Euronymous
Senior Jockey
What a despicable piece of shit. I note that he isn`t gonna hand his 650k pension back. I wonder if there are grounds for removing his knighthood?
Fred Goodwin
- Thread starter Euronymous
- Start date
Desperate Dan
Senior Jockey
A Slumdog Millionaire.
walsworth
Journeyman
Personally, I would prefer to remove other parts of him!
Euronymous
Senior Jockey
He`s a chinless wonder who went to the right schools and bent over for the right people.
Euronymous
Senior Jockey
A reputation totally undeserved. In the past justification for big salories in the City was that companies needed to attract the best talent. Problem is there doesn`t appear to have been any talent to attract in the first place.
Tout Seul
Senior Jockey
- Joined
- May 2, 2003
- Messages
- 2,628
My position on Goodwin is that he should have been fired without any agreement as to a golden parachute as it is termed. He would need to have amazing chutzpah to try a sue for restoration of his package though he might well have the benefit of the law on his side.
Why should he have been fired? For 2 reasons: 1) to do the right thing and take responsibility for the overall situation at RBS ( the buck stops here.) and 2)take specific responsibility for taking the final decision to bid for ABN-Amro and unfortunately winning against a number of other global banks-a decision as fatal as Hitler's to invade Russia or Archduke Ferdinand's to visit Sarejevo.
The latter is the true reason to most strongly condemn him since the first is tantamount to stating that he did not forsee the extent of the problems that have occurred, a lack of foresight shared with the heads of pretty well every other bank in the world, most governments in the world, most leading financial experts and most regulators. Yes, he should take the blame but that does not mean he was necessarily privileged, engaged in sexual practices to advance his career, is a lump of s*** nor that he did not work diligently to do his job.
Righteous anger and heightened emotion are understandable. Have a rant if you want but such statements have no rational basis - other than the description italicised which could be levelled based on his action in taking the early retirement package he was offererd.
Why should he have been fired? For 2 reasons: 1) to do the right thing and take responsibility for the overall situation at RBS ( the buck stops here.) and 2)take specific responsibility for taking the final decision to bid for ABN-Amro and unfortunately winning against a number of other global banks-a decision as fatal as Hitler's to invade Russia or Archduke Ferdinand's to visit Sarejevo.
The latter is the true reason to most strongly condemn him since the first is tantamount to stating that he did not forsee the extent of the problems that have occurred, a lack of foresight shared with the heads of pretty well every other bank in the world, most governments in the world, most leading financial experts and most regulators. Yes, he should take the blame but that does not mean he was necessarily privileged, engaged in sexual practices to advance his career, is a lump of s*** nor that he did not work diligently to do his job.
Righteous anger and heightened emotion are understandable. Have a rant if you want but such statements have no rational basis - other than the description italicised which could be levelled based on his action in taking the early retirement package he was offererd.
betsmate
At the Start
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2004
- Messages
- 5,752
I'd be fairly sure that ever since he took the RBS job - and probably for a significant time before that - retiring as a wealthy man was fairly high up on Sir Fred's agenda.
Chastise him for the decisions that he made (or more specifically the consequences), condemn his behaviour if you like, even revel in the embarrassment that I'm sure he is feeling from this public mauling; but when passing judgement on his ability, I think it is worthwhile considering all of his objectives.
Chastise him for the decisions that he made (or more specifically the consequences), condemn his behaviour if you like, even revel in the embarrassment that I'm sure he is feeling from this public mauling; but when passing judgement on his ability, I think it is worthwhile considering all of his objectives.
Tout Seul
Senior Jockey
- Joined
- May 2, 2003
- Messages
- 2,628
A fictional but possible Board meeting RBS late 2006.
FG:Morning ,Gentlemen. I've gone through the monthly reports, looks we'll have a record year. Pretty good performance all round. Retail seems fine, good decision to keep the branch network in place.Cameron, your markets boys are really piling on the assets and I see there's a lot in the pipeline. You happy with that?
