{"id":23168,"date":"2013-11-22T08:33:18","date_gmt":"2013-11-22T08:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=23168"},"modified":"2013-11-22T08:33:18","modified_gmt":"2013-11-22T08:33:18","slug":"maybe-the-co-op-should-walk-away-from-its-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/11\/22\/maybe-the-co-op-should-walk-away-from-its-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe the Co-op should walk away from its bank"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/d4fbc61e-52db-11e3-a73e-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2lMSHT3tb\" target=\"_blank\">FT notes this morning<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\">The Co-operative Bank is preparing for multiple investigations lasting for years as regulators try to get to the bottom of the failures that unhinged the mutual.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-track-pos=\"0\">As pressure mounts for the bank to finalise its restructuring plan, probes by UK regulators are expected to be announced imminently and the\u00a0Treasury is preparing to order its own.<\/p>\n<p data-track-pos=\"1\">The timing is particularly sensitive because, over the next two weeks, the Co-op must secure approval from bondholders for a sweeping\u00a0restructuring of its banking business.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It seems to me that there is an obvious solution here. The Co-op should walk away from this bank. It will only have 30% left at best anyway. What there is left is very much more the Britannia than it is the bank that existed pre that takeover. And there's not a hope of the Co-op ethos surviving now.<\/p>\n<p>It's time to walk away, give up the 30% to the hedge funds and ask new owners to rename it the Britannia Bank.<\/p>\n<p>For the sake of the Co-op movement it would be the best thing to do whilst requiring those who made the mess - many now retired - to full co-operate with any investigation.<\/p>\n<p>And what we then need is a proper mutual bank for the UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the FT notes this morning: The Co-operative Bank is preparing for multiple investigations lasting for years as regulators try to get to the bottom<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/11\/22\/maybe-the-co-op-should-walk-away-from-its-bank\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-banking","category-cooperatives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}