The Onion published the minutes of the Board Meeting of a large US bank back in August 2002:
So we're unanimous on the merger with Chase Manhattan? Excellent. I think we all agree that this merger will benefit both companies tremendously. Nelson, get started on the paperwork for that immediately. I want it on my desk by Friday. Now, on to the next order of business: Our continuing discussion on whether to pre-approve Douglas C. Schwoegler of Arden, CA, for a Visa Gold card...
From the FSA's report on the RBS-ABN Amro merger:
It was well known to investors, regulators and observers at the time that the consortium ‘conducted only a limited due diligence review of ABN AMRO’. As is normal for a contested bid for a publicly owned company, ABN AMRO allowed RBS and its consortium partners only extremely limited access to confidential information...
RBS submitted a detailed information request to ABN AMRO on 26 April [2007]. On 29 April ABN AMRO provided two lever arch folders and one CD ROM of information to the consortium and stated that this was the same information that had been provided to Barclays.
Thursday 15 December 2011
Life copies satire
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7 comments:
The recent programme on the collapse of RBS was very good on this point. In some way the best bits were the excerpts from Fred's press conferences, company meetings and so on. Wot a twat. Just the sort of obvious twat that a decent regulator would have watched like a hawk. Ha, ha.
I love that the reason Barclays is a Brilliant Success and RBS an Epic Failure is that RBS was willing to pay about 2.5% more for ABN than Barclays was.
The interesting thing about Fred is that he's an accountant by trade, who got into banking after he ended up the lead partner on BCCI's receivership. I suspect everyone in the regulatory world thought "dude's an accountant and dude made his name winded up a crooked bank, he'll probably be OK".
(captcha: fropping. LIKE)
D, I think you fail to understand what the purposes of bank regulation is nowadays.
JB, "gamekeeper turned poacher" is the expression you are looking for.
Doesn't someone need to mention that this was at the instigation of the PM who stated that he would square the Completion Commission and not to worry about all the paperwork?
I can't tell you, the mental anguish it caused to even remember the faux fornicator from Fife...
@john miller
Nope, that was the other insane merger - Lloyds and HBOS. Another fine example of the financial expertise of the SnotGobbler.
They clearly haven't read Parkinson's Law on committees. This is a classic example of that.
And the mendaciousness by the Failed FSA continues. "It was well known to investors, regulators and observers at the time" Erm, no. The Failed FSA was entirely ignorant and complacent about all this despite being told clearly by the rest of the above named that this was a shit deal. In any event, in the great scheme of things, blokes like me couldn't really give a shit as when (as expected) RBS would go tits up we 'knew' that they would NOT be rescued and it would all shake itself out. Clearly we hadn't bargained for the epic stupidity of the snot gobbler.
In any event wasn't Fred previous job as an a book keeper for a grocer?
Why bother with due diligence when you are 99% sure the State will cover you for any fuckup?
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