This morning my better half received confirmation in the post that HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland) is being taken over by Lloyds TSB (see left).She had a Halifax saving account when it was privatised in 1997 and has kept the shares every since.
Lloyds TSB will pay for HBOS with its own shares. This means that the price paid for HBOS shares will be about £2.32 each. 18 months ago it was £12 per share. On one level - such is life I suppose.
Since she got these shares for nothing in the first place, I don’t think we can feel too cheated by all this.
Obviously, those who have invested their savings or pensions into HBOS will beg to differ. Also, during the summer I spent a night in Halifax, visiting old friends. HBOS has its operational headquarters in Halifax and is a major and significant local employer; my friends had family members who were employed by HBOS. So this must be a really crappy time for them.
What makes me burn over this particular issue is that HBOS was forced to seek a takeover because of the infamous “spivs and speculators”. They sold the company stock “short” on the basis of completely false rumours and lies and the business simply could not survive in such a difficult and impossible market.
These fraudsters (and the rest) need and deserve a good taste of porridge as far as I am concerned. But what really makes my eyes stand out is the prospect that these thieves used my own pension scheme “shares” to destroy HBOS. How many LGPS (local government pension schemes) lent hedge funds their shares in HBOS (for a small fee) only to find that that these same hedge funds had destroyed the underlying value of these shares by telling lies and spreading false rumours.
This is an inevitable consequence of what happens if owners of capital, such as pension funds, do not or are not allowed to take their responsibilities of ownership seriously. The “real owners” (scheme members) need to take charge. Things need to change.
