Financial Perspectives (Free subscription) | 06/10/2008
The events surrounding the slow death of the Northern Rock mortgage bank get more and more surrealistic by the day. Back in July last year it was actually the leading mortgage lender in the UK with 19% of the entire market for new mortgages sold in the first half of the year. Bearing in mind that [...]
The Streeb-Greebling Diaries (Free subscription) | 6 hours ago
Not content with having bailed out the failed Northern Rock bank last year, UK taxpayers are now being forced to hand over £50 billion to the banking sector as an "investment", in probably the biggest and most inequitable transfer of wealth of recent times. This comes at a time when disposable incomes are already being squeezed by mortgage interest rates, high food and fuel prices. For example, I recently...
Infectious Greed (Free subscription) | yesterday
Blackly amusing tidbit from a Bloomberg piece about credit troubles at U.K. football clubs: The English Premier League has become a scoreboard for the global credit crisis. Newcastle players wear the logo of Northern Rock Plc, a U.K. mortgage-lender that was nationalized in February; West Ham lost XL Leisure Group Plc last month when the tour operator grounded all its flights because it ran out of...
Gector's Business Blog (Free subscription) | yesterday
WS&T DAILY ALERT Tuesday, October 7, 2008 NEWS HIGHLIGHTS The Silent Bank Run at a Click of a Mouse What if there were a run on a bank and no one knew? Wachovia and European banks Northern Rock and Fortis ... Fed Suggests Citi and Wells Split Wachovia Update: An appeals court has overturned Citi's injunction against the Wachovia-Wells Fargo merger, the ... RiskMetrics Group Acquires Applied4 Technology...
Lightwater (Free subscription) | yesterday
Warren Buffett’s view on the current financial crisis is that action is needed quickly. And by that he means darned quickly. [See previous post to see the interview] Are Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling acting quickly. NO, no, no. It took them months to do something about Northern Rock. They were given an early warning by that. [...]
Winchester whisperer (Free subscription) | yesterday
George Osborne said yesterday that banks should be forced to curb pay and bonuses as a quid pro quo for any taxpayer-funded recapitalisation. This is a disappointing knee-jerk reaction from the Shadow Chancellor. It's all very well for the Government to call the shots at Northern Rock or if they are the majority shareholder of any bank but until that happens, such emotional comments are unworthy of...
WallStreetAndTech (Free subscription) | yesterday
What if there were a run on a bank and no one knew? Wachovia and European banks Northern Rock and Fortis have all seen so-called online silent bank runs during the credit crisis.
Finance Markets (Free subscription) | yesterday
We’ve seen Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley collapse, the Cheshire and Derbyshire Building Societies rescued, and even Halifax Bank of Scotland required a bail-out from Lloyds TSB. Turmoil in the world’s markets mean that credit around the globe has literally frozen up, and banks face the very real possibility of a systemic meltdown of [...]
The Telegraph (Free subscription) | yesterday
Bear Stearns. Northern Rock. Lehman Brothers. HBOS. The independence of each of these banks was ended by a run on the shares caused by concerns over their future liquidity.
Reuters UK (Free subscription) | 06/10/2008
LONDON (Reuters) - Small Bradford & Bingley shareholders fear that like investors in Northern Rock they stand to lose everything after the government bailed out the bank with a mixture of nationalisation and asset disposals.
Great apps (Free subscription) | 06/10/2008
A random selection of statistics re UK mortgage market - UK Govt nows owns 11% of UK mortgages by value following nationalisation of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley; combined Lloyds + HBOS own 28% - If the UK property market falls 25% from its peak, having already managed 12.5%, 2.5 million borrowers will have negative equity - 10% of UK mortgages by value are sub-prime - 10% of UK mortgages by...
VEF French Property: Latest News (Free subscription) | 06/10/2008
For anyone living and working in the UK, there is only one thing on their minds, who is going to be the next victim of the “credit crunch”? We have seen the collapse or takeover of Northern Rock, Lehman Brothers, HBOS and Bradford & Bingley. Everyday we turn on the news to hear stories of rising energy & food prices and falling property prices. There is a general sense of doom and gloom.
Chef Mojo (Free subscription) | 06/10/2008
From The Spectator: If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95, with HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now...
Scotsman.com (Free subscription) | 06/10/2008
Surely Northern Rock and the Irish banks should pay lower rates of interest to depositors if they have full government backing.
The West Virginia Rebel's Blog (Free subscription) | 06/10/2008
Who says recycling can't be profitable? : If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95, with HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5, but if you bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant,...
