When The Bell Tolls

The Price Of Failure?

I suspect that most of you were brought up, like me, to believe that failure in a job leads to the sack.  That still holds true for most of us, but not if you are a director of a UK bank.  Just look at the 2007 salary and bonus packages of the HBOS board.

The price of failure to Andy Hornsby? £2million in Lloyds TSB shares and a job in the merged bank.

You can get the full details by following the link to Business Week's analysis of each directors income for 2007.

Andy Hornby CEO £1,643,000

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=8132322&symbol=HBOS.L

Peter Cummings Chief Exec of Corporate £2,400,000

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=22929462&symbol=HBOS.L

Colin Matthew CEO of Strategy £1,045,000

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=8132328&symbol=HBOS.L

Ms. Jo Dawson Chief Executive of Retail Distribution £982,000

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=22335439&symbol=HBOS.L

Lord Dennis Stevenson £708,000

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=602375&symbol=HBOS.L

If you really want to put these obscene income packages in perspective compare them to;

Senior Consultant Surgeon approximately £160,000 a year

Firefighter approximately £32,000 a year

Army Private £16,000 to £28,000

Subscribe To Our FREE Newsletter And Find Repossessed Property Bargains Please Give Your First And Last Names
Name:
Email:

Do you love AWeber, too?

Rich Kids In Bright Shirts

In the wake of the Lloyds TSB takeover of HBOS (does anyone really believe that it's a merger?) there has been an outbreak of  "agreement" up here in the Scottish Parliament. 

First Minister Alex Salmond called short selling, which he blamed for the demise of HBOS, economic vandalism.  Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott welcomed the suspension of short selling saying  "Rich kids in bright shirts in London, New York and Tokyo are making money at our expence, Scotland loses its bank, people lose their branches and the country is worse off."  In fact all parties were in broad agreement on the the issue.

However Patrick Harvie of the Green Party took a swipe at the other parties. While he also welcomed the UK Government's action in respect of short selling, he said "Isn't the root cause of the problem the culture of deregulated buccaneer capitalism which all of these political parties have supported, celebrated and even courted?"

I have to admit that my own opinion leans toward his. We all recognise that a free society needs policing.  So why should the financial markets be different?  Perhaps if the Financial Services Authority had spent less time going after easy targets, like independent mortgage brokers, and more time on the banks and the city  things might have been different.

While everyone is rightly criticising the "spivs and speculators" in the city lets not forget that the banks have been acting like spivs for years by ripping off their own customers with their outrageous charges.

And doesn't bad management also come into the equation?

Subscribe To Our FREE Newsletter And Find Repossessed Property Bargains Please Give Your First And Last Names
Name:
Email:

Bargain Probate And Pre-Repossession Properties

I've just secured an agreement to obtain supplies of probate and other off market bargain properties.

The only way to get details of these and our regular repossessions is to subscribe to our free Early Bird newsletter.

Subscribe To Our FREE Newsletter And Find Repossessed Property Bargains Please Give Your First And Last Names
Name:
Email:

Do you love AWeber, too?