JC. Very.The demand for assets just growing expotentially, we can hardly satisfy the demand. As you can see the New York guys are picking up a lot of mortgage assets and repackaging for them for the hedge funds and basically every other bank in the world, even the big insurers are screaming for them. We've covered the residual risk with the big monoline companies but only with the top rated one's like AIG. The Derivative teams have covered what remains but we are nearing our exposure limits to Lehmans as the biggest player. The credit card exposure is high but I got to keep a stock to justify all those jollies the investors are offering my people in order to get their hands on it. Hey one of the reasons that our expenses are down so much is that we're the one's that are being treated nowdays.
FG: Thats a good performance , keep them happy at bonus time.Never imagined I'd be responsible for trillions but if you got it covered properly then I'm happy. Have to say though I understand the basic derivative stuff I'm glad I got the outside accountants to look at that area. They're happy with what they see and apparently they hear that the FSA think we are one of the better players in that market. that gives me a lot of comfort. The head of the accountants told me he thought we were getting a reputation for being a bit too aggressive on the leverage loans so how's that Robertson because I can't see any increase in your provisions.
LR: Well we're up with the market there's just so much demand for yield that we ship it out as soon as it comes in. We're keeping some of the higher rated stuff and covering the risks on the long term high yield pieces in the general derivative pool. We had the FSA come in and the only comments we got were about making sure the teams got more refresher courses on risk assessment. Anyway I'm told that we'll come out top of the league table for our performances from Euromoney. That'll help us carry on next year.
FG: good. But Finance how's our balance sheet at the moment it's getting so large I'm losing track of the zeros behind the numbers. No sign of any problem?
Fin.Dir:None whatsoever! We've got a good mix of short and long term funding and there's so much in the market we can easily pick it up at levels far below my budgetted costs. We're well within the FSA guidelines even though we are taking out more than expected. Sometimes I think we are a little too liquid. We can certainly raise a lot more long term stuff and our share is more than high enough for us to pull in more at good rates if needed.
FG: Great. Having listened to you lot I'm even more sure about ABN. If we can bring them to our efficiency levels, with the controls that you guys will put in, its a steal.Well we've all earned our money this year.
Colloquial and summarised.
FG:Morning ,Gentlemen. I've gone through the monthly reports, looks we'll have a record year. Pretty good performance all round. Retail seems fine, good decision to keep the branch network in place.Cameron, your markets boys are really piling on the assets and I see there's a lot in the pipeline. You happy with that?
JC. Very.The demand for assets just growing expotentially, we can hardly satisfy the demand. As you can see the New York guys are picking up a lot of mortgage assets and repackaging for them for the hedge funds and basically every other bank in the world, even the big insurers are screaming for them. We've covered the residual risk with the big monoline companies but only with the top rated one's like AIG. The Derivative teams have covered what remains but we are nearing our exposure limits to Lehmans as the biggest player. The credit card exposure is high but I got to keep a stock to justify all those jollies the investors are offering my people in order to get their hands on it. Hey one of the reasons that our expenses are down so much is that we're the one's that are being treated nowdays.
FG: Thats a good performance , keep them happy at bonus time.Never imagined I'd be responsible for trillions but if you got it covered properly then I'm happy. Have to say though I understand the basic derivative stuff I'm glad I got the outside accountants to look at that area. They're happy with what they see and apparently they hear that the FSA think we are one of the better players in that market. that gives me a lot of comfort. The head of the accountants told me he thought we were getting a reputation for being a bit too aggressive on the leverage loans so how's that Robertson because I can't see any increase in your provisions.
LR: Well we're up with the market there's just so much demand for yield that we ship it out as soon as it comes in. We're keeping some of the higher rated stuff and covering the risks on the long term high yield pieces in the general derivative pool. We had the FSA come in and the only comments we got were about making sure the teams got more refresher courses on risk assessment. Anyway I'm told that we'll come out top of the league table for our performances from Euromoney. That'll help us carry on next year.
