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Shredded NatWheat

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1 May 1st, 2009 

62 Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful

Advantages:
Like the cereal re - brand

Disadvantages:
Yet more credit crunch woes

Recommendable No:

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Short-term performance

Long-term performance

Rating of sector performance/potential

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1st2thebar

1st2thebar

About me:

- Writing style is crossed between the Milky Bar Kid and Doc Martin - Boundless stark gruff scripts ...

Member since:11.05.2005

Reviews:189

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Titled: Shredded NatWheat
Bank : NatWest Plc
Utility: SafeGuard Trust
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There is a new credit crunch cereal out carefully named ‘Shredded NatWheat’, it isn’t part of the known credit crunch menu; as it is for the hardened stomach few. Not that we have already enough on our plate to digest. - NatWest Plc is owned by RBS. They have been for 9 years, swallowed up in ‘Fred the Shred’ Goodwin plentiful days, when there was a minuscule amount of banking confidence dotted about, for shareholders.

Ball-point facts

Shredded NatWheat’ alias National Westminster Bank Plc; is know as NatWest. The commercial bank has been part of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc since 2000. NatWest was established in 1968 by the merger of two finance corporations National Provincial Bank and the London County and Westminster Bank.
Their branch network consists of 1,600 branches throughout the UK.
Personal account holders: 7.5 Mn, - 11% of the total UK market share
Business account holders: 850,000 (mainly small business) 13% of the total UK market share
NatWest is still regarded as one of the big 4 banks

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Shredded NatWheat

Many of us UK public still regard NatWest as an independent bank that has a voice, but I can categorically state that NatWest is owned by the taxpayer now, through the demise of RBS. All of their so-called investment funding deals ‘Safeguard Trust’ are already owned by all the UK, so in effect now any terms of investment offers are selling it back to the public, the analogy is like giving pocket money to a child on the pretence you may get it back in someway after the child has had an education. Since the NatWest has been shredded, it is even more vulnerable to short-comings by RBS as their divisions are being sold off into ‘bite-size’ packages without any media sound-bites because NatWest independently have no credibility in the open market. They may not have the toxic waste ‘debt’ scenario as did ABN Amro but they’re future is impending as ‘Dr. Chris’s on the ITV’s ‘This Morning’ program. Bite-size shreddies are on the credit crunch menu, all thanks to the greed of investment bankers that threw other people money away into the vast black-hole of finance. The inept words like ‘Safe’ ‘Guard’ and ‘Trust’ is deplorable as it has no recognition of such claims to be.

The buck should follow the abnormality of the fiasco that I feel the UK should follow the lead of the United States and tax bank fat cats into utter submission. The self styled bonus culture that bankers have reaped rewards that only the normal folk can dream of should be re-paid with interest – or at least slapped down a huge tax on bonuses that are for being a failure. The House of Representatives have fast-tracked a 90% tax on these bonuses, so hello, why can’t the House of Commons do the same? – The UK is so out of touch and appear like ‘Dad’s Army’ when it comes to the iron-fist of fairness.


Safeguard Trusts

They know that their bank and building society savings are earning only a derisory rate of interest, and realise that equities are where the greater rewards lie. And yet many still hold back from buying shares, fearing that they will see their savings disappear in a repeat of the 1987 crash, which NatWest were very much in the firing line on ‘Black Wednesday’; huge sums of shares were wiped off their market value on that one day alone. I do not have the figures to hand at present but it is well documented. NatWest and fund managers are being given huge incentives in trying to re-capture the investment fund market which many wealthy people thrive on and seek for, but at the same time the Bank of England rate has fallen to such a level that there are no actual incentives for investors to stock-pile funds into anything particular. Fund managers incite the wonders of PEP’s which swings into both worlds of finance but gets very gray when dealing with these odd markets at the moment.

The fact that whether or not financial boiler rooms are lending again to one another is questionable, since the introduction of Quantifying Easing. The market has enveloped a farcical monopoly money buying and selling system that requires to be liquidized by time, whether it will sustain a long period of growth that will take a whole nation out of recession and into positive equality by 2012 is a big gamble. The problem is that the man in the street knows by a click of a mouse whether there is any changes in markets and world events that would hinder particular share prices; compared to the last smallish recession in 1991, investors are more in tune with information and therefore banking sectors can’t ‘blag themselves up’ so easily, as they once did, before the communication revolution. In return it makes a true mockery in funding mechanisms like Safeguard Trust schemes. Insiders know that the only way of securing large deposits at the moment is by going to Westminster and battling out a deal and masquerade it up like a prize turkey filled up with as much loop-hole stuffing as possible just as RBS did with ‘Fred the shred’ pension pot.

Other earlier generations of safety-first products, like NatWest’s Safeguard Trust, use to work by guaranteeing your funds by stating in their terms that a standard rate is set to stay at or above its original mark. The standard rate was set at 5% with the promise it will increase free-fold. A few years ago the new packages are more user-friendly which sounds very scary from a bank especially in today’s unstable market. The package now includes that if the initial capital investment is worth less in 5 years time Safeguard Trust will make up the difference, which is very sketchy as the chances are NatWest could be sold off division by division to just keep the creditors off RBS’s backs. It would be small change to what the actual debt is. Surely realism must rear it’s potato head and re-write these ludicrous terms, especially as RBS is taxpayer owned by 71%. Bite-sized shredded NatWheat on the credit crunch menu I fear.

NatWheat is the Newcastle United of the Premiership equivalent to banking at the moment. The jury is out, probably eating a bowl of shredded NatWheat in the boardroom, while smiling gingerly at ‘Fred the shred’ Goodwin as he tucks into a pot of ‘Golden Grahams’ tinkering with his Blackberry and making wild bets with taxpayers money on the chances of Newcastle staying up in the Premiership. ‘Who cares it’s only other peoples’ money! he blurts out un-shamed. He then boasts ‘I’m off soon anyway to see the NatWest three who were extradited to the US on charges relating to fraudulent transactions with Enron; enjoy your ‘Shredded NatWheat’.

Thank you for reading ‘Shredded NatWheat’, it’s all part of your credit crunch diet, supplied by Westminster.

Copyright – 05 – 2009 – 1st2thebar
 

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Comments about this review »

ben-lloyd 25.06.2009 13:09

I think Noddy Holder had it right - the money never existed, so who cares if it's all missing now? ;-)

greenierexyboy 22.05.2009 22:40

Even their cricket competition was useless.

hughesmonger 19.05.2009 04:45

Thanks for sharing your experience, was quite amusing. XD





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