Foreign Perspectives

At that time, the Abbey National had floated on the stockmarket but years had gone by before anything else changed. The Halifax assured people that it would NEVER float like that. Then, almost overnight, the Cheltenham & Gloucester went, then the Woolwich, Alliance & Leicester and Halifax.

Yet again, there has been a long period of no action broken this time by the flotation of Standard Life with the action moving recently to the purchase of the Lambeth by the Portman and then the Nationwide announced the takeover of the Portman. Well, they announced the merger with the Portman but in reality they bought it. Even my relatively ancient carpetbagging list is starting to receive an increasing number of hits (to be updated fairly shortly).

What next? Well, my money would be on the merger of the Britannia and Yorkshire. For some years now you’ve been able to use their branches interchangeably so it would be a relatively easy merger/takever. I’m inclined to say that the Nationwide will also arrive on the stockmarket within the next few years (regardless of what they may be saying now). With that in mind, note that you have to sign away any right to a payout forever with the Nationwide but for only five years with the Portman, so if you’ve not got a Nationwide account already, open one with the Portman and wait (you might need a fair bit of patience).