Maggie Thatcher thought privatising the Royal Mail was a step too far. She was "not prepared to have the Queen's Head privatised". Personally, I was more concerned when our water was privatised.
I wonder how long it will be before the queens head is replaced by Angie Merkel?
Both of good Germanic stock! ;-)
I think old Vince is somewhat shooting himself in the foot with his comments about looking for long-term investors and this is why it was pitched where it was.
The Sunday Times yesterday reported that Bailie Gifford, the Edinburgh investment house known for taking extremely long-term views was allocated no stock, but Lansdowne Partners, the hedge fund that cashed in during the financial crisis by betting that Northern Rock's shares would collapse, received £50m of shares.
In addition, some 600 city traders, charities, trust funds & pension investors who would all normally take long-term stakes - which Cable said he wanted - got nothing and are now threatening to make a formal complaint.
The portion of the sale set aside for City investors was 20 times over subscribed...which would seem to put the skids under the Government's attempts to say they wouldn't have had the take up at a higher price. Maybe not as much of an over subscription, but doubt they'd have been left without takers.
Obviously the fact that Peter Davies, one of George Osbourne's closest friends and his best man, works for Lansdowne was not a factor in the number of shares they received!!
I don't believe the Royal Mail, or any of the utilities/railways should have been sold off, but if it was going to happen, we should have got a better price for the taxpayer/country.
Maggie Thatcher thought privatising the Royal Mail was a step too far. She was "not prepared to have the Queen's Head privatised". Personally, I was more concerned when our water was privatised.
I wonder how long it will be before the queens head is replaced by Angie Merkel?
Both of good Germanic stock! ;-)
I think old Vince is somewhat shooting himself in the foot with his comments about looking for long-term investors and this is why it was pitched where it was.
The Sunday Times yesterday reported that Bailie Gifford, the Edinburgh investment house known for taking extremely long-term views was allocated no stock, but Lansdowne Partners, the hedge fund that cashed in during the financial crisis by betting that Northern Rock's shares would collapse, received £50m of shares.
In addition, some 600 city traders, charities, trust funds & pension investors who would all normally take long-term stakes - which Cable said he wanted - got nothing and are now threatening to make a formal complaint.
The portion of the sale set aside for City investors was 20 times over subscribed...which would seem to put the skids under the Government's attempts to say they wouldn't have had the take up at a higher price. Maybe not as much of an over subscription, but doubt they'd have been left without takers.
Lansdowne Partners being the hedge fund where George Osbourne's best man sits on the management board and whose former chief exec donated £500k to the Tory party recently. Nope, I can't see where that might look in any way a bit dodgy given some of the big players that didn't get shares...
Royal mail workers must hold there shares for 3 years,then they will sell them for £600 instead of £3033 tomorrow strikes on the way over working terms and conditions union want a ten year deal instead of three years.
That may well explain why Hargreaves Lansdown got the contract to run the Royal Mail flotation. It seemed odd to me that a company that has not enjoyed a good reputation could have landed such a big prize. Still, they'll be so busy now apologizing to irate customers that perhaps they'll stop scaring hubby on the telephone with their 'you will lose a lot of your pension unless you let us deal with it' stories.
Royal mail workers must hold there shares for 3 years,then they will sell them for £600 instead of £3033 tomorrow strikes on the way over working terms and conditions union want a ten year deal instead of three years.
As mentioned before, the hubby of a girl I work with works for Royal Mail. They were initially led to believe they were getting 2000 free shares. Turns out it is actually £2000 worth instead, which still have to be held for 3 years.
It is estimated that the UK taxpayer would be £720 million better off if Royal Mail shares had floated at 450p. Does anyone in Govt know what they are doing, or was it deliberately undervalued in the hope that we will all pile in for the next flotation?
Definitely needed it to be a "success" for future flotations but to be fair the thing was unsaleable a few years back and is fundamentally a crap business so 90% of theoretical fair value is a reasonable result in context.
Seriously, is there another sell-off being discussed? I cannot think of anything remotely open to market competition (but then that never stopped them flogging off the water)
The armed forces procurement 'agency' was mooted a while back .. it may already have gone 'private' though. Parts of the NHS are contracted out as are many local and national government functions. These are deals which are not privatisations as such, just the private sector getting guaranteed slices of the public cake .. and eating it large
Parts of the NHS are contracted out as are many local and national government functions.
Indeed they are which is why 5 years ago you if you wanted to sort out a care package for an elderly relative for example you might have spoken to a person with some life experience, empathy, understanding and responsibility for the job. Today you'll be lucky to get through to a 22 year old graduate following a script with a 10 minute call handling target. Best get used to it I'm afraid.
It is estimated that the UK taxpayer would be £720 million better off if Royal Mail shares had floated at 450p. Does anyone in Govt know what they are doing, or was it deliberately undervalued in the hope that we will all pile in for the next flotation?
