Would You Believe It?

11 January 2009 - Would you believe it

On the back of those doing as they are told and carrying on spending in the high street and on-line, there is (would you believe it) some good news post the new year season. The winners it seems were those flogging sports leisure goods, cameras, fragrances and the ever faithful John Lewis punters plus a leading retailer of women’s fashion items and electrical goods such as MP3 players and computer consoles. Could it be that the common factor was youthfulness? Best not get too carried away.

Here is something else that is equally hard to believe. It is now 11 months since Northern Rock was nationalised. During that time, the chief financial officer has been grossing (the reports say "earning") £75,000 per month, the executive chairman £90,000 per month and since October 08 the new chief executive is being paid at the rate of £1.1m pa plus a bonus for his first three years. During this nursery stage, thousands of jobs have been axed, the loan book has been drastically shrunk and efforts made to stem the flow of deposits into the new safe haven with the best interest deals in town. Erstwhile shareholders are in court challenging the, meagre, compensation paid and instead of planning to sell the business back to the private sector, there are rumours that Northern Rock may be put into "run-off" and its customer deposits sold as per Bradford & Bingley. This has all the hallmarks of a successful first year for which the new team had to be well rewarded. Would you believe it.