The Times - UK - 04.12.2021

52 Saturday December 4 2021 | the times

Business

5

LV's green heart standard at its

head office in Bournemouth

Co-Operative Permanent Building

Society, is Britain’s second biggest

mortgage lender after Lloyds. It runs

620 branches across the UK, which

serve its 16 million members.

It has been led since 2016 by Joe

Garner, 52, but in September he asked

the Nationwide board to start the

process of looking for his re-

placement.

That process was carried

out by Kevin Parry, the

chairman-elect, who

looked both within the com-

pany and externally for a

new chief executive. He said

that Crosbie was “the out-

standing candidate. She

brings significant bank-

ing experience com-

bined with deep

operational and tech-

nological knowledge:

core skills that are needed to run a

modern building society. She is a strong

advocate of mutuality and supports

Nationwide’s core purpose and the

societal role it plays.”

Crosbie said: “I’m delighted to be

asked to lead the society in its next

phase of growth and to work with its

members and colleagues to make it the

leading retail financial services pro-

vider in the UK.”

Crosbie, who was born and raised

in Glasgow, will take up her new

role in the first half of next year,

when she will become the first

female executive director in

Nationwide’s 175-year history.

Robin Bulloch, TSB’s chief

customer officer, has been

appointed interim chief

executive until a permanent

appointment is made. TSB

said that Bulloch would

work with Crosbie to ensure

an “orderly handover”, after

which Crosbie would go on

gardening leave.

1

Michael Saunders, a Bank of

England policymaker who

pushed for higher rates last

month, says that he may need

more time to assess how the

Omicron variant will affect the

economy before deciding whether

to vote for an interest rate rise this

month. Page 51

2

Dozens of car models —

many of them plug-ins — are

so scarce that second-hand

versions of the same vehicle are

selling for more than those coming

off the assembly line, according to

the most recent data. Page 51

3

Martha Keith, who quit a

corporate career to start an

independent stationery

business, is one of the champions

of Small Business Saturday, an

annual celebration of independent

retailers, and credits the scheme

with raising awareness of her

venture. Page 51

4

Two LV= members who will

oppose the takeover by Bain

Capital have different reasons

for doing so in the decisive ballot

on the sale next Friday. For Phil

Moore, a financial adviser from

Hertfordshire, it is the

“derisory” payout that he is being

offered to back the sale that upsets

him. For John Campbell, a

pensioner from Merseyside, it is

LV= losing its mutual status.

5

Debbie Crosbie, the boss of

TSB, will take over as chief

executive of Nationwide next

year in a move that members are

concerned could throw the

building society’s “branch

promise” into doubt.

6

Growth in Britain’s mainstay

services sector slowed last

month as inflationary

pressures hit levels not seen for at

least a quarter of a century, the

IHS Markit/CIPS UK services

purchasing managers’ index

suggested. Page 54

7

The Financial Reporting

Council, the accounting

watchdog, has dropped its

investigation into the former

finance chief of Conviviality,

which used to own the Bargain

Booze and Wine Rack chains that

collapsed in 2018. Page 54

8

Charlie Munger, the 97-year-

old vice-chairman of

Berkshire Hathaway and the

right-hand man to Warren Buffett,

the renowned billionaire

stockpicker and dealmaker, says

that stock markets are out of

touch with reality after their post-

pandemic surge. Page 55

9

BT’s management, which is

considering selling its Sport

division, has pledged that

after briefly suspending the

dividend, a triennial review of its

pension fund and repairing

relations with the regulator, it is

on the cusp of a return to

consistent growth as it defends

itself from a potential takeover bid

from Patrick Drahi. Pages 56-57

10

Didi Global, a Chinese

ride-hailing company, is to

delist from the New York

Stock Exchange less than six

months after raising $4.4 billion in

a float and instead will list in Hong

Kong. The move comes after a

crackdown on technology

companies in China. Page 56

Need to know

The boss of TSB will take over as chief

executive of Nationwide next year in a

move that members are concerned

could throw the building society’s

“branch promise” into doubt.

Debbie Crosbie, 51, has been in

charge of the Sabadell-owned TSB

since the spring of 2019 after Paul

Pester, her predecessor, resigned in the

wake of a five-month IT disaster that at

times left the bank’s five million cus-

tomers without access to their money.