FG: good. But Finance how's our balance sheet at the moment it's getting so large I'm losing track of the zeros behind the numbers. No sign of any problem?
Fin.Dir:None whatsoever! We've got a good mix of short and long term funding and there's so much in the market we can easily pick it up at levels far below my budgetted costs. We're well within the FSA guidelines even though we are taking out more than expected. Sometimes I think we are a little too liquid. We can certainly raise a lot more long term stuff and our share is more than high enough for us to pull in more at good rates if needed.
FG: Great. Having listened to you lot I'm even more sure about ABN. If we can bring them to our efficiency levels, with the controls that you guys will put in, its a steal.Well we've all earned our money this year.
Colloquial and summarised.
Why is it that large-scale failure at the top-end of any company/industry - often affecting a great number of people - is so well-rewarded, when anyone else screwing up lower down the pekcing order, with less wide-ranging effects is likely to be sacked with no compensation at all and not much (if anything) in the way of a reference?
Last edited:
Grasshopper
Senior Jockey
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2006
- Messages
- 16,050
Plausible perhaps, but not accurate.
SFG ruled RBS with an iron fist - as if it was his own personal feifdom - and the Board members (conversations between them and SFG tended to be unidirectional) were essentially too spineless to take him on......on any subject.
This failure by the Board to provide the required checks and balances when it came to the CEO, only served to feed SFG's rampant ego, and further empower him to railroad his plans through.
It was ego that compelled SFG to acquire ABN Amro, and ego alone. The simple fact is that he could not bear to see it go to Barclays, and thereby knock his bank further down the pecking order.
That is why RBS paid over the odds for the ABN transaction, and why there seems to have been a complete lack of proper due diligence. It was going to go ahead regardless, because SFG had to have it - whatever the cost.
SFG ruled RBS with an iron fist - as if it was his own personal feifdom - and the Board members (conversations between them and SFG tended to be unidirectional) were essentially too spineless to take him on......on any subject.
This failure by the Board to provide the required checks and balances when it came to the CEO, only served to feed SFG's rampant ego, and further empower him to railroad his plans through.
It was ego that compelled SFG to acquire ABN Amro, and ego alone. The simple fact is that he could not bear to see it go to Barclays, and thereby knock his bank further down the pecking order.
That is why RBS paid over the odds for the ABN transaction, and why there seems to have been a complete lack of proper due diligence. It was going to go ahead regardless, because SFG had to have it - whatever the cost.
Tout Seul
Senior Jockey
- Joined
- May 2, 2003
- Messages
- 2,628
Redhead. The same employment laws that apply to and generally protect the average worker also apply to these guys. It is not easy to sack people in the UK. Contracts must be honoured unless you can prove that an individual has broken the terms of his/her contract in some way or other. The other way is redundancy where one hasto demonstrate that there is no longer a job for the individual. Compensation therefore is paid for the unexpired portion of the contract, think of football managers.
In Goodwin's case it can be argued that he did not fulfill his obligations but there are also plenty of arguments that could be used in court that that would say he complied with his contract. The offer to him of early retirement on full pension in lieu of compensation is a monumental cock- up. It is a fundamental requirement that one works out the cost of any offer one makes and it would certainly seem someone did not do that otherwise it is a conspiracy.Definitely the action is capable of being a sackable offence on the part of the offeror.
Grasshopper
It is widely believed that FG has a big ego, but many high achievers have that as a driver. Be that as it may there is no-one capapable of understanding the details of every aspect of a business so diverse as a major bank with its range of activities. FG would have to rely on information supplied to him to make his decisions and generally that would have been very positive.Going for ABN was a stretch for RBS as was its takeover of Natwest. The absorption of Natwest had been seen as a huge triumph for RBS and with or without a huge ego FG thought he could repeat the process. He was wrong.
In Goodwin's case it can be argued that he did not fulfill his obligations but there are also plenty of arguments that could be used in court that that would say he complied with his contract. The offer to him of early retirement on full pension in lieu of compensation is a monumental cock- up. It is a fundamental requirement that one works out the cost of any offer one makes and it would certainly seem someone did not do that otherwise it is a conspiracy.Definitely the action is capable of being a sackable offence on the part of the offeror.
