September 2025 – The Financial Times reports on a breakfast meeting held by the Reform UK party this week to which the chairman of the Nationwide Building Society, Kevin Parry, was invited. The FT reports – Kevin Parry is one of the first senior UK bankers to engage with Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist party. Building societies claim…
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July 2025 – The Guardian article by Nils Pratley questions the need for an overhaul of the governance of this society after the exclusion of members from any involvement in the acquisition of Virgin Money with £2.9bn of members’ money and the CEO’s self awarded £7mn for doing so. “the boast about not being answerable to…
July 2025 – A few of the members of this organisation were permitted to have their moment of mutuality on Friday 25th July at their AGM. Some members were allowed to “have your say” but in accordance with their customary very low standards of corporate governance the directors ensured that the AGM was online-only –…
July 2025 – The directors of Nationwide continue to stir up public opinion against the society because of their efforts to become an unaccountable bank and to massively increase their pay. The following links are to current articles in the Telegraph, Thisismoney and the Guardian. Nationwide’s Self-righteousness Has Been Exposed as a Sham. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/21/nationwide-self-righteousness-exposed-as-sham/ Nationwide’s…
June 2025 – It emerged last week that Nationwide was preparing to hand Dame Debbie the chief exec at Nationwide a generous new pay package that could earn her a maximum pay-out of nearly £7m. As expected the main beneficiaries of the Virgin money takeover are the directors of Nationwide and the shareholders of Virgin…
June 2025 – Debbie Crosbie the chief exec. of Nationwide Building Society has been given a damehood for her services to financial services. Her honour follows her actions in using £3 billion of members’ money to takeover Virgin Money without obtaining their approval. Elsewhere people are jailed for doing the same with much smaller sums.
April 2025 -James Sherwin-Smith has failed in his attempt to gain sufficient numbers of nominations to stand as a candidate for the board of directors of this society. However he is not easily put off and is determined to make another attempt at the 2026 AGM. James decided to apply through the FCA to have access…
April 2025 – Nationwide gave a surprise bonus of £50 for 12 million of its members as a reward for not making too much fuss about the board’s takeover of Virgin Money while using £3 billion of members (the “owners”!) money but denying the “owners” any say in the deal. The directors say the takeover makes…
March 2025 – James Sherwin-Smith a member of the Nationwide Building Society is hoping to get sufficient numbers of nominees (250) to support him in his attempt to stand as a candidate for election to the board of directors at the 2025 AGM. James’ began his campaign in August 2024, following their proposed takeover of Virgin…
January 2025 – The Coventry Building Society announces the completion of the £780m takeover process of the Co-operative Bank. The takeover received the approval of the regulatory authorities. Coventry members were allowed no say in the matter as is the custom with so-called mutual building societies. Steve Hughes who now becomes Group Chief Executive said…