She has overseen a slashing of the

TSB branch network. When she was

appointed, the bank operated 550 bran-

ches in Britain, but by the end of this

year it will have 290. This week it was

announced that another 70 branches

would be closed during next year. That

would seem to put her at odds with

Nationwide’s “branch promise”. It has

committed itself to keeping a branch in

each of the towns and cities where it has

a presence until at least 2023.

Nationwide, founded in 1884 as the

Tom Howard

Nationwide takes Crosbie as boss

Crunch time

comes at LV=

as members

decide its fate

For Phil Moore, a 63-year-old financial

adviser from Hertfordshire, it is the

“derisory” level of the payout that he is

being offered to back the sale of LV= to

Bain Capital that sticks in his craw. For

John Campbell, a pensioner from

Merseyside, it is the prospect of LV=

losing its mutual status.

Yet while they might have different

reasons for disliking the takeover of the

British insurer by the American private

equity firm, the two men have one thing

in common: they are LV= members who

are opposing the deal at a crunch ballot

on the sale next Friday.

That online vote and meeting —

there will be no physical gathering —

will decide the future of a customer-

owned business that can trace its roots

back 178 years. It’s a saga that has

alarmed some policyholders and has

led to questions in parliament about the

motives and credibility of the people

pushing for the deal.

Even this week, new details about the

judgment of Alan Cook, the chairman

of LV=, came to light. The Daily Mail

reported that in his past role as head of

the Post Office he was in charge when

161 innocent sub-postmasters were

prosecuted and 57 were wrongly sent to

jail in what subsequently came to be

regarded as one of the worst British

miscarriages of justice in modern times.

Formerly known as the Liverpool

Victoria Friendly Society, the business

started life in Merseyside in the mid-

19th century as a burial society that

helped poor families to save for funeral

costs. The modern group, which is

based in Bournemouth, is a leading

provider of life assurance and pension

products and is one of Britain’s largest

remaining mutual insurers, with almost

1.2 million members.

Its proposed sale to Bain, which

would result in its demutualisation, is

divisive. The board of LV=, which first

agreed the deal more than a year ago,

says that the business needs investment

and that turning to an external source is

the best way of funding it: to use

internal capital would not be fair to the

297,000 members who are with-profits

policyholders and legally own the in-

surer. This is because many of them are

unlikely to be around to enjoy the bene-

fits of the investment, despite shoulder-

ing the burden, Cook and Mark Harti-

gan, the chief executive, have said.

All of the mutual’s members have

been asked to approve the deal at the

vote. LV=’s board needs the backing of

75 per cent of those that participate in

the ballot for the takeover to proceed.

However, a backlash — which began as

soon as the deal was announced last

December and has mounted as the vote

has approached — means that the out-

come is by no means certain.

One criticism of the sale is the pay-

Debbie Crosbie is

heading for a new

job at Nationwide

ments on offer to LV=’s policyholders if

the sale goes through. The insurer will

hand all its members £100 if the take-

over is completed, while most of the

mutual’s with-profits customers also

will be in-line for a 0.1 per percentage

increase to their policies for every year

they have been a member from

between 1996 until their policies pay

out. The latter sweetener will result in a

boost of on average £340 to with-profits

members.

Opponents of the deal have rounded

on these sums as being far too low. They

The sale of the giant

mutual to Bain Capital

is going to the wire,

Ben Martin and

Patrick Hosking write

The judgment of

Alan Cook has

been questioned

include Moore, who is a with-profits

customer. He said: “The amount of

money that’s being given to policy-

holders is not very much at all. In fact,

I think it’s reasonable to say derisory.”

Others are concerned about LV=’s

loss of mutual status and the passing of

the business into private equity hands.

Buyout firms such as Bain typically pile

the companies they buy with debt,

which is used to fund their acquisitions,

and tend to be short-term owners of

businesses. They are viewed as finan-

cial investors seeking a quick profit.

Variant delays

Google return

Callum Jones

US Business Correspondent

Google has pushed back plans to draw

staff back to the office amid concern

over the spread of the new Covid-19

Omicron variant.

The American technology group,

which has more than 150,000

employees worldwide, will not order

them to return to their desks in the new

year. A voluntary return policy had

been due to expire on January 10.

Matt Brittin, Google’s president for

Europe, the Middle East and Africa,

told workers on Thursday that this

deadline would be postponed. His

message was first reported by Insider.

Google, which was one of the first big

employers to ask staff to work from

home at the onset of the pandemic, has

repeatedly extended its remote

working policies as fresh outbreaks

across the world prompted it to reassess

deadlines.