Grasshopper
It is widely believed that FG has a big ego, but many high achievers have that as a driver. Be that as it may there is no-one capapable of understanding the details of every aspect of a business so diverse as a major bank with its range of activities. FG would have to rely on information supplied to him to make his decisions and generally that would have been very positive.Going for ABN was a stretch for RBS as was its takeover of Natwest. The absorption of Natwest had been seen as a huge triumph for RBS and with or without a huge ego FG thought he could repeat the process. He was wrong.
Last edited:
What got me yesterday was the government stance saying that when they sanctioned the contract, they thought it was legally binding. THOUGHT??? So let me get this straight. HMG didn't get their top legal minds to go over the contract to make sure it was legally binding? And if they did so, surely someone is going to get a good roasting over it. Or even more likely, his own golden sendoff.
Last edited:
Grasshopper
Senior Jockey
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2006
- Messages
- 16,050
With respect Tout Seul, the ABN Amro acquisition bore no relation to the Nat West take-over, other than the fact that both were banks.
NatWest was a domestic acquisition of a predominately Retail bank, whereas the ABN transaction was international in it's nature; the businesses acquired, for the vast part, being expansions into non-domestic theatres, and wholesale/investment banking.
The main target of the acquisition was La Salle Bank, which was intended to strengthen and expand the RBS footprint in North America. In effect, the only part of ABN that RBS really wanted, was sold to Bank of America prior to the takeover, at which point, anyone putting business before ego, would have withdrawn their bid.
Like I say, the due diligence was a shambles, and whilst SFG certainly had his advisors (Merril Lynch foremost amongst them, if I recall correctly), it is clear that they failed to do their job properly. However, it remains my belief that force of personality and ego would have driven the project ahead anyway, even if caution was being sounded by those conducting the due diligence.
All that said, I agree with Stephen Hester when he says that the various RBS businesses (the acquired ABN elements apart) are fundamentally sound.
Certainly, in the absence of the ABN transaction, RBS would have been reasonably well-placed to ride the credit-crunch storm - albeit they would doubtless still have experienced substantial losses. However, these could have been absorbed without the need to fleece shareholders in a borderline-fraudulent rights issue last summer (necessary only because the capital-base was wiped-out by the insane decision to pay cash for ABN), without having the taxpayer take a near 80% stake in the bank, and without placing 20,000+ jobs at risk.
IMO.
NatWest was a domestic acquisition of a predominately Retail bank, whereas the ABN transaction was international in it's nature; the businesses acquired, for the vast part, being expansions into non-domestic theatres, and wholesale/investment banking.
The main target of the acquisition was La Salle Bank, which was intended to strengthen and expand the RBS footprint in North America. In effect, the only part of ABN that RBS really wanted, was sold to Bank of America prior to the takeover, at which point, anyone putting business before ego, would have withdrawn their bid.
Like I say, the due diligence was a shambles, and whilst SFG certainly had his advisors (Merril Lynch foremost amongst them, if I recall correctly), it is clear that they failed to do their job properly. However, it remains my belief that force of personality and ego would have driven the project ahead anyway, even if caution was being sounded by those conducting the due diligence.
All that said, I agree with Stephen Hester when he says that the various RBS businesses (the acquired ABN elements apart) are fundamentally sound.
Certainly, in the absence of the ABN transaction, RBS would have been reasonably well-placed to ride the credit-crunch storm - albeit they would doubtless still have experienced substantial losses. However, these could have been absorbed without the need to fleece shareholders in a borderline-fraudulent rights issue last summer (necessary only because the capital-base was wiped-out by the insane decision to pay cash for ABN), without having the taxpayer take a near 80% stake in the bank, and without placing 20,000+ jobs at risk.
IMO.