Definitely needed it to be a "success" for future flotations but to be fair the thing was unsaleable a few years back and is fundamentally a crap business so 90% of theoretical fair value is a reasonable result in context.
Future flotations???
You mean there's something else left to sell?
I can only think of the NHS and GCHQ.....
Thr Government still own 32% of R/Mail I'm sure I heard.
It is estimated that the UK taxpayer would be £720 million better off if Royal Mail shares had floated at 450p. Does anyone in Govt know what they are doing, or was it deliberately undervalued in the hope that we will all pile in for the next flotation?
Definitely needed it to be a "success" for future flotations but to be fair the thing was unsaleable a few years back and is fundamentally a crap business so 90% of theoretical fair value is a reasonable result in context.
Future flotations???
You mean there's something else left to sell?
I can only think of the NHS and GCHQ.....
Thr Government still own 32% of R/Mail I'm sure I heard.
The goverment was the majority shareholder in BT for many years. Strange position where a large shareholder seeks to break their companies strangle hold on the market which it hopes to make money from.
Royal mail workers must hold there shares for 3 years,then they will sell them for £600 instead of £3033 tomorrow strikes on the way over working terms and conditions union want a ten year deal instead of three years.
As mentioned before, the hubby of a girl I work with works for Royal Mail. They were initially led to believe they were getting 2000 free shares. Turns out it is actually £2000 worth instead, which still have to be held for 3 years.
And looks like they are getting even less shares than first thought as the £2000 worth is based on what they were worth after trading on Monday, not the price the government valued them before the pre-trading stuff last week.
Yet again the tax payer has been conned out of a billion or so by the undervaluing of the company. And the share price continues to soar, who knows what the eventual loss will be. Can't be much more of the Family silver that can be sold off on the cheap.
No doubt Cable was being warned about the price being too low but went ahead anyway, one can only imagine that he went ahead deliberately. Probably bowing from pressure from Bankers not to raise the price.
Cable is now blaming the unions for the fact that the share price was set at £3.30!
RM bosses advised government in the run up to the sale that a pay deal with the workers was not going to happen & institutional investors resisted a higher price with the threat of strike action being taken - according to Cable's letter to MPs.
Ironically, hedge funds are now pushing the price higher as they believe a settlement will be easier now the RM is pretty much privatised.
You may have seen the financial crash coming Vince, but you've been pretty much hoodwinked by your City investors on this one. Not quite so savvy now!
Yet again the tax payer has been conned out of a billion or so by the undervaluing of the company. And the share price continues to soar, who knows what the eventual loss will be. Can't be much more of the Family silver that can be sold off on the cheap.
No doubt Cable was being warned about the price being too low but went ahead anyway, one can only imagine that he went ahead deliberately. Probably bowing from pressure from Bankers not to raise the price.
Of course the public being conned out of an extra billion pounds has been swept under the carpet in favour of a monkey joke...
Comments
I think old Vince is somewhat shooting himself in the foot with his comments about looking for long-term investors and this is why it was pitched where it was.
The Sunday Times yesterday reported that Bailie Gifford, the Edinburgh investment house known for taking extremely long-term views was allocated no stock, but Lansdowne Partners, the hedge fund that cashed in during the financial crisis by betting that Northern Rock's shares would collapse, received £50m of shares.
In addition, some 600 city traders, charities, trust funds & pension investors who would all normally take long-term stakes - which Cable said he wanted - got nothing and are now threatening to make a formal complaint.
The portion of the sale set aside for City investors was 20 times over subscribed...which would seem to put the skids under the Government's attempts to say they wouldn't have had the take up at a higher price. Maybe not as much of an over subscription, but doubt they'd have been left without takers.
Obviously the fact that Peter Davies, one of George Osbourne's closest friends and his best man, works for Lansdowne was not a factor in the number of shares they received!!
I don't believe the Royal Mail, or any of the utilities/railways should have been sold off, but if it was going to happen, we should have got a better price for the taxpayer/country.
You mean there's something else left to sell?
I can only think of the NHS and GCHQ.....
I wonder how long it will be before the queens head is replaced by Angie Merkel?
Will be a shame to behead the queen.
No doubt Cable was being warned about the price being too low but went ahead anyway, one can only imagine that he went ahead deliberately. Probably bowing from pressure from Bankers not to raise the price.
RM bosses advised government in the run up to the sale that a pay deal with the workers was not going to happen & institutional investors resisted a higher price with the threat of strike action being taken - according to Cable's letter to MPs.
Ironically, hedge funds are now pushing the price higher as they believe a settlement will be easier now the RM is pretty much privatised.
You may have seen the financial crash coming Vince, but you've been pretty much hoodwinked by your City investors on this one. Not quite so savvy now!
The media is so useless.
So my world of common sense says hit it just above middle.
560-575.
Still a bloody scandal and cant believe the public have been fooled for the sake of 400 quid