Word: browne
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...late June 2007, on the day Gordon Brown took over as Britain's Prime Minister, Northern Rock was enjoying the summer. In a good first half of the year, it had lent a lucrative fifth of the U.K.'s new mortgages. Its stock traded around a healthy $17 mark. That glorious summer is over now. The harsh winter has put a very different shine on things...
...Sunday, Brown was forced to nationalize Northern Rock, after months of searching for a private sector buyer for the stricken lender. The move - the first nationalization of a British business since the 1970s - triggered the suspension of the bank's shares Monday. (Price? Less than $2.) And it's left the Brown government's own stock much more vulnerable...
There'll be a lot more developments to follow. It'll be years before Northern Rock can think about returning to the private sector. And though it'll be managed by Sandler "at arms length," as Brown insisted to reporters Monday, the potential for further government embarrassment remains high. Shareholders of Northern Rock - unlikely to get much in return for their investment - are threatening legal action. Robin Ashby, founder of the Northern Rock Small Shareholders' Group, said the bank had been "stolen away from them." Worse still, the dirty business of trimming the bank's 6,000 strong staff - something...
...Brown, who was once so keen to crow about a successful decade spent steering the British economy, the turnabout is hard to stomach. Opposition pols have been keen to make hay. "We will not back nationalization," Tory Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said. "We will not help Gordon Brown take this country back to the 1970s." While that's unlikely to happen - it's been years since Labour could pretend to be a Socialist party - Brown's government will be hoping the same decade offers a useful precedent. When Rolls-Royce was on the brink of collapse in 1971, Osborne...
Guessing the fate of Northern Rock is no less popular right now than guessing that of Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling. When Brown picked him as his successor as finance minister last June, Darling's closeness to Brown was his strength. Dependable, gaffe-free (and, like the Prime Minister, a Scot), Darling was a safe bet at the Treasury. Much less so now. Recent controversies over changes to Britain's capital gains tax, and plans to tax non-domiciled foreigners living in the U.K., have heaped criticism on Darling. And the strung-out - and fruitless - search for a buyer...