Last edited:
The goverment should have played a much stronger hand when "rescuing" the banks. There should have been immediate bans on all bonuses, an arbitrary headcount cut of say 20 % (most have fck all to do at the moment and the redundancies would be cheered home by the british public...great vote winner) and wage freezes/cuts. this should have applied right across the board
the excuse was that they needed to "keep their best staff". The staff that couldnt see that the debt leant to trailer trash in the US might just be a bit risky? I would rather hire a chimpanzee
As for the top brass...
You can have your pension...but we know your movements.... A mysterious disapperance or perhaps a more spectacular unexplained explosion on the morning school run...might make them think again
What is MI5 for if it isnt for that?
the excuse was that they needed to "keep their best staff". The staff that couldnt see that the debt leant to trailer trash in the US might just be a bit risky? I would rather hire a chimpanzee
As for the top brass...
You can have your pension...but we know your movements.... A mysterious disapperance or perhaps a more spectacular unexplained explosion on the morning school run...might make them think again
What is MI5 for if it isnt for that?
Tout Seul
Senior Jockey
- Joined
- May 2, 2003
- Messages
- 2,628
Grasshopper.
The phrase with respect is in reality a putdown. Of course I am aware of the differences between NatWest and ABN-Amro. I am also aware of what parts of ABN-Amro were the main attraction. I have been critical of the decision on here and elsewhere. Quite frankly I didn't feel the need to go into detail because it doesn't contribute anything to the discussion on this thread.
The phrase with respect is in reality a putdown. Of course I am aware of the differences between NatWest and ABN-Amro. I am also aware of what parts of ABN-Amro were the main attraction. I have been critical of the decision on here and elsewhere. Quite frankly I didn't feel the need to go into detail because it doesn't contribute anything to the discussion on this thread.
Tout Seul
Senior Jockey
- Joined
- May 2, 2003
- Messages
- 2,628
Clivex. the number of people that knew about the US mortgage business which was mainly in the acquired ABN can be counted in tens.That's not a great percentage of a short 200k. It is therefore somewhat facile to base one's reasoning on that activity when considering the abilities,or otherwise, of the vast majority.
Cant have that at all
Wheres the lines of responsibilty? Who checks what? A bank takes on debt and doesnt see what its comprises of? What sort of world is this?
This is garbage...
It is smug airheads being swept along with the mania
it is bleedin obvious that debt made up of lending to low income unstable borrowers should NOT be triple A rated
And if the banks are so thick that they could not look past S&P's ratings then again, we might as well get chimps to do the jobs (and they smell better too)
And certain banks did look didnt they? HSBC?
There should have been more focus on and perhaps crowing by the bankers who called it right
Wheres the lines of responsibilty? Who checks what? A bank takes on debt and doesnt see what its comprises of? What sort of world is this?
This is garbage...
It is smug airheads being swept along with the mania
it is bleedin obvious that debt made up of lending to low income unstable borrowers should NOT be triple A rated
And if the banks are so thick that they could not look past S&P's ratings then again, we might as well get chimps to do the jobs (and they smell better too)
And certain banks did look didnt they? HSBC?
There should have been more focus on and perhaps crowing by the bankers who called it right
Grasshopper
Senior Jockey
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2006
- Messages
- 16,050
On the contrary, I used it because I think you have a valuable insight into matters financial, and have talked a great deal of sense throughout the other thread about the credit crunch.
I'm sorry you have chosen to take offence at my using it, but....as you wish.
Last edited:
Grasshopper
Senior Jockey
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2006
- Messages
- 16,050
Agreed Dave G - it really is hard to fathom. You would think that they could afford to throw some cash a couple of accountant types, to check there were no gaps in their £multi-billion investment.
Erses.
Exept that we are being asked to work longer till 70-75 and that bit of shit, has put his feet up at 50, Tell it to the Mirror workers, anther scumbag nicked there money, yet his boys could not be safe if it were not for the law, as we speak MI5 make plans to crush us if we go to the banks to take out our money, Which side are you on boys
it is not the tallyban
it,s our own
that will shoot you down.