first (& maybe only) foray into share buying & may have depended on the money for their retirement etc. Personally I think they should be compensated at least.
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You are joking, right?

Why not get onto FG - they wanted to compensate eircom shareholders for their losses at one stage if I recall correctly.
 
Duffman said:
However it does seem harsh on many small shareholders for whom this was their first (& maybe only) foray into share buying & may have depended on the money for their retirement etc. Personally I think they should be compensated at least.
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This is what happens to people when they dont do their research and dabble in things (stocks etc ..) that they dont understand ...
 

Surely the vast majority of Irish learned enough of a lesson from the eircom flotation to know that the future of a company and its share price isnt' based upon what you were 'hoping' at the time of purchase ?
 
ClubMan said:
You are joking, right?

Why not get onto FG - they wanted to compensate eircom shareholders for their losses at one stage if I recall correctly.
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No I'm not joking. A lot of people got the shares (admittedly for free) when NR was demutualised & knew nothing about the stock market. They held on to them as they would have if it was money for retirement. But I wonder how many of them were advised by the 'experts' to sell?
 
Sorry - I still fail to see why ignorance (in some cases) merits compensation. I would imagine that few people in this day and age are unaware of at least some of the risks/potential pitfalls involved in investing in shares. Both here in Ireland especially post eircom, in the UK after their more extensive experience of demutualisations and privatisations and more generally anywhere post Enron etc. I doubt that there are too many innocents abroad who have absolutely no appreciation of what can happen.
 
stir crazy said:
Surely the vast majority of Irish learned enough of a lesson from the eircom flotation to know that the future of a company and its share price isnt' based upon what you were 'hoping' at the time of purchase ?
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I'm afraid I didn't learn from the eircom flotation - I didn't buy in the first place as I didn't see them at the time as value for money (despite all the advise from the 'experts' - some of whom suggested borrowing to buy shares). Still I lost on NR - you win some & you lose some. My philosophy is that you should only directly invest in shares with money you can afford to lose. As long as I'm up overall I'm happy.
 
Duffman said:
I'm afraid I didn't learn from the eircom flotation - I didn't buy in the first place
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You don't have to have participated to have learned lessons from this. The newspaper coverage was so extensive surely few if any people were unaware of the issues. Of course for some people the lesson learned was "never invest in shares" which many would argue was not really the point.